Localization of Finance: One of Many Reasons Localization is Superior

Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession.

Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores.

It's not a new concept—experts estimate there are at least 2,000 local currencies all over the world—but it is a practice that tends to burgeon during economic downturns. During the Great Depression, scores of communities relied on their own currencies.

And it's completely legal.

Chicago Tribune

Some things you want to centralize, others you don't -- it depends on the scope of the leadership.

Having one ruling party in Washington command a country this big is kind of silly, as is having one group rule over different ethnicities, religions, social classes, etc.

Having a local currency that centralizes discounts and regulates spending in an area, giving locals preferential prices, is a very smart idea. Keep the system closed. If you don't generate wealth or growth, it should regulate itself while the national system -- which is bad centralization because it's too big -- fluctuates out of control, because morons in Florida buying discount ripoff loans can wreck the economy in Chicago and Dallas..

Interesting parable. "And it's completely legal."