'cash scheme via bartering'.

>Date: Thu Feb 11 09:26:23 1999
>From: davewilliams@vossnet.co.uk ("David Williams")
>Subject: Re: 'cash scheme via bartering'.
>To: econ-lets@mailbase.ac.uk
>Hi, I have been doing some work on issuing money linked with LETS. 
>There is a way which may give the best of both worlds.
>Open a new LETS account and call it something like Vouchers Account.
>Have ready printed some vouchers in useful denominations (say #1 
>upwards) in a manner which would be difficult to forge. (perhaps only 
>valid if they have the treasurers signature on them - only sign them 
>as they are issued)  
>Tell your members, but more particularly, tell potential members that 
>they will be able to operate in LETS as if it were cash.
>When a new member joins, who does not particularly want to use 
>cheques etc. get them to sign a single sheet made out to Vouchers 
>(this could be preprinted or written by the treasurer or whoever) for 
>a value of say #50 or #100. Their account is now #50 or #100 in 
>deficit/commitment.  
>Give the person vouchers to this value and say that at some point in 
>the future they must reimburse their account with vouchers or 
>cheques. You could also say that if they need any more vouchers they 
>can come back and sign another slip!
>Enter the value of the transaction into the Vouchers account and 
>deduct it from the individual's account to make sure everything 
>balances. The person can then spend the vouchers with anyone on the 
>LETS or give them to anyone who will accept them who is not a member. 
>They will also (hopefully) be receiving vouchers from others.
>The benefits of this are manifold.
>- Vouchers are only issued when backed by the promise of 
>work/redemption in some way.
>- People who don't like to write (or can't write) or don't like 
>written records only show a deficit on their account (if it is looked 
>at by DSS, TAX people etc.)
>- New, non members can be introdcued to community money without 
>having to join first.
>- Less accounting for transactions by the treasurer/recorder
>When vouchers are received by any member they can be passed on or 
>paid into their account. If a voucher is paid in, the value comes 
>from the Voucher account. (It's like the voucher account gave you a 
>cheque). So you can see that you will know at any time how many 
>vouchers are in circulation by looking at the balance of the voucher 
>account (which can never be positive without forgery!) Cheers
     JCT: Nice explanation of how to run what I called our "notes" 
account. When members joined the Abolitionist Party, they immediately 
received $500 in notes against their account. Thus, I never had any 
bookkeeping to do unless someone needed more notes or "vouchers." 
     David Williams was the first Government-paid person hired to set 
up LETSystems in the UK. His Hounslow system used a very innovative 
note which included both the Pound value and the Time value on the 
same note which read 6 Cranes = 1 Standard Hour. So with not only 
the link to the 6 British pounds, we also have the link to an Hour of 
time which made it acceptable to every Hour system in the world in one 
shot. 
     I've pointed out that paper allows for much higher velocity and 
power systems and have been urging LETSystems to use paper tokens for 
years. Hopefully they'll pay more attention to David's submission. 

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