
"I just love the feel of using a local currency," said Trice Atchison, 43, a teacher who used BerkShares to buy a snack at a cafe in Great Barrington, a town of about 7,400 people. "It keeps the profit within the community."
There are about 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 at the fixed exchange rate of 1 BerkShare to 90 U.S. cents, according to program organizers. The paper scrip is available in denominations of one, five, 10, 20 and 50.
This is very interesting. Although right now it seems like just a glorified coupon, I'm curious how the market will handle it.
I just don't know if their logic for doing it is justifiable economically.
"It keeps the profit within the community."
Does it really? Seems pretty arbitrary.
No it doesn't unless the exchange is limited to one-way only. Even then it's simply redistributed to the group stealing err exchanging the money. If it's two-way or normal exchange then it simply is overhead and would keep profits in the community only by making an extra step the business would have to go through to get back to 'real' money. Since most businesses make daily deposits that likely would not be an issue either.
Yeah, I didn't think so. It's more along the lines of protectionism, which always does more harm than good.
It seems some are offering discounts if people pay with the new money. But again, that just seems like a glorified coupon.
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