Date: Tue Apr 15 12:25:09 1997
From: Richard.Kay@uce.ac.uk (Richard KAY)
Subject: Re: LETS registries and leakage
To: johnturmel@yahoo.com Cc: econ-lets@mailbase.ac.uk
John Turmel (johnturmel@yahoo.com) writes:
*      The very idea of too many of Ceasar's Palace chips being used in
* other casinos being a threat to Ceasar's Palace's chip system does not
* exist. As long as they keep taking in collateral one-to-one, it
* doesn't matter which casino bank holds the collateral or where those
* chips are used or where they leak to.
RK: Holding collateral centrally as seems to be the practice in casino
banks would indeed make their tokens interchangeable if these are
redeemable for the same collateral. However no known LETS hold any
collateral. LETS are backed by promises of LETS users to return
goods and services to a value equivalent to debits agreed.
     JCT: I had 4,500 gamblers on my Casino Turmel 1/s LETS database.
My cage accepted both collateral and promissory notes. Every time a
gambler came to the cashier to take out chips in exchange for a
marker, it was the same as the LETS bank creating Greendollars for its
members. Tokens based on promises of gamblers to return goods and
services to the value equivalent to the debts agreed.
     So, yes, it's true, most LETS haven't seen the advantages of
having some kind of central depository where people can drop off
collateral for sale and pick up their Greendollars up front. But I
remember seeing a LETS store in the Auckland New Zealand system.
     I further see no reason why pensioners should not be able to
pledge their homes for some LETS credit as readily as they can to
loanshark banks for their usury credit. I've already detailed the
benefits of using LETS credit for roof repair rather than a bank loan
to the pensioner's estate but it must be emphasized that it enables
pensioners who have little to trade but their homes to enjoy interest-
free credit while putting the younger generation to work earning a
fair barter of their estate for their services. I think pensioners
with homes are a natural market and it's a wonder that no LETS has as
yet realized that collateral asset is just as good as the promise of
their members for work. It's almost funny that banks treat collateral
as the only acceptable collateral and not on an individual's promise
to work like LETS while LETS haven't yet accorded collateral its
proper significance in assessing a community's worth. This leaves the
liquefication of that collateral to the sole purview of the banks. Why
should a pensioner who has nothing to offer but her estate not benefit
of interest-free credit too?

RK: This is different because there is no particular reason why the
promises in one LETS should be equivalent to the promises in another,
even if both choose the same definition of value.
     JCT: Being all based on time is the particular reason Italy and
Austrian border towns are trading their LETS notee      R)$Rwere the
Global LETS Banker, as long as I made sure every cashier around the
world only issued Green tokens based on a common standard of time, my
promise is that each token is backed up with time and I have no other
responsibility. I trust a token which says "Redeemable in 1 Hour of
Time" to be worth the same Hour of Time my tokens are worth so I see
no problem. Austrians and Italians have experienced no problems.

RK: This system works if promise values are contained within distinct
sets of ledgers each set belonging to a community of interest, because
it is the fact of community and our willingness to meet our
obligations to each other within this context that gives our otherwise
unbacked money its value.
     JCT: Right. And my neighbor's non-inflatable promise of Time is a
far better currency than any inflatable central bank currency.

RK: This form of organization is based on the understanding that no
money system can ever be perfect; the imperfections of one system are
contained within that system.
     JCT: I say every casino chip money system is perfect. And every
LETS that operates like my casino chip money system is perfect. Any
money system which has eliminated the positive feedback of usury is
stable.
     As engineers, we know that a dangerous positive feedback system
has its pole in the right hand plane and systems with poles in the
right hand plane are "unstable." A useful negative feedback system has
it's pole in the left-hand plane. And a zero feedback system has its
pole on the origin.
     LETS and casino chip systems, with Laplace Transform of 1/s, have
their poles on the origin. And since accounting is a mental algorithm
with no natural instabilities, there is no reason to ever doubt a
promise of an hour's time won't remain that value forever.

RK: For example I am willing to consider trades in my local LETS and
am more willing to provide value in this context if my account is
negative and less if positive, but that formalises no commitment which
extends beyond the boundaries of the set of members with whom I have
an agreement.
     JCT: How does your willingness to provide value in a local
context change whether you are in the black or in the red? And if
you're working your way out of debt, how does the last year in the
negative compare to the first in the positive?
     But yet, these seem to be psychological issues when my interest
is a mechanical one.

RK: This manner in which my LETS money is backed  specifically
excludes transfer of any such obligation outside this community.
     JCT: If your local butcher trades your obligation to serve him to
someone out of the community, why would writing a software program for
the outsider be any less beneficial than writing it for your butcher?

RK: The LETSystem was designed based on the understanding that
communities need boundaries which limit the flow of money across them
just as human beings need skin to limit the circumstances in which
blood passes from one individual to another.
     Not if you've got an ever-ready source of new liquidity. It
doesn't matter how many chips leave the casino for trade outside.
There's always a ready supply to cater to remaining local demand. It
would be illogical for a casino to run out of chips to supply demand
when all you need is a printing or token press. And no one can ever
doubt that those new tokens are just as backed-up with collateral or
promissory notes as all the others tokens issued before them.
     It is the stable one-to-one nature of 1/s tokens which makes
their interchangability such a natural.

RK: This does not restrict  an individual to using the money of only
one community because we are all members of more than one.
     JCT: But why have to open accounts in different LETS when one is
all anyone really needs. Most people have only 1 bank account which
permits them inter-system trading. Same for LETS.

RK: In the real world debits and commitments are limited. LETS users
manage each others limits by deciding who they want to sell to
and how much. The need to manage debits / limit quantity issued also
in a much larger system generally requires some centralization of this
responsibility for setting limits which concentrates the trust
involved to that which we can have in the centralized management.
     JCT: I never consider issues of trust. One-to-one backed systems
are inherently trustworthy. If LETSers in town starting dropping off
their produce and things for sale at the LETS store on consignment,
the store buying the goods would go negative and they could leave
positive. Right now on average, half accounts must be in the negative
so the other half can be in the positive K$Y;eryone hates being in
the negative. Allowing the store to take on the negative by holding
their collateral lets more people spend since they are in the
positive.

RK: LETS is about permission and possibility; this is the antithesis
of a single national or global system in whose trust we are coerced
by its monopoly position.
     JCT: Assuming all the casinos of the world adopted a standard
token worth an hour of time, how would a global clearinghouse have any
power at all? How can the casino cashier obeying the software he's
using have any power at all? My cashiers had no power to influence
what activities the chip users were pursuing. We didn't care. I do not
fear of global clearinghouse for all LETSystems.
     Actually, there need be no input from Humans at all in the
establishment of a Global clearinghouse. As long as transactions could
be posted for public inspection by all, balances are evident to all
and no human input at the global clearinghouse is necessary.
     Interesting. I just visited the Vancouver LETS web site and
noticed that they allow members to order payment by telephone, mail,
or email.
     For example, let me be the Global LETS banker for a moment and
we'll use my newsgroup, alt.fan.john-turmel, to be the eyes for
everyone on what I see.
     Each LETS opens an account in their own system called for the
"Global LETS banker."
     To effect a inter-LETS transaction, email it for public scrutiny
to the public newsgroup.
     The sending LETS subtracts the payment from the account of the
local user's account, adds it to my Global account and email's
confirmation of the transaction to the receiving LETS with a copy to
the public newsgroup.
     The receiving LETS subtracts the payment from my account and adds
it to the account of the local user.
     Publishing the intersystem transaction to the public newsgroup is
all the verification for trade I need to guarantee balance. All I have
to do is keep an archive of transactions.
     This is simply expanding on the idea of my trying to get my
G$3000 out of Toronto account and spend them in Ottawa. It would take
a third party. Well, the Global LETS Banker newsgroup can act as
Global supervisor with no human input from me. I don't have to do
anything. I just let the world's LETSystem use my public noticeboard
and as their third party while I, myself, don't even have to get
involved.
     All casino cashiers proved trustworthy at one-to-one banking
transactions and I don't expect any miscreant newsgroup to prove
untrustworthy either.
     So there it is. Carefree, international, centralized, public -
the key - trading with no human intervention at the center.

RK: Hayek's view expressed in his book "The Denationalization of
Money" is that the conditions in which we can trust the management of
money can only exist if managements are competing for this trust.
     JCT: When money is managed like chips, trust does not become an
issue. The chips are backed up according to rules or you go to jail
for fraud.

RK: As far as I can tell, the only similarity between John's proposed
system and LETS as these currently exist in practice is that neither
involves payment of interest.
     JCT: It's true there was no interest on Casino Turmel Greenchip
accounts as there is no interest on LETS Greendollar accounts but the
fact is that the two systems are congruent. Every time a gambler took
out his Local tokens for his IOU, it was the same process that a LETS
member used to take out his Local Green for his IOU.

RK: Furthermore John's system seems to depend upon our perfect
behaviour towards each other in the absence of interest, in a manner
which transcends the limitations  of our shared obligation and
experience. As far as I can tell economic theories based on
assumptions of optimal human behaviour only function in the realms of
the imagination and simulation.
     JCT: No. The money system is a mechanical system just like a
bicycle. As human behavior is ignored in the engineering of bicycles,
human behavior is not a factor in the cashing in or out of chips.
Tokens worth something are not affected by human behavior. Only tokens
bearing interest have been linked to human behavior.

RK: In the real world the obligations we make are not to everyone and
trust in banking management is finite; the more remote the central
bankers the more limited our trust in them.
     JCT: You can't get as remote as I'm going to be from the
alt.fan.john-turmel newsgroup. All you have to do is trust someone to
down-load all new transactions every week and trust the Local systems
to be true to their pledges.
     It's not really me, the middleman, who might be the offending
party. It would be the other LETS. I'm saying you can trust me as
central banker because I can't do anything. Just let you post to my
newsgroup and keep the pledges to redeem you have made in public.

RK: Getting rid of interest and replacing this with registry cost of
service will be a substantial improvement but this will not create a
perfect society. Richard Kay
     JCT: We can discuss whether LETS creates a perfect society after
LETS has has funded the saving of society from environmental
destruction. With sufficient Government Greenfunds to divert the mis-
employed into the productively employed, with sufficient funds to
exert maximum industrial effort on environmental care, medical care,
infrastructure repair, with money's value going up with industrial
efficiency, with Jesus Christ's promise that dB/dt=0 is the perfect
banking equation, I see no reason why society cannot be perfected to
allow imperfect humans the safest and fairest of rides through life's
Earthly amusement park.

Date: Tue Apr 15 19:20:03 1997
From: 106410.2165@compuserve.com (Andy Ryrie)
Subject: Re: Discussion with Turmel
AR: John,
thanks for some most interesting replies - even though at some points
you went on at too much length (albeit very interestingly) about
somethings off the point. Cheers, Andy.
     JCT: Believe it or not, the introduction of complex numbers into
the LETS debate has opened an avenue of analysis I hadn't explored
before. I'm glad you found this novel stuff as interesting as I did.

*     JCT: Since the Hounslow LETS actually uses a currency showing
*that 1 Hour is worth 6 Cranes or 6 Pounds, and since all LETSes are
*similarly convertible into the universal standard of Hour time, LETS
*already is a Global currency.
AWR: A bit of a big step there. Either a unit is equated to national
currency OR to time.
     JCT: In Hounslow, they've conveniently equated to national
currency AND to time. They're ready for immediate trade with Ithaca
New York for Hours.

AWR: You can only do both if the national currency is itself equated
to time. I favour equating LETS units to national currency as this
makes it more usable as a parallel currency.
     JCT: Every national currency is inherently equated to time since
people are paid for their time with a currency wage. Conversion from
cash to time is what a wage rate is all about. And the free market can
do it best.

*They just aren't trading between each other yet.
AWR: You are assuming that they will.
     JCT: I am stating that they can. And systems which use paper
notes do. That's why Ithaca LETS is so powerful. You don't have to be
a member to use their notes. As long as you know everyone else in town
takes them, there's no reason for you not to take them. Houslow and
Ithaca can use my newsgroup to publish trades if they want. No one
will doubt their systems' pledges to honor their commitments.
     Perfect example. You opened an account for me in your Canterbury
LETS. I have accounts in the Christchurch and the Auckland LETS in New
Zealand.
     Let's say that you'd like a copy of the archives of the New
Zealand Greendollar Quarterly Reports, a wonderful publication
detailing the growth of LETS there. Let's say back issues cost $120
New Zealand Greendollars worth about 10 Greenhours like in Canada
since Canadian and New Zealand federal funds are about par.
     In the UK, 10 Greenhours is worth 60 Tales or Greenpounds. You
deposit 60 Tales to my account worth 10 Greenhours and send an email
to the New Zealand LETS purchasing those back issues by Cash-On-
Delivery by transferring Green from my account over there to that of
the Greendollar Quarterly. Back issues are mailed to you, you pay for
the postage and they've had some trade.
     If you publish your use of my New Zealand Banker account in
public, I have no doubt that you will honor it.
     If the New Zealand LETS decides that they would like copies of
your archives and literature, the reverse process would take place and
again, I have no doubt they would honor any pledge they have made in
public.
     Notice that this can all be done because of one public newsgroup.
I don't even have to be responsible for archiving transactions. The
fact that everyone uses my newsgroup to register their transactions in
public confers absolutely no power on me to influence anything. It is
the integrity of the individual systems at issue and I have no doubt
that demands for redemption of Time will be honored with no problems
anywhere.

*     It's just like many casinos in the area. Their tokens are all
*worth the same hourly value but they just haven't agreed to accept
*each others chips between casinos yet
AWR: Same assumption.
     JCT: Same fact. They already do it and can do it with my
newsgroup. They can with any public newsgroup. As long as they convert
to time in their dealings with the central public registry, I don't
care about their currency relationships to federal currencies at all.

* though users in the real world
AWR: ...belong to many different overlapping communities.
     JCT: All on one Local Earth within the galaxy.

* have no aversion to accepting Ceasar's Palace chips even though they
* play at the Taj Mahal.
*      The very idea of too many of Ceasar's Palace chips being used in
* other casinos being a threat to Ceasar's Palace's chip system does not
* exist.
AWR: I think this analogy breaks down here.
     JCT: Casino chips are not an analogy. They are a congruent
system.

* As long as they keep taking in collateral one-to-one, it
* doesn't matter which casino bank holds the collateral or where
* those chips are used or where they leak to.
AWR: Maybe this illustrates the difference between the casino world &
the "real world."
     JCT: That's right. In this real world, they don't keep collateral
one-to-one. That's why money loses value. LETS does keep promises to
pay one-to-one with Greendollars. Casinos too. After positive feedback
on debt, this missing link is the major difference between LETS and
the "real world."

*      Counting all those mis-employed in the Money-lenders control
* systems with the unemployed, I would guess that real ecological
* industrial production is done by a small percentage of farmers and
* industrial robots. The phasor might be so close to the Imaginary axis
* that there's really only 10% productive employment and 90% useless
* employment being output.
AWR: Yes I like that.... it sounds like what I tend to refer to as the
way the existing system is tripping itself up. A built in fail un-safe
mechanism.
     JCT: And financing production with Green rather than war with
federal currency will not only create full employment but full useful
employment. Just imagine 10 times today's industrial output. That's
lots of environmental protection.

* AR: His primary concern was to encourage a plentiful, interest free
* currency, which is only part of what I would see as LETS development.
*      JCT: We don't want LETS "development" through struggle. We want
* "instant upgrade."
AWR: We want a result which lasts.
     JCT: I see no reason why instant upgrade on existing banking
systems would be any less lasting than building an alternate system
from the bottom up.

*We want it run by professional bankers
AWR: Hands up who agrees.
     JCT: I hate banking, not bankers. They'll have to post their
trades in public too. Nothing can be unbalanced. I should have said
"professional bankers running LETS." Actually, I did.

*    JCT: Actually, there is a difference between not supporting and
*resisting. I've archived though I've never read the registry stuff.
AWR: Amazing. And thanks for telling us.
     JCT: I'm sorry this may have hurt considering all the good work
I've seen you do but please understand how swamped I am for time and
since using a public newsgroup means I don't have to do anything, how
things get done elsewhere cannot have high priority. Professional
bankers have been performing transactions for millennia and I have no
doubt that once the positive feedback is eliminated, upgrading to
LETS on their existing system will work beautifully.

*I don't follow any of the technical debates.
AWR: Without reading the stuff how can you conclude that it is
technical?
     JCT: If they're not talking to me about the political of quickest
installation, they're talking about the technical. And they're only
talking to me about politics in TURMEL topics and few others. So it's
easy enough for me to make the distinction.

*I know what I want.
AWR: And don't read other peoples views?
     JCT: Views on what? If the LETS blueprints are right, what can
those views contain? I didn't need anyone else's views when I approved
Michael Linton's LETS blueprints. I was using a technical view. If
these other views on the technicalities of how the transactions are
made, how the information is stored, etc., I'm not interested. I've
seen it all handled by the existing system with no complications for
too long. I just have to abolish interest from the present system with
LETS as the model. It can't be screwed up? So why should I get
involved in the logistics with so many others already on the job. I
don't see anyone else on the political stage so I'm busy there. Those
who agree on the blueprints, then we both know what we want. How
quickly it's installed becomes the really relevant question. And I
want everyone to have a LETS account as fast as possible because I
can't retire until that day of Jubilee.

*I know that if Rothschild and Rockefeller families let me instruct
*their computer operators to turn up service charges and turn interest
*to zero on a new line of "Green" accounts, it's done. There'd be
*line-ups at the banks of people with no accounts and in a few weeks
*development, it would be done.
AWR: Why would they do that?
     JCT: R&R are seeing their children ingest the poisons with the
rest of us, breath the same polluted air, duck the sun's rays, duck
the same horde of poverty-stricken muggers in the streets, commit
suicide despite much wealth. Why wouldn't they permit LETS to turn
Financial Hell into Financial Heaven if they're going to be forgiven
their sin of usury.

*     And I can understand that if this guy thinks like me so far,
*there must have been something about the registry idea that was
*limiting in scope or not relevant in the global context. If
*something  is there to prevent leakage, then I understand his
*concern. Otherwise,  if registries work toward permitting trade
*between non-regional  accounts, then I'm all for that development.
AWR: Sounds like youre going to have to read up on registries.
     JCT: No I'm not. If you tell me registries can help me spend my
Toronto Greendollars in Ottawa, I'll believe you. But I won't spend
time on how you want to do it when my newsgroup could do it for us
with no central human input.

*The fact I'm still around 15 years after picketing David Rockefeller
*with a "Bankers Starve Third-World Babies" placard at his 1983
*then-ultra-secret Bilderberger meeting of world leaders getting their
*instructions could be an indication that they are ready to LETS take
*over.
AWR: Or on the other hand.....
     JCT: No. Even their own International Bankers' Minutes show plans
to eventually install an interest-free money system based on human
labor "whether reckoned in metal or in wood."

*Henry Ford organized men to produce far more than each could each
*produce. The increment of association. Having professionals for all
*needs is better than everyone being a jack-of- all-trades.
AWR: This assumes that better = more productive.
     JCT: Civilizations grew by the division of labor. It is a sound
assumption that better = more productive.

*     So, Andy. I appreciate your concerns as a hands-on promoter. But
*I like everything this guy says. I wouldn't care if an Ottawa LETS
*farmer sent over 1000 Hours worth of wheat and have Canterbury LETS
*in the negative till whenever. Fears of leakage are fears which exist
*only between small individual systems but which cannot exist in one
*large one.
AWR: It's not just fear its reality. I suggest you read Bryan
Duxbury's econ-lets posting from about a month ago of experiences in
NZ with intertrading over the last three years. Also when you have
read up on registries you will see that the concept encompasses your
vision of a global system.
     JCT: And in New Zealand, one group is complaining that the other
group is not spending or or not earning it back fast enough. Being in
the negative or the positive should have no bearing on trade at all.

*People who see this bigger picture cannot be persuaded to build
*in design changes to what we perceive to be a perfect system.
*     Besides, it is inevitable that poorer regions will be in the
*negative for years while richer regions will be in the positive
AWR: And that would restrict trading in both.
     JCT: Under current LETS thinking, trading would be "reduced"
because poorer countries, like poorer systems, couldn't earn back
their debt for years. Same reason trade is being restricted between
New Zealand systems. This is silly since it is a self-imposed
restriction which I would avoid.

*and there's nothing ethically wrong with such leakage which must be
*addressed.
AWR: There may be nothing mathematically wrong but if we're talking
dead babies equals poor ethics then maybe this could apply.
     JCT: That's right. The dying babies should be given credit to buy
any food we can't use and shouldn't have to worry about repayment
until they're able. And that might be a long time and I don't want to
hear complaints about leakage to their accounts. Same applies to dying
communities or any communities. This worrying about which systems are
too much in the negative is a throw-back to the days of insufficient
tokens. I don't care if the Third World stays in the negative for 25
years. We're only lending them that of which we have abundance. And I
trust to get my time back, hour-for-hour.

*     So, I'd suggest you see what about the registries this guy
*resisted.
AWR: I've been doing that in some depth for two years.
     JCT: So what is it he didn't like about registries?

*Tales (Canterbury system) will be accepted for Yawls (Whitstable)
*naturally.
AWR: I only see this as a natural contradiction of LETS - or
community currencies.
     JCT: There are no natural contradictions. Only philosophical
contradictions like "This statement is a lie." Not only will
Canterbury LETS members be accepting Yawls but Canterbury non-LETS
members, just like in Ithaca, will too. If your Greendollars are
trusted to be value-based pieces of paper, there is going to be no
deterring anyone from accepting them, no matter how much you want to
deter trade with non-members. The only way to deter trade with non-
members is to stay completely electronic because the use of local
tokens will naturally induce non-members as well as members to
participate in trade.
     That's what I mean by "You can't stop it." If your baby-sitter
decides to take a foreign Green note because she can spend it at her
butcher, you'll have an amazing task of deterring LETS currencies from
being accepted by outsiders. Again, only the pure electronic medium
can deter trade with outsiders.

* Talk of allowing it is also talk of disallowing it. It can't be
* stopped so why fight it?
AWR: It can't be started unless you change the essence of the system
which people joined.
     JCT: I hope that I've shown that it can be started with only my
newsgroup and it can be started without changing the essence of any
individual system which participates short of forcing them to do
inter-system accounting with units of time. You got the New Zealand
archives and they got yours via my central bank accounts without
affecting either system. Right?
     I have several streams of debates on sci.econ over the last few
years. A lot of these debates took place but with a lot more zest. If
anyone is interested in a couple of hundred Kilobytes of these
archives, I'm going to be doing a series of mailings to those who are
interested. Send a note and I'll add you to an alias file when I mail
it out to interested parties.
     I have streams of arguments on LETS in sci.econ
     I have a stream on LETS and Social Credit.
     I have a stream on Christ's differential Equations.
     They're all loaded with funny exchanges. I even have one
economist arguing that "money has babies" because the banker gives him
interest. I told him to give me a call when he actually witnessed the
Papa and the Mama $5 bills give birth to a baby $1 bill.
     You cannot believe the circles of doublethink programmed into an
economist's mind. Do you remember the discussions of the valuation of
Greendollars with the basket of commodities? I hope you noticed that
Paul Glover didn't participate. Using Ithaca Hours, he left that
problem to the marketplace and probably found the discussion as
confusing as I did.
     Also, with the Canadian Federal General Election coming up where
LETS will become a major issue, there will be lots of action to
report.
     I'll also keep the mail list informed of our approaches to Muslim
governments. With LETS being backed by the Islamic Party of UK, maybe
it will be a Muslim nation which first responds in the positive to:
Yes or No to National / Global LETS?
     We are going to start a petition during this federal campaign. If
I could get 5 out of 13 candidates in the last election to sign a
petition for LETS, how hard will be it be to get their supporters to
also sign.
     There is brand new monetary reform party formed by former Liberal
Cabinet Minister Paul Hellyer called the Canada Action Party. Their
main theme is to order the Bank of Canada to finance government
spending interest-free!.
     The Canada Party are also monetary reformers and in the last
1993 election, 6 of their candidates publicly endorsed LETS.
     Canada's Green party endorses LETS.
     There might be an interesting political consensus developing.
     The candidate's petition was:

                   HAMILTON EAST CANDIDATE PETITION
                for a National LETS Greendollar system
     I, the undersigned duly registered candidate in the June 17, 1996
Hamilton East federal by-election, if elected, shall request that the
Government of Canada institute a national LETS Greendollar system."
Dated at ______________ on ______________, 1996.
                              _____________________________________

Print Name: _________________________
Print Address: ______________________
_____________________________________
Telephone: __________________________
Email: ______________________________
Party: ______________________________

     Here is the petition we are going to use:

PETITION
for National / Global
LETS
(Local Employment-Trading System)
<Nation>

     I, the Undersigned, urge my Federal Government to institute a
National LETS and work to institute a Global LETS.

Last name, First name, City, Telephone, Signature
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
WITNESS:
Last name, First name, City, Telephone, Signature
Address:                                          Date:

     I see no reason why a LETS petition won't be a very popular move
if the members from the Abolitionist Party, Canada Party, Canada
Action Party, Christian Heritage Party, Green Party, Social Credit
Party sign with their candidates.
     I can bet that you will see this petition at every political
meeting possible. This Petition will become the issue because it will
become the news. It is a Public Relations tactic no other party can
attempt because they only know what they're against, not what they're
for.
     I would urge UK LETSers to print up a Petition and test the winds
themselves. I'd bet David Williams might like to be the first election
candidate to sign. It's an honor he deserves. And it's time to stick
the petition under the leaders' noses. With 2 weeks till election day,
I can only report one great response to Pauline's Email to the party
web sites of the Question: Yes or No to National LETS:

Date: Thu Apr  3 04:32:27 1997
From: gptyoffice@gn.apc.org (Green Party Office)
Subject: Re: http://www.gn.apc.org/greenparty/lets
To: ax989@freenet.carleton.ca ("Pauline G. Morrissette")

At 03:29 31/03/97 -0500, Pauline G. Morrissette wrote:
*     I recently visited the UK trying to find out more about the LETS
*Local Employment-Trading System. I found several interesting things:
*     - A full-page Jan. 6, 1997 UK Guardian Economics Page article
*titled: "ELECTION BATTLEGROUND / Local currencies gain ground in era
*of globalisation" by Sarah Ryle examined the growth of LETS in the UK.
*     - LETS have been set up by over 100 Local Authorities comprising
*Local councillors from all political parties.
*     - The Liberal Democrat Party have two policy papers on LETS.
*     - Uxbridge Labour candidate David Williams was the first person
*ever hired by a Local Authority to set up LETSystems.
*     - LETS also has supporters in the Conservative Party, the Islamic
*Party, the Green Party, the Referendum Party, the Natural Law Party
*and the 21st Century Independent Foresters.
*     - LETS has supporters who are Christians, Muslims, Jews and
*atheists.
*     How does your party stand on:
*     Yes or No to National LETS?
*     Thank you.

A BIG YES!

Green Party Office    (gptyoffice@gn.apc.org)
Tel. 0171 272 4474  Fax 0171 272 6653

     With the Islamic Party having officially endorsed LETS last year,
this makes two official political party endorsements for LETS. With
two weeks left until the election, we'll see how many other party
endorsements our LETS women can produce.
     David Williams says he's going to see what he can do about
raising the LETS profile with the national party. Could score one for
the men.
     The only party we haven't been able to personally approach are
the Conservatives. Can anyone help?

     And I'd like to applaud the recent election to the New Zealand
Parliament of pro-LETS M.P.s:

John Wright, leader of the Democrat Party,
Jeanette Fitzsimmons, leader of the Green Party,
Pamela Lee, leader of the Maori Party.

     If you read my 1996 New Zealand report, you'll remember that
John Wright is Social Credit educated, Jeanette Fitzsimmons is a
member of the Thames LETSystem and Pamela Lee is an advocate of Maoris
bartering. Their parties formed an alliance and LETS formed part of
that consensus.

     And I know David Williams is doing good work on establishing
LETS. He's about to launch Hillingdon LETS which should generate some
good publicity for his political campaign. Smart PR move.
     David has also joined the board of trustees of LETSLINK UK as a
company director of the first National LETS organization. Cool! A guy
with hands-on experience working at the National level in both the
LETS and the political arenas.
     And you can soon expect to see a lot more LETS organizers li