Local Currencies

News from Hungary

2011-12-11T01:21:00.000-08:00

The following review appeared in the International Journal of Complementary Currencies Research recently. It is by a Hungarian and I think it is the best review yet. It was followed up by a request to translate my book into Hungarian! Gillian Seyfang, who edited the IJCCR referred to my book as "one of the classics in the field" which is rather nice.

HEALTHY MONEY, HEALTHY PLANET: DEVELOPING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH NEW MONEY SYSTEMS.

DEIRDRE KENT (2005)
CRAIG POTTON PUBLISHING, NELSON, NEW ZEALAND. 321 PP; ISBN 1287733322928

Although this book was published almost seven years ago, its statements today are more relevant than ever. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement sparks demonstrations against the social and economic inequality; earlier in 2008 we experienced a financial crisis, and now we are facing the eurozone crisis, and there is no end in sight... All these events show us that there must be something wrong with our “one-¬‐size-¬‐fits-¬‐all” economic structure and money system. We need a radical change. Deidre Kent’s book gives us a compass for understanding how money could connect, but not control people.

Healthy Money, Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems explains Gesell’s statement: “They improved money exclusively from the point of view of the holder, with the result that it became worthless as a medium of exchange. The purpose of money didn’t concern them, and thus as Proudhon put it, they forged ‘a bolt instead of a key for the gates of the market.’” (Gesell, 1927) Kent elaborates on Gesell’s thoughts and the operation of the servant role of money: if and when it serves the community.

In the first part of the book Kent gives an overview on the current interest-¬‐bearing money system, and problems associated with it. No wonder the author calls it ‘sick money’. In the first four chapters after a brief history of banking she discusses the economic and social consequences of current money system: the growing debt spiral, the widening income gap, the instability and other environmental, social symptoms. She argues for a new and better model of globalization, since the monoculture damages and destroys all other cultures and structures of life. The fifth chapter examines the use of GDP as an indicator of progress, better said: as an indicator of market activity.

It is time to point out one of strengths of the Kent’s work: it explains why a new type of money system is one of the absent elements of the definition and interpretation of sustainability. The importance of communities, let it be a local body or a group of citizens, is the other absent element of the sustainability. That is obvious from her explanations. The last chapter of the first part is a very useful summary, it summarizes the counterarguments, which may support the current mainstream model and explains why a paradigm shift is inevitable.

In the second half of the book we are introduced to the “Healthy Money” system. Kent prefers to define money not by its function, as others economics textbooks. Accepting Bernard Lietaer’s statement: “it is an agreement, within a community, to use something as a means of payment”(from B. Lietaer quotes on page 95). It should serve the community, so it should be the main part of the common property. Although the latter conclusion isn’t written word by word in the author’s text, it is implied: “The privilege of creating money to pass into private interests [...] is the most basic privatisation of all” (page 90).

The next chapter (Chapter 8) is the most exciting part of the book. Not only because Kent sees economy as an organic whole, emphasising that it should mimic the patterns of nature and arguing for the model “economies nested within economies”, but also, because she formulates a new approach, which is barely known even after seven years: “The way of treating parts as wholes has been called ‘holarchy’ [...] such systems are more appropriate than hierarchies. Each living part is whole in itself and possesses something non-¬‐material and irreducible: a pattern of organisation.” She adds: “In an organic holarchic model, each economy -¬‐ supranational, national, regional, local and neighbourhood – would be a complete unit” (all citations on pages 103-¬‐105).

She states that a healthy economy (just like the cells in the body) needs semi-¬‐permeable membrane to provide protection, consequently we have to decide how to regulate the different flows (capital, goods, etc.) effecting our economy. The holarchic view gives guidance for the communities to construct their own healthy money systems.

Chapter 9 organizes the social benefits of community currencies, the next 40 pages present the different forms of complementary currencies all over the world – the reader may find a very useful systematic overview in Appendix I about the classifications of currencies and the comparative table following this (page 289-¬‐294). The different LETS initiatives (Chapter 10), the commercial trade barter systems (Chapter 11) and the perishable money systems with demurrage (like Wära, local shillings in Wörgl, Stamp Scrip, Simec, Chiemgauer) are described in chapter 12. The next chapter (Chapter 13) describes business-¬‐issued currencies, including the pre-¬‐paid vouchers schemes and a privately issued fiat currency (Chatham Islands notes). Chapter 14 shows us a very new type of complementary currency: Richard Douthwaite’s energy-¬‐backed currency unit and Bernard Lietaer’s terra.

The last four chapters give us a synthesis for the whole book, together with the above mentioned Appendix I to deepen our knowledge. The list with its 16 points on page 202-¬‐204 could be seen as the most important aspects for the stakeholders. Following that Kent emphasises some very important questions, e.g. legality by the government, acceptability by the users, convertibility, tax issues, etc.... Kent does not avoid mentioning the phenomenon, that instead of having more and more diverse currencies, the world is moving towards fewer and even more monopolised currencies. She mentions four different disadvantages for common supranational currencies – all this prevail now during the time of euro-¬‐crisis. Chapter 18 deals with community banking in New Zealand and in other parts of the World in 20 pages.

Finally the last, 19th chapter emphasises the necessity of the change once more, and encourages the reader: “The time for monetary literacy has arrived [...] The freedom to shape the money we use may turn out to be just as important as other basic human freedoms, like the freedoms of speech and beliefs.” (page 267)

Let’s quote the words of a Hungarian holistic ecologist, József Agócs: “The trouble of the world is not that we are doing something the wrong way. The trouble is that we do wrong things. If we Ainally did something of value, even poorly, the results would be better, even if not perfect.” Deirdre Kent’s work helps us create a well-¬‐tuned money system.

This book should be of interest to activists and researchers as well. Activists get a lot of information from the glossary of definitions, from the useful websites and the list of organizations. The detailed bibliography and the 20 pages long list of end notes stimulate further research.

S. Gesell (1927): The Natural Economic Order (trans: Ph. Pye)
http://www.slideshare.net/helyipenzek/silvio-gesell-the-natural-economic-order p121

Zsuzsanna Eszter Szalay
Institute Of Business Economics Corvinus University Of Budapest Budapest, Hungary Zsuzsanna.szalay@uni-corvinus.hu

*****

Szaly, Z. (2011) ‘Healthy Money, Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems’ book review.

Reviewed for the International Journal of Community Currency Research 15 (C) 5-¬‐6, www.ijccr.net ISSN 1325-¬‐95475.

Reproduced with permission.

Healthy Money, Healthy Planet
is available from author Deirdre Kent deirdrekent@me.com or from Living Economies

LIVING ECONOMIES Educational Trust
12 Costley St, Carterton. Phone 06 379 8034
Website and online shop www.le.org.nz Email info@le.org.nzxx

Timebanks are catching on in New Zealand

2011-05-27T01:09:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I find myself speaking at not one but two meetings about our timebank. How to start one seems to be the in-thing. Now why would an inner city suburb of our capital city have a talk on a local currency like a timebank? It probably isn't because they are broke (local currencies thrive in hard economic times) because the average salary in Wellington is the highest in NZ. It is possibly to build community cohesion to insure them against crises like earthquakes.

The other talk (Ben is doing the main talk and I am just there to back up, knowing the history of our Otaki Timebank) is at Paraparaumu. A keen young woman started a Facebook group and it is through that group the event has been advertised. The Kapiti Coast is like the suburbia Kunstler talks about as being the most expensive experiment ever done by western nations. It is spread out.

Lyttelton has been a huge success as a timebank having been going over five years now. Margaret Jefferies is an inspiring speaker and has done a stalwart job over that time. Lyttelton is geographically clearly defined and the houses are all within a smallish area, whereas Paraparaumu, Raumati, Waikanae, Paekakariki is spread out over a narrow strip of coastal land. Quite a different profile.

I have also had a call from someone in Johnsonville and a woman in Tauranga about how to start a timebank. Must get in touch with Margaret, because it is they that have the funding to support new timebanks now. They are nearly recovered from the resignation of their coordinator and in a month will be up and running well.

Restarting after a trip to KCDC

2011-05-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Just been to Kapiti Coast District Council where I accompanied my husband Malcolm Murchie. He was giving a submission on behalf of the Democrats for Social Credit and it was quite good.

He spoke of the growing debt of KCDC, now at $99 million. It grows each year because they only pay off $5m a year though they pay $6.7 in interest to overseas owned banks. The request was that KCDC takes a remit to the Local Bodies conference asking for Reserve Bank credit at zero or very low interest rates. Total debt of all local bodies in NZ is $6.5 billion. A reasonable request and now he needs to find a councillor to champion this and at least have their discussion held in public. Otherwise they will discuss it and dismiss it quickly while in committee.

We had sat through very worthy submissions from small local groups like the Te Horo ratepayers asking for a few thousand dollars, and the Lions club and the Surf Club. The amounts are tiny in comparison with $6.7 million of potential savings, money wasted in interest.

I have been contemplating what is going to happen economically as things come to a head on the international financial scene. The European Union is in trouble with Greek, Portugal, Italy and Spain being in such severe debt and Strauss Kahn who would have rescued them is in jail. Last night the European sharemarket dropped. Collapse is bound to occur one day soon. The Irish originated book Fleeing Vesuvius is being published by Living Economies soon, explaining what could happen as demand for oil finally outstrips the supply and how an economy can no longer grow after peak oil. The economic system is set up to demand economic growth and with resources finally meeting geographical limits it is all going to stop. In fact Richard Heinberg says the global economy stopped growing around Sept 08 when there was a collapse in oil prices.

What with the price of food continuing to rise, and the price of house insurance about to rise by 50% because the reinsurance companies can't deal with two Christchurch earthquakes, a Queensland flood and a Japanese tsunami, we are all going to be in dire economic straits soon. If the TPP free trade agreement goes ahead then the price of medicines may also rise. Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Network, said on his blog the other day that we need to move now from peak oil and climate change to the strengthening the local economy.

Of course I am in favour of local currencies. In their economic crisis in 2002 Argentina didn't only have a plethora of local currencies, but their government legislated to allow regional governments to issue their own currency. Local currencies can never scale up to the needed $6.7 million required in the Kapiti District Council area. So it is either going to be a regional currency or we will have to get Reserve Bank money as US did in the big financial crisis, though it was called "quantitative easing" to give it an aura of mysticism and noone could understand what it was.

I guess as things get worse, we are going to stagger towards all these solutions, but all too late to prevent terrible suffering.

A review of my book by Rimu Atkinson on Transition Towns website

2009-02-28T13:32:00.001-08:00

I was pleased to notice this review on the website http://www.transitiontowns.org.nz

The first 1/4 of this book spends some time explaining how our current money system works and spelling out some of the implications: eternal debt, pressure to exploit more and more natural resources and concentration of wealth and power.

The other 3/4 of the book talks about solutions; complementary economic and monetary systems which have been tried all over the world and documents their successes and failures. There is a strong relevance to us in New Zealand, as it has many current examples of things that happened or are happening here. A vision of overlapping local, regional, national and international currencies that function in an ecological fashion is presented, which although appealing is probably too breathtaking in scope for most people to stomach. Maybe it'll come to pass, but certainly not all at once!

After finishing this book you will have a firm grounding in the basics of a wide variety of different approaches to money and an awareness of how to avoid some obvious (in hindsight!) mistakes that others have made in the past.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in LETS or complimentary currencies or who is in need of inspiration on how to respond to the ongoing financial collapse.

Ideas evolving from my tour of Nortland

2008-10-20T19:49:00.001-07:00

My tour of Northland has brought new learnings on mutual credit systems

Thanks to Geoff and Naomi Waterhouse, Ken Ross and the Far North District Council I was able to respond to their requests to speak to several Transition Towns groups on the issue of money. There were 70 at Kerikeri, 25 at Kaitaia, 75 at Whangarei and 20 at Kaiwaka. The format was to show the film Money as Debt followed by a short discussion, a break, a short powerpoint where I outlined the designs of various community currency systems, and then discussion. A big challenge!

I remain more convinced than ever that the 47 minute Canadian documentary on money showing what a pernicious and unsustainable system we have inherited over the centuries, that this film teaches it brilliantly, with animation and clarity.

Now the case of Kaiwaka has set me thinking. Gail Aitken who had been a member of a LETS system in UK, had set up a small LETS after coming to Kaiwaka to an intentional community at Koanga Gardens. If measured by the trading volume per member, it is a very successful scheme. It has only 40 members but they all know each other extremely well. There is another intentional community involved and a few from the small township of Kaiwaka, an hour south of Whangarei.

The purpose of the discussion was to work out ways to improve their scheme. Gail runs it using just a spreadsheet. She is paid by the system in the local currency, the kauri. They don’t use the internet and the members showed no desire to be dependent on the internet as they believed the LETs was more resilient that way.

In the discussion it became clear that three members were greatly in credit ($4000 and more) and one of these said very eloquently that she didn’t particularly want to spend it as they had all they needed and were against consuming for its own sake. The same woman, when someone pointed out that a solo mother of three children had not traded and was in debit to the system, declared with feeling that the woman was already working raising the children and there should be no pressure on her to trade. (Others may have implied she should sell something or work for others in the mutual circle.)

Afterwards I was pondering. I was thinking about the Time Banking model in Lyttelton which has a Community Chest as a member. An interior design company had done some work free for the system and been credited with Hours. The company donated their hours to the Community Chest so that those who had no time or health to work for others could be supported.

I spoke to one of the administrators of the Kaiwaka system afterwards suggested that if their system tended to be blocked by people with large credits they didn’t particularly want to spend, then they could look to the time bank model and set up a community chest. In that way the solo mother could be cared for while she was doing her child care. “In a way you are setting up a mini social welfare system within your circle”. He was fascinated by the idea.

My other observation was that Kaiwaka may be a model for others wanting to set up mutual credit trading circles without the Internet. Each of the types of currencies could forge links with the others, with exchange rates being determined regularly, thus extending the variety of goods and services available, and giving members a better experience still.

Perhaps there could be a network of LETS systems on the web and a network not on the web. After all when you think of what is happening in the soil in the root system of any plant, there are millions of small fungi, bacteria and working. There is an ecosystem of millions of tiny micro-oganisms where nutrients and energy are exchanged to everyone’s benefits. Feedback loops tell where the needs are and the surplus resources.

We have often talked about how important it is to develop trust and bonding in a community before a community currency can be successful. Well, why not skip this step and go to communities which already have done their bonding and teach them to set up a mutual credit circle for trading? As the global economy collapses around us, local bowling clubs, schools, maraes, Rotary clubs, sports clubs and RSA’s will be amenable. Why not have a series of small interlinking LETs systems in a small town or suburb, rather than one big one? That will give us more administrators, more resilience, more innovation and bigger numbers, vastly improving the experience of community currencies. If they include in each scheme a Community Chest it would be a lifeboat in the case of a ravaged centralised benefit system. This would prepare for the huge scale movement of the newly unemployed city members returning home, complete with their alcohol, debt, drug and gang problems.

Mutual banking
As the international banking system goes through its reform spasms it is critical to develop mini local models under the radar as well. To start a new bank now costs a prohibitive $30m, up from $15million recently.

I am in mind of a Samoan woman who told me during Mike Rowbotham’s visit early this decade that they had systems where members paid a certain amount per month into a pool and at the end of the month there was a draw for an interest free loan. If someone didn’t want it they drew again. As the reformers of the national currencies of the world and the banking system of the world get into action over the next few years, so will those who are building a new money system at the flaxroots level. I have often thought we need a conference to work on a new financial system –Permaculture Economics? Soilweb Financial Systems? A conference gives face to face contact and may attract those working at higher levels as well.

News media quotes my book in Coromandel

2008-10-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

Thomas Everth writes a regular green blog for a Coromandel paper.
He writes a monthly a column under the title "Green Blog" for his local paper the Coromandel Town Chronicle.

A copy of Novembers edition (minus the last bit on another topic) is below.

Green Blog

One of the main topics of this years Eco Show in Taupo – and timely so – was the state of our financial systems and how their current construction might be the underlying root cause of much of the world’s problems.

Few people realise – according to Deirdre Kent, one of the speakers on these issues and member of ‘Living Economies’ and author of ‘Healthy Money, Healthy Planet’ – how money is created in this country and around the western world. Most of it is not created as physical currency, the paper notes and coins you can carry in your wallet by central banks and governments, but as interest bearing dept when individuals, governments and businesses take out loans from lending institutions at the stroke of a pen as a balance on a bank account held against some collateral (a property, your future income etc.).

The problem with this is that the banks create the principal of the loans at the stroke of a pen for you to spend, but not the interest they expect you and everybody else to bring back to them. This causes the entire system to be in constant need to expand and to create more money - as further interest bearing dept - so that the interest of previous loans can be paid. This system only works if even more money is created and as long as the value and the amount of the underlying assets upon which loans are given also rises. In fact the entire financial system only works if and as long as it keeps growing. You will have heard it from most politicians: “We need the economy to grow by x% per year”.

But if you grow something every year by a percentage of what you already have then you get “Exponential Growth”. In nature there are no stable systems that allow exponential growth to go on. Simple math will tell you that a single penny invested at 5% compounding interest 2000 years ago would today be worth 134 billion balls of Gold each the weight of the Earth at the 1990 gold prices! You will probably need to read this a few times to comprehend these numbers but its true. Exponential growth always leads to a catastrophic end and the only cases of exponential growth in natural systems are quickly self-limiting. Take the exponential growth of yeast bacteria in a brewing vet as an example. The bacteria grow exponentially until the concentration of the yeast’s excrement (Alcohol) is killing them off. Another example of exponential growth of cause is Cancer.

Exponential growth is unsustainable when you live on a finite planet. And even if we had a whole bunch of planets it will not work for very long as the example above shows, where the exponential growth of a single penny devours just about every bit of matter in our Galaxy in the short order of just 2000 years. Our exponential growth dependent financial systems must therefore fall over every few generations in a wave of deep destruction before they can carry on growing again until we one day perhaps might come to our senses and develop a steady state economic system and live like all enduring natural systems in a state of balance and harmony with our environment.

Let’s for argument sake include all the people that will live in the next 7 generations when we take a democratic vote on our actions today. Why not? The fact that they are not able to speak yet should not be held against them. Why should we deprive them constantly of all their rights? Imagine what the actions of our democratic system would be then? A steady system that would give enduring sustenance to humanity and all natural systems upon which we depend? I bet!

Since we have an election upon us when you read this take a look which of the candidates and parties might have grasp of all this besides prescribing more of the same as cure…

Thomas Everth

Review from Italy

2008-04-29T17:40:00.001-07:00

I found this on the web

Just when you thought you knew about how to save civilisation through turning off lights using public transport of driving less, Deirdre Kent confronts us with an unpalatable truth. The world's money system is designed so that the money supply and hence the size of the global economy must keep on increasing exponentially or it will collapse.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't know about the money system and I could put my knowledge back in the bottle and screw the lid on" said Deirdre Kent. "It is so frustrating to watch top environmentalists describe the mess we have all got into with runaway climate change and a world blind to the bombshell of peak oil when I know that it is the money system which demands economic growth. Why else would politiicians, journalists and economist all advocate economic growth for the last four decades of environmental decay and noone connect the dots?'

Kent's book is one of many on the money system, books that are rarely read because people think they can't understand economics. However this book is clear and easy to read as many reviewers have discovered.

Kent spends a third of the book explaining how the current money system is sick and the rest describing the huge array of local currencies available currencies which are created without interest.

The reviews of her book include Management Magazine, who say "Deirdre Kent, previously the tenacious leader of the country's anti-smoking lobby, has written an impeccably researched book that deserves to be read. It discusses, in an agreeably jargon-free and readable fashion, how the current system works, or doesn't."

Recommendation from David De Cleene of Auckland

2008-04-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hi Deirdre

I’d like to congratulate you on writing one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read in terms of:

1. Pointing out something so critical to the very fabric of our society,

2. Making something so complex so simple,

3. Being so completely thorough, and,

4. Offering possible solutions

I’ve been writing a book for the last 6 years and so understand just how much effort goes into a book. A friend of mine passed your book on to me a week ago and it’s perfectly what I was looking for. Even more amazing that you’re a Kiwi...

David De Cleene
Parnell
Auckland
April 08

Front cover

2007-06-06T17:15:00.001-07:00

Just thought I would put the front cover on this page too. The book is still having an effect and I get lovely emails from people who enjoyed it.

Over a thousand copies sold now

2007-02-19T00:13:00.000-08:00

The first print was 1000 and the second was 500. It seems to have sold quite well. All sorts of people email me with congratulations. They say I have set them thinking. The latest was a former currency trader. Helen Dew and I sold nine copies between us at the recent Levin Organic River Festival and spoke with all sorts of people during the weekend. We also ran two workshops one with Helen and me and the other with Gary Williams, Singa Sheen and me regarding a proposed local voucher scheme.

Ian Grant reviews book for Management Magazine

2006-08-02T01:53:00.000-07:00

Healthy Money, Healthy
Planet
By: Deirdre Kent
Publisher: Craig Potton Publishing
Price: $34.99

Sustainability is a current buzz word among politicians and business leaders. It is on many lips; but lip service is about as far as it usually goes.

There’s barely even lip service paid to the idea that our present economic system is not sustainable. It’s a bit like democracy. Most of us accept it without question; some worry about it but decide the alternatives are worse. Yet there are growing doubts about the sustainability, the very survival of the economic system that makes most of the world go round, and that we all depend on so completely.

Deirdre Kent’s Healthy Money, Healthy Planet both confronts the realities and considers some of the alternatives. She argues, as do economists like Richard Douthwaite, that the present debt-based global economic system must continue to grow or it will collapse. “The ritual worship of the desirability of economic growth” can, she writes, be traced to capitalism’s total dependence on continuous economic growth because of the need to pay interest on borrowed money. Almost all our money supply is created by interest-bearing debt by private banks; the Reserve Bank has confirmed that only 2 percent of the money in use in New Zealand is created interest-free.

Collapse is not just a theoretical possibility: witness the Argentinian and Thai economies and Japan’s struggle with its banks’ bad debts for over a decade. “At the time of writing,” noted Kent, “Japan spends more than 40 percent of its taxation revenue servicing debt…” As Clyde Prestowitz pointed out in Three Billion New Capitalists (reviewed in Management Ausust 2005) there is increasing concern about America’s ability to fulfil its international financial obligations: the US trade (current account) deficit was about $650 billion in 2004, financed by huge overseas borrowing, and mortgaging large US assets to foreign lenders.

Deirdre Kent, previously the tenacious leader of the country’s anti-smoking lobby, has written an impeccably researched book that deserves to be read. It discusses, in an agreeably jargon-free and readable fashion, how the current system works, or doesn’t. It looks at complementary economies and monetary systems – at possible changes to taxation, community banking, commercial barter – that have been tried successfully in various parts of the world.

The increasingly stark reality is that unfettered, unthinking growth is now both unsustainable and increasingly unacceptable. Healthy Money, Healthy Planet should be a valuable resource in the essential, and overdue, debate on our economic options.

Rating 4

Paul Glover's review in Yes! Magazine

2006-07-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Review published in Yes! Magazine May 2006

Healthy Money Healthy Planet
by Deirdre Kent

reviewed by Paul Glover

There are already thousands of run-for-your-life crisis books. Celebrations of success are rarer. Deirdre Kent’s book Healthy Money, Healthy Planet is a fine contribution to the latter, a great find for those who want to convert bad news into good news that exemplifies the world we want.

Community currencies, for example, have begun to prove that economics and ecology can become friends. Local cash can fix problems that dollars ignore.

Healthy Money helps currency organizers more effectively explain the differences between money which connects people and money that controls people. Kent starts with an authoritative history of national money systems.

Commercial bankers create money just by signing loan contracts. Only ten percent of the dollars lent are backed by bank reserves; 90% are fantasy credits. Here’s the trick: the interest charged can never be repaid because, like musical chairs, the money lending game doesn’t provide enough credits for repaying both principle and interest. The resulting deliberate dollar scarcity forces a desperate scramble for sales regardless of damage to communities and nature.

Bankers foreclose the inevitable losers then control more wealth than ever. And control of money decides where jobs are available and for how long; decides who owns land and what gets built; decides what is legal and what’s a crime; decides who lives well and who struggles. (For a fuller discussion of money systems, see Thomas Greco, “The Trouble with Money,” and Bernard Lietaer, “Beyond Greed and Scarcity,” YES! Summer 1997.)

Why should bankers have all the fun? Healthy Money provides two essential tools to citizens creating community currency that’s dedicated to social justice, environmental repair, and neighborhoods. First, it introduces the varieties of grassroots credit systems and summarizes their strengths and weaknesses.

Kent compares the multitude of paper scrips, digital credits, smart cards, and barter banks. She prefers that monetary theorists take action, and risk blundering in the real world.

At the same time, Kent exhorts community organizers to act on the larger stage. She endorses “healthy globalization” for labor rights and environmental justice. She is enthusiastic about commodity-backed international currency (like the Borsodi Constant), and carbon emission rights currency. The Constant’s value was measured by aggregate current sales from harvests and mines, while trading the rights to spew carbon oxides seeks to cap global pollution. She recommends that currency activists learn business sense from those who comprehend profit and loss.

And since money when banked multiplies its force, community banking is considered just as necessary as community currency.

Some community currency advocates are skeptical of local currencies that are not backed by national currency. But all national currencies are in debt to nature, since modern economies extract resources faster than they replenish.

Even the United States’ dollar is backed no longer by vast domestic petroleum reserves, boundless woodlands and deep soils, nor by gold or silver, but by $6 trillion debt, rusting industry, and declining military control of foreign oil.

That’s why HOUR systems (ithacahours.com) are deliberately backed by local labor and sustainable partnership with nature. As the notes say, “HOURS are backed by real capital: our skills, our time, our tools, forests, fields and rivers.” When dollars, euros, yen and yuan fade, HOURS can take over.

Kent does not pretend to have written a how-to manual. She seems like a genial schoolteacher walking the rows, inviting our attention to choices. But Healthy Money prepares us well to understand finance, while making it serve our neighborhoods and revive the planet ourgrandchildren will inherit.

Paul Glover is founder of Ithaca HOURS, the Ithaca Health Alliance, and Citizen Planners of LosAngeles. He is a consultant for grassroots economic development: paulglover.org

____

I have been invited to Australia

2006-06-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

On 13 July I am off to Australia with my partner Malcolm Murchie. I was invited by ERA (Economic Reform Australia) and will speak in five places – Brisbane, Maleny, Crystal Waters, Sydney and Adelaide.

The Brisbane event is at the conference of Students of Sustainability. I will be appearing with two others Professor Bob Blain of USA and Dr Geoff Davies of Canberra, author of Economiia. In Canberra we are at the Forum on Nature and Society, which sounds an interesting group.

Right now I am flat out preparing powerpoints which are up to date on local currencies. I have discovered that last week in New Zealand Greendollars Nelson New Zealand was launched by the owners of a commercial barter company OZONE. OZONE has 3000 trade members in New Zealand so the members of this new green dollars will be able to trade with 3000 businesses. I am keen to learn more.

We have to take three boxes of books with us for sale.

A review in New Zealand Books from an economist

2006-05-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

The following review appeared in the June 2006 edition of a publication called New Zealand Books. I am a little reluctant to put it on the website as it has a few inaccuracies. An author feels a little weird when someone gets a fact or two wrong..Anyway it seems he has cottoned on to what the book is about, particularly the chapter on diversity and on organic organisation and thinks it worthwhile reading. Some of his sentences are hard to understand and I am not sure that he reiterates or rephrases what I actually said. Deirdre

Current Account
Robin Johnson

Healthy Money Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainabiilty through new Money Systems
Deirdre Kent
Craig Potton Publishing $34.99
ISBN 1877333298

This book is a serious critique of orthodox economic writing and attempts to set out an alternative interpretation of the role of money in society. In particular, it attacks the creation of credit by the banking system and lack of controls over the money supply. The viewpoint is international as well as domestic and hence includes world monetary influences as well as those of particular countries. In summary the author deplores the concentration of wealth and power in a small percentage of the population, the undue influence of multinational corporations, the lack of regard for natural resources, and the baleful influence of international specialisation (world trade reform) on local economies.

The author presents a case for the reform of the money system consistent with a view of society that is self-reliant, environmentally friendly and helpful to all levels. She reviews what she calls complementary economic and monetary systems that might mitigates some of the worst features of the international monetary system she identifies. Complementary currencies are those set up to give the power to issue money to people at all levels of organisation. These have been developed in a number of countries, including New Zealand, and their implementation could overcome foreign or bank control of the money supply. If implemented they would require the introduction of community banking and local participation, the encouragement of commercial barter and exchange, enhanced local currency circulation and alternative means of exchange, like voucher schemes, in parallel with national and international systems.

For an economist this is a serious challenge, and, I believe Kent’s proposals are unlikely to be workable. However, for the non-economist, the book is an informative read on everyday aspects of the economy, particularly the workings of the monetary system and the author’s interpretation of it.

The title of the book derives from the author’s metaphor of an organic model for a healthy economy – thinking of it as a living system. It’s her view that in a healthy global economy there would be no essential conflict between what is good for the local region and what is good for the planet; and in a national economy, its parts, while competing for attention by demonstrating their uniqueness, should all cooperate and help each other at optimal capacity.

The author speaks of managed borders. In a human cell, if the cell membrane is removed, the contents will leak out and pathogens will enter the cell. While goods, services,, energy and money are all allowed to circulate freely within the economy, the borders should be managed to allow vital materials, energy and information to pass through. In an organic, hierarchic model each economy – supranational, national, regional, local and neighbourhood – would be a complete unit. To retain integrity each would have its own currency, while also using the national and international currencies for trade within the larger unit.

Kent follows other writers in this area by setting out operational characteristics of a healthy holarchic (a term said to come from Arthur Koestler, meaning that each living part of an organism is whole but also depends on cells around it; a group of such cells is a holarchy system). These characteristics are based on the following ecological principles: life is frugal and sharing; life depends on inclusive, place-based communities; life depends on boundaries; and life thrives on diversity, creative individuality and shared learning.

Theese propositions can be used to recreate economic institutions in the service of “life”. Thus:

"Human economies can and should function as self-organising systems in which each individual, family, community or nation is able to exercise its freedom of choice, mindful of the needs of the whole, and no entity has the power to dominate any other. Human economies can and should be organised to contribute to life’s abundance through frugal use, equitable sharing, and continuous recycling of the available energy and resources to meet the material, social and spiritual needs of all their members. Human economies can and should be built around inclusive, place based communities, adapted to the conditions of their physical space, adept at the collection and conversation of energy and recycling of materials to function as largely self-reliant entities, and organised to provide each of their members with a sustainable means of livelihood."

Human economies can and should acknowledge and reward cooperative behaviour towards the efficient use of energy and resources in providing adequate livelihoods for all and enhancing the productive capacities of a shared pool of living capital. Human economies can and should have managed borders at each level of organisation, from households and community to region and nation, which allow them to maintain the integrity, coherence and resource efficiency of their internal productive processes and to protect themselves from predators and pathogens while cooperating to enhance the potentials of the larger whole. Human economies can and should nurture cultural, social and economic creativity and diversity and share information within and between and between place-based economies. These conditions are the keys to system resilience and creative intelligence.

Now it seems to me that these social institutions are largely built around the Christian ethic and the efficient use of resources, and would be acceptable to economists and non-economists alike. Modern legislation also provides for the control of excessive monopolies and unfair competition, and international agreements are in place for sharing energy resources, preventing unfair trade and the control of bugs and disease (“predators and pathogens”). Where the two approaches seems to part is in the degree of control of local, national and international autonomy sanctioned by society. The author would prefer more local control over events, more self-sufficiency at the household and regional level, and less trade with other entities at all levels.

The political analyst is bound to point out that such an organisational change is well within the powers of democratic voting systems if sufficient people opt for it. The economic analyst would also have to point out that many social reforms of the kind prescribed can only be achieved by some loss of efficiency in the productive system. If there is a loss of efficiency in moving to such a system, there is less wealth to share among the unfortunate and the less advantaged. The very efficiencies gained from specialisation in trade at regional, national and international levels would be largely lost.

In the end it comes down to what kind of society we really want. We need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the various options. Most of us would vote for a caring, decently incomed, self-governing form of organisation if the benefits were clear. It could be that the information we have available is insufficient to make a constructive choice – a point suggested in the last of the aboe forms of organisation. Perhaps the most positive aspect of this book is that it exposes much new information and a new view on a subject that concerns everybody; a reading of its contents might influence ways our society might move in the future.

Robin Johnson is an economist and retired civil servant.

Rachel McAlpine reviews book for Kapiti Observer

2006-03-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

Review by Rachel McAlpine in Kapiti Observer, 23 March, 2006

Healthy Money Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability through new money systems, by Deirdre Kent, Craig Potton Publishing.

A new book from Deirdre Kent of Waikanae is in tune with the ideals of Craig Potton Publishing, who produce ‘occasional, but important books on a variety of social and environmental issues.’

What have money systems to do with a healthy planet? The answer is shocking and incredible.

‘The national currency of industrialised nations is created when commercial banks issue loans’, explains Deirdre Kent. ‘Banks created the loan but not the interest to pay it back.”

Thus our economy depends on a shortage of currency, and industrialised nations are all, by definition, eternally, inevitably, permanently, hopelessly in debt. This forces economic growth, which damages our planet. All any government can do is twiddle with the details, if I have got the message right.

To abolish the world monetary system is not realistic, and Deirdre Kent does not suggest such a thing.

But local, complementary currencies can and do coexist, with many benefits.

The book includes a fascinating overview of ‘healthy’ money systems.

Examples in New Zealand include Green dollars, Chatham Island Notes, Flybuys, Air New Zealand Airpoints Dollars, Bartercard and Tradecard. The policies of our big banks are compared with those of Kiwibank, the credit unions and community banks.

This is a lively book about a timely topic that most people barely think about. It is by a non-economist for non-economists – a refreshing approach.

The author repeatedly strikes a note of moderation, for example by quoting JK Galbraith: ‘A constant in the history of money is that every remedy is reliably a source of new abuse.’

(Let me declare my interest: Deirdre Kent is my sister)

Organic pathways website reviews book

2006-02-22T12:43:00.000-08:00

This is a New Zealand website for those interested in organics. It has published the following review.

Money, Healthy Planet
Developing Sustainability Through New Money Systems
Deirdre Kent

In her preface to Healthy Money Healthy Planet, author New Zealander Deirdre Kent says the book is her contribution to the conversation on how to preserve the planet and resolve economic injustices.

She calls the way money currently operates “sick money” and here’s why:

Income Disparity In New Zealand, since the 1980s, the highest income families have increased their share of income - the top 10 per cent has gained, the next 20 per cent is holding their own.

Meanwhile, the bottom 70 per cent are worse off than 10 years ago.

In 1960, the wealthiest 20 per cent of the world’s population, living in the richest countries, had 30 times the income of the poorest 20 per cent. By 1977, the figure had increased to 74 times.

The assets of the world’s 358 billionaires exceed the combined annual incomes of countries accounting for 2.3 billion people or nearly half the world’s people.

Debt US$40 billion a year flows from developing countries to the developed countries and the developing world now spends US$13 on debt repayment for every US$1 it receives in grants.

As a result of the debt crisis, 7 million children die each year.

Money Creation Healthy Money, Healthy Planet describes how money currently works and shows how increasing financial inequality is built into the system.

She maintains that many of the environmental and social problems result from the creation of money out of thin air by private banks as interest bearing debt. She describes how it works and explains why some central bankers, economists and politicians deny that this is how money works.

Kent is in favour of loans being made, but says the payment of interest on top of the loan creates a situation where there is never enough money in circulation to cover the interest, in practice meaning there must be winners and losers in the current economic system.

In a section on the invisible governments, she lists “secretive” organizations that are dominated by big business interests and that seek to influence governments - powerful and unaccountable groups which make democracy impotent.

Organic Model She explains how healthy money would be the result if the economy was built on an organic model where power is not centralized, and money can also be created at the regional level and used to revitalize regional economies.

She envisages economies nested in economies using a pattern which mimics nature, and which will help keep money circulating at the local and national level, instead of being a one way flow toward oversized points of power as currently happens.

Monetary literacy for the masses Kent is a New Zealand grandmother with a lifelong involvement in political issues, and an interest in challenging underlying assumptions and beliefs, she has always been interested in mathematics (and was a maths teacher).

She advocates monetary literacy for the ordinary person and says economics permeates our lives and is far too important to be left solely to economists. Her book is a good starting point for newcomers as it is written in layperson’s language.

It is also a useful resource for people already interested in monetary reform as it assesses a number of complementary economic and monetary systems which have been tried in various countries, including New Zealand.

Monetary reform resource She assesses the strengths and weaknesses of various currencies, looking at why some have worked and others failed - thus providing a useful reference for people wanting to set up complementary currencies, for instance, which would work alongside the national currency, but would return power to the grassroots level and encourage regional rejuvenation.

Her book includes a table of currencies with their strengths and weaknesses, and a list of useful websites in categories including Green economics, history and theory of money, monetary reform, GDP, organic model of organization, various currencies and ethical investments.

It also lists useful organizations in New Zealand and Australia and has an extensive bibliography. A glossary is a good aid to people taking their first steps in economic literacy.

Craig Potton Publishing
RRP: $34.95

Available from
H. Dew
Living Economies
12 Costley St
Carterton

More people give positive feedback

2005-12-18T11:21:00.000-08:00

I have received a Christmas card from Sue Kedgley , Green MP, with the words "Great book
Deirdre". Then yesterday I saw Emily Williams at a party who said she had read it now
as well as Gary and she could understand it all and very much liked it. She was surprised she had enjoyed a book on economics so much. Then last night there was a phone call from a Democrat friend of Malcolm's in Oamaru
who was just delighted, couldn't believe Malcolm's partner was 'so
clever'.

So that's good. It is nice to have all those comments come back personally.

Deirdre Kent

2005-12-02T18:44:00.000-08:00

Deirdre Kent
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Hi everyone. I thought I would add another photo, mostly to have practice with uploading photos from my flickr site. If one gets out of practice things tend to get forgotten.

The Methodist paper reviews the book

2005-12-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

Review in Touchstone, the Methodist Church’s newspaper, November 2005

Healthy Money Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems
Reviewer: Rinny Westra

YOU CANNOT SERVE God and Money, said Jesus. But whether we like it or not, those of us who claim to serve God also tend to serve what the author describes as “dirty money”. This is the money created as interest-bearing debt by private banks, but with the approval of the Reserve Bank.

It is this money creation that drives economic growth, and that commits us to a growing rather than a sustainable economy. In such a system there are always losers, because people and firms must go further into debt to avoid economic collapse. Consequences include the growing gap between rich and poor, the horrific indebtedness of the Third World, and the degrading of the environment.

The author spends the first part of the book outlining the dire situation that the dogmatic commitment to ‘dirty money’ is driving us into. Unlimited economic growth on a planet with finite resources does not make sense.

The author does not leave it there. The second part of her book outlines ways in which ‘healthy money’ i.e. money that is not interest-bearing and that serves solely as a means of exchange, can be created.

She recommends local currencies that are complementary to the official currency. These include initiatives like Green Dollars (less popular now than they were in the 1980s and 1990s) and commercial barter through schemes like Bartercard. She presents lots of constructive detail from all over the world in this part of the book.

Much research has gone into this, and the vision that she creates is a compelling one. She bases economics on ecology, and brings reality to what is often an arid discipline that is far removed from the realities of life.

Did you know that according to the standard measurements of GDP ‘Being pregnant, chasing toddlers and breast feeding do not add to the GDP, but looking after other people’s children in a day-care centre does.’ That “If we hang our washing on the line we do nothing for the economy, but by placing it in the dryer we are helping.”? (P72)

As someone who has spent a brief time teaching economics, I would have appreciated this book, as well as Marilyn Waring’s Counting for Nothing, as offering an important alternative to the irrational commitment to economic fundamentalism (‘there is no alternative’) that has been so dominant in the economic and business discourse of the past two decades. May it help reshape our thinking, our money system and our dog-eat-dog society.

This book also has appendices listing useful websites and organisations, as well as a very good glossary.

NZ Green Party magazine reviews the book

2005-11-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

HEALTHY MONEY HEALTHY PLANET
Reviewed by Brian Westbrooke for Te Awa, The River, Magazine of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

We often think of money as something tangible like notes and coins. A moment’s reflection provides a reality check. Most money, from our bank account balances and mortgages to our wages and EFTPOS transactions at the supermarket, is imaginary and electronic. Only 2% of New Zealand’s money supply is state issued currency. All other money is based upon private debt, a pyramid of mortgages, loans and overdrafts created by banks.

Deirdre Kent’s Healthy Money Healthy Planet offers an accessible and readable critique of our monetary system and a comprehensive review of alternative currencies and community banking systems from a New Zealand perspective.

Part One describes the organisation of our diseased monetary and banking institutions, explaining how banks create money through the money multiplier effect in an easily understandable way. The author shows why our monetary system, based upon interest bearing debt, will collapse unless more money is continually created, and how this money supply expansion creates relentless pressure for economic growth.

Over the term of a typical housing mortgage, for example, a borrower will, with interest, repay more that twice the amount borrowed.

Banks do not directly lend the interest component of these repayments into existence. For borrowers to meet their commitments, new debt money must be continually be created elsewhere in the financial system. Borrowers must ceaselessly engage in competitive economic activity to produce goods and services in a struggle to obtain such money from others. Paradoxically, our monetary system creates a continual scarcity of money for many whilst also propelling expansion of the total money supply.

The book reveals that New Zealand’s money supply has grown phenomenally since banking industry deregulation in the 1980s. Household mortgage debt, constituting over 60% of our money supply, grew from 3.7 billion in 1978 to 81 billion in 2003, a rise of more than 2000 percent over 25 years! The money upon which our economy relies largely created through an increasing housing debt burden (and rising house prices)

The second part of the book examines alternative healthy currencies and community banking systems from around the world that produce more socially and economically desirable outcomes.

Kent argues that the first step towards a healthy monetary system is the development of local currencies and banking systems based upon mutual exchange. These would not be founded in interest bearing debt, and would exist alongside national and international currencies.

Although it does not offer a simple panacea for our problems, monetary reform is crucial to the creation of a substantial society. Healthy Money Healthy Planet is a very useful starting point for those who wish to know more about our diseased monetary system and alternatives to it.

For more information go to: www.le.org.nz?tiki-index.php?Page=SustainableMoney

Comment from Daniel Evans of barter-software.com

2005-10-27T01:52:00.000-07:00

Well it is good to know the book is being read now by at least one commercial barter company. Daniel Evans, who has just sold Ozone New Zealand, but is the Chief Information Office of XO Limited, a software development company based in Auckland, New Zealand, writes one day:

"I have actually read your book - and passed it onto the local Ozone operator here. It is very impressive. Quite a few people seem to be handing it around. " In a later email he says:

"Yep - Jo gave me the book. In turn I bought some copies and gave them to Seeby Woodhouse (the Ozone owner for NZ) and Josh Webb (his partner) and the Ozone franchise owner for Australia and another green-dollar person in Australia.. (or rather someone who wanted to start their own exchange).

It was very interesting."

Daniel's company has developed software for use by comercial barter companies and LETS systems.

I also discovered today that the owner of an organics shop in Wellington has read it too.

This review would put off most readers!

2005-10-27T01:49:00.000-07:00

A review in the Nelson Mail on Thursday 20 October 2005 was fairly dreadful. Here it is:

A New Look at Money

This book deserves to be read and discussed, but that is an unlikely fate.

We like making money, spending money and having money in the bank. But when it comes to talking about money, most of us tend to go glassy-eyed. So money gets left to those who control it - and that, says Deirdre Kent, is a tragedy.

She argues that banks don't lend money that they borrow, but instead create it by making an entry on both sides of the balance sheet. Money based on interest is bad and she says measuring a nation's wealth by its gross domestic product is unhealthy.

Her reasoning is somewhat involved, but for those who get this far, she changes tack and reviews a list of alternative money systems.

Unfortunately, while many of these systems appear to have merit, for various reasons most have fallen by the wayside.

Writing a book such as this as if it were a dissertation for a PhD may not be the best way to win the public's hearts and minds. It badly needs a lighter touch for the general reader, and many more human interest stories to counterbalance the earnestness.

The latter chapters on non-banking institutions - such as the PSIS, building societies and credit unions - are more interesting. There is even a fleeting reference to plans for a Nelson bank that were shelved when Kiwibank came along.

Kent finishes the narrative (but not the book) with a gung-ho action plan. The book finishes with notes, references and an index that together take up more than 60 pages.

- John Ewan.

Helen Dew (NZ) and Stephen De Meulenaere in Bali

2005-10-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

Helen Dew (NZ) and Stephen De Meulenaere in Bali
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Stephen is a Canadian working for Strohalm, an organisation from the Netherlands. He works in local currencies. See www. strohalm.ne to see what he is up to. He is a mine of information. Recently Helen Dew of Living Economies in New Zealand had to go to Bali for her son's wedding and it was an ideal opportunity to take my book to Stephen.

Stephen De Meulenaere's comments

2005-10-16T00:22:00.000-07:00

It was very nice to meet Helen when she was recently in Bali, who so kindly brought me your book to give to me! I have had a chance to read the book through, cover to cover when I was working in a poor rural village on the side of the massive Merapi Volcano in Yogyakarta City, central Java Island, where we are working to implement our Voucher Circulation System.

I'm very impressed with the book, the quality of the cover and paper, and the nicely written text. I see that you have included all of the suggestions that I made, and I agree completely with all that you say throughout the book, and about the areas where I have been involved, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico and Argentina.

Comment from Gwyneth Wright of the Womens Loan Fund

2005-10-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Deirdre

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I am delighted to have it and to share it with as many people as I can engage in conversation about the serious subject of money.

It is so well written that is is easily accessible and readers can get into the subject from many different angles, and so the book is immensely valuable in arousing interest.

Your work in making people think about the banking system and the creation of credit i.e. debt and to ponder on alternative systems. We in the Women's Loan Fund movement are aware of the destructive and growth-inducing effects of charging interest. In our own small way we are showing how those with a surplus of capital can enter into partnership with those who can use it productively. We take pride also in the fact that we keen money in the community that would otherwise be siphoned off – and probably up to no good in the global scene.

Your seminal work is of great worth to all of us who look for a better way – one that will look after people, so many of whom are caught in a virtual slavery to a system that should be working for, not against them. Thank you for undertaking it. It is a gift indeed.

With love and many good wishes

Gwyneth Wright (Thames)

Book launched in Christchurch, AGM of Living Economies

2005-09-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

Well I have just returned from a trip to Christchurch. Not only did we have another successful occasion where my book was launched but we had two excellent days of the Living Economies AGM. See www.le.org.nz for Living Economies. We have a new person on our board Carolyn Hughes and that is great as she is good value. She is a member of the Motueka Green Dollar group and has read my book. She has business background, particularly trade. And we had a student from Dunedin who is wanting to start a 'scarfie dollar.' We discussed his proposals and gave him advice. However right now most people are fairly preoccupied with the General Election and the results will be known on Saturday. The book launch was at Environment Canterbury, part of the offices of the Regional Council there and attracted almost as many people as the Waikanae one. Several bought the book. I also went out to breakfast with my sister Jill and present at the cafe was a university lecturer and Green Party campaigner who was interested. All sorts of people will read it. And I had an interview with Liz Griffiths who with two others does a radio programme on Plains FM called Earthwatch. It will be on at 10pm on a Wednesday night.

I also have an appointment in November with the marketing manager of the University of New South Wales bookshop. He sells books to sustainability courses.

I am going out to dinner tonight and the host, Souith African Yaj Chetty, has asked me to bring a copy of my book to sell to one of his friends. That is great now that people have read and can recommend the book. I had a lovely email from Miguel Hirota in Japan today. He has just written a book on money too.

He said:
" I'm not sure whether you have already received some feedback from your readers or not, but I find your book to be quite important for the development of complementary currencies in the world. I hope to have more chances to work for this purpose..."

Feedback from a LETS activist

2005-09-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

It is great to hear that so many New Zealand LETS schemes are now going online and otherwise improving the functioning of their systems. I talked to a Wanganui activist recently who was very enthusiastic. And here is feedback from someone in LETS who has read the book. With two time dollar systems starting in Christchurch, things are really looking up.

“I’m finding Deirdre’s book thorough and enlightening. I’m learning heaps! Before this my understanding of economies was minimal. Congratulations on a thorough work.”

Ron Sharp
LETS activist, Riwaka, Motueka

Speech made by Helen Dew at the launch of the book

2005-09-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

HMHP Launch speech – Helen Dew – 09.07.05

Deirdre, when one considers your background in maths and your fascination with figures it’s hardly surprising that you’d write a book about money!

The merging of this interest with your long standing commitment to environmental and social issues, as well as your tendency to question commonly held assumptions, have underpinned your determination to look beyond symptoms of dysfunctional systems to their root causes.

In the course of your very thorough research for HMHP you have gained considerable co-operation from an impressive network in the monetary reform community.

Through your dedication to learning and writing you have gained the well earned respect of many at the forefront of the currency movement, amply demonstrated by the very positive comments about HMHP already made by national and international authorities. NZ’s Prue Hyman said that your book “should be read by everyone concerned about social justice and the survival of the planet and humanity.”

I also quote Margrit Kennedy, whose 2001 visit to NZ inspired you to focus on this most important work: the transformation of the money system, to enable exchange systems that work positively for people and planet. In her message of congratulations to you Margrit wrote: “Deirdre’s book is ‘economics for everyone’ in the very best sense”

In Healthy Money, Healthy Planet you have explained in clear and convincing manner the inescapable connection between the design of the money system and intolerable pressures being placed on the environment and society.

In his forthcoming report to the Club of Rome, member Stefan Brunnhuber says “The money system is the most overlooked topic within the sustainability debate.”

I believe that HMHP will not only make a powerful contribution to increased monetary literacy, but by your comprehensive coverage of creative and tested exchange options you will also engender among your readers hope for a secure and sustainable future for generations to come, and access to the tools to make this possible.

Deirdre, getting HMHP published has taken skill, determination, commitment and courage! You can take pride in having created a reliable and vital resource in the drive for necessary re-localisation as communities grapple with the effects of ‘peak oil’.

I congratulate you and all who have contributed to the creation of this most important book, and now take great pleasure in declaring HMHP launched.

Deirdre, I sincerely trust that your book will prove to be a significant catalyst towards a paradigm shift in thought, action and outcome in the economic, environmental and social realm in New Zealand and beyond, translating the title of your book into reality!

Here’s to Deirdre, and to the success of Healthy Money, Healthy Planet!

Comment from a Democrat

2005-09-05T02:15:00.000-07:00

Having read the 1st three Chapters of 'Healthy Money, Healthy Planet' by Deirdre Kent which I bought at Conference, I urge all members to buy a copy and pass it on to a couple of vulnerable voters with time to read at least a few chapters before the election.

This looks like being the best exposition of the defects in the present monetary system, and the solution to the problems, that I have read. It's readable, far more accessible to the average reader than Rowbotham's book and centred on NZ with plenty of complimentary references to the Democrats.

Allen Cookson
Oxford Canterbury

And later....John and I would like to wholeheartedly endorse that, having also got a third the way through Deirdre's book (we take turns). It's readable, direct and clear.

We plan to pass it on as soon as we have finished it. Definitely get a copy if you can.

Katherine

Comment from Tim Inkpen, Canada

2005-07-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

Thank you Deirdre for such a wonderful book! I've just finished reading your work. It packs quite a punch. It is a powerful and rich critique of our monetary system. Your style is very accessible. You are able to take very complex issues and make them understandable to an average reader without becoming boring or dull. This is a rare gift. together with "Reinventing Money" by Thomas Greco and "The Future of Money" by Bernard Lietaer your work should become a standard text in a curriculum for alternative economics.

With a doctor and an economics teacher

2005-07-17T03:06:00.000-07:00

DSCN1317_1.jpg
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Dr Viola Palmer, Deirdre, Mary Harray. We were all friends from Tauranga days. Mary was an economics teacher for many years and has followed the book with interest. Viola works as a GP and is the spokesperson for GALA, Group Against Liquor Advertising.

Watch for North and South article August 11th

2005-07-17T02:43:00.001-07:00

A North and South journalist Jane Tollerton has written an article on two sisters whose books were published the same week. My sister Rachel McAlpine has written her fourth novel, called Humming and it is now on the best seller list for fiction for New Zealand.

Humming

It will make you laugh. Set in Golden Bay and involves a famous artist, a tai chi teacher and many others.

Publisher's media release focusses on pressure for economic growth, spiralling debt and alternative money systems

2005-07-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

MEDIA RELEASE

Healthy Money, Healthy Planet:
Developing sustainability through new money systems

By Deirdre Kent * $34.99 * Published June, 2005 * 320 pages * Craig Potton Publishing
Review copies available * contact Phillippa Duffy * phillippa@cpp.co.nz * Ph 03 548 3553

Healthy Money, Healthy Planet argues that much of the relentless pressure for global economic growth, which results in so much environmental and social damage, is due to our money system.

At a time when superstars, such as actor Brad Pitt and U2 singer/songwriter turned third-world debt-relief advocate Bono, are encouraging world leaders to consider collective approaches in relieving Africa’s spiralling debt crises, it is timely that New Zealanders look at their own monetary systems and its impact on our society. How often do we hear or read reports on increased household debt in New Zealand or new research into the impact and burden of student loans, and think only of the consequences, rather than any of the systemic causes?

Deirdre Kent, in Healthy Money, Healthy Planet, goes some way to addressing this, offering the reader accessible information to better assess and consider what some of these contributing factors are. In Part 1: ‘Sick Money’, Kent outlines the money multiplier effect and how banks create money through interest bearing debt. She then goes through the consequences of this: a growing debt spiral; a widening gap between rich and poor; the transfer of money overseas; and resultant instability.

We all deal with money in different forms every day – whether it’s through handling cash, using credit, personal loans and credit cards, understanding our or our children’s student loans, or taking on a mortgage. This book gives the ordinary New Zealander, those without an economics or finance background, an opportunity to really understand the mechanics of New Zealand’s monetary system and the impacts it has on our society. Some of what Kent discusses will be controversial, some worrying, and some illuminating. However, rather than just focussing on the negative impacts, Kent spends much of the book looking at solutions and alternatives such as barter and community-based currencies. In Part 2 ‘Healthy Money’, ideas and examples are offered on how we can make individual and community-based decisions to limit our reliance on, and exposure to, the damaging aspects of a spiralling debt system. The chapter on ‘Privately Issued Currency’ includes an interesting recap on the Chathams Islands Notes issued for the Millennium, their use on the island, and the ensuing media and public attention and resultant Reserve Bank action.

Deirdre Kent has been an environmental activist, a maths teacher, a Values Party candidate, a city councillor and a full-time campaigner as Director on ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). Her passion is to inform people how the money system we have inherited contributes to world-wide environmental and social problems and to promote monetary literacy to avert further degradation. She is a trustee of Living Economies (www.le.org.nz), an organisation set up for this purpose.

Deirdre Kent is available for interview. Contact Phillippa Duffy, Craig Potton Publishing to arrange an interview or seek more details for review purposes.

END

A book about Green Monetary Reform and Green Economics

2005-07-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

This book looks at the world's money system and its social and environmental consequences. It outlines how money is currently created as interest-bearing debt by commercial banks and reflects on the history of this process. Then it summarises all the appalling financial and environmental social effects of creating money in this way and asks what to do. Graphs show the rise in debt in several sectors including corporate, housing, student and credit card debt. To complete the section one on unhealthy money, there is a chapter on unhealthy globalisation, one on economic mismeasurement and one on answering the critics.

The second part of the book, larger than the first, starts to provide some solutions. It revisits the concept of money and outlines the reasons for complementary or local currencies. Many chapters then describe the various local currencies which have been used over the centuries and round the world at the moment, including LETS, commercial barter, timebanking, currencies with a circulation incentive. There are two chapters discussing why some local currencies are more successful than others, one on biomicry in organisational structures, one on community banking in New Zealand before a final chapter looking to the future and suggesting options for action.

It is completed with a bibliography, a list of organisation and websites and an index.

So this is a comprehensive book on green monetary reform and green economics for the information age.

Green economics in bookshop windows

2005-07-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

First, if you want to read about the book, go to Archives, then click on June. It is just that at the moment I have limited skills writing this website and I don't want to frustrate first time users who don't want to see a whole lot of photos of my booklaunch but want to find out about the book. OK, yesterday I discovered that Bennetts Government Bookshop has my book in the window. Bennetts is right near Parllament so all the government servants and politicians and lobbyists use it a lot, as they sell Hansard there and political books. This means green monetary reform is in the news. I had to order more books today as I have sold 50 already and the publicity has barely begun. I am off to a conference in Nighthawk, Colorado on 27th July and will be away for three weeks.

Some of the grandchildren for whom the book was written

2005-07-10T01:52:00.000-07:00

Some of the grandchildren for whom the book was written
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Hamish charged everywhere pushing a trolley full of blocks and toys. That's my daughter Rachel with the children.

Proud author

2005-07-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

Proud author
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

It was so nice to hear people say good things about my persistence and stamina throughout this project.

Malcolm Murchie introduces speakers

2005-07-10T01:49:00.000-07:00

Malcolm Murchie introduces speakers
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

My partner Malcolm Murchie, a long time monetary reformer, acts as the MC and says he is very proud. He refers to many published authors among the guests.

With granddaughter Tereana

2005-07-10T01:45:00.000-07:00

With granddaughter Tereana
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Tereana goes to boarding school and is in my custody. She did the housework beforehand and afterwards to earn money.

Derek Wilson, Susanna Kent and Daniel sell books

2005-07-10T01:28:00.000-07:00

Derek Wilson, Susanna Kent and Daniel sell books
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Derek wrote a big book called the Five Holocausts, outlining the problems faced by humanity. A retired architect he often writes to the paper. He is a board member of Pacific Institute for Resource Management which publishes Pacific Ecologist.

Anna and Finlay Thompson with baby

2005-07-10T01:27:00.000-07:00

Anna and Finlay Thompson with baby
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Finlay was a lecturer in Maths at the time he and I were working in the organisation we founded called NZ Banking Reform. Together we read and researched about the money system, visited the Reserve Bank and organised forums. Finlay's brother Alistair runs the www.scoop.co.nz website

Deirdre Kent and Helen Dew

2005-07-10T01:26:00.000-07:00

Deirdre Kent and Helen Dew
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Well my 7 year old grandson Daniel actually took this. Hence the angles look a bit wobbly. Helen Dew of Living Economies drove over from Carterton for the launch.

Economist Prue Hyman with Jill Abigail

2005-07-10T01:23:00.000-07:00

Economist Prue Hyman with Jill Abigail
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Book launch very successful

2005-07-10T00:55:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful celebration day, at our place in Waikanae. The photos tell the story. A book which took from 1997 when it was first dreamed up, 1999 when I put my computer down in a cold basement garage in Highbury, Wellington and dressed myself in hat, mittens, thick socks, big slippers and covered myself with a rug. I worked like this all winter until we had an office built upstairs. Then for four more years till publication. My friends and colleagues were delighted that it has come to fruition. MC at the event was my partner Malcolm Murchie, who drew attention to several published authors in the room and spoke of my persistence in the task. Helen Dew of Living Economies formally launched the book into the world. The contents of her speech are in a separate posting. Then my sister Rachel McAlpine, who has taught and published on writing and has just published her fourth novel, spoke of the way I had taken advice on writing and of the difficulty of getting a book published, as she advises many in this sometimes fruitless pursuit. Prue Hyman, the feminist economist who commends the book, spoke of its significance for those who want social justice. Family and friends enjoyed this occasion and made me feel proud, as the photos show. It was a great opportunity to thank all those who had supported me. I am running out of books to sell and must order more. I never dreamt I would sell 50 so quickly.

Books going to Whitcoulls July 7

2005-06-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

Good news today. Whitcoulls has ordered and Bennetts, the Whitcoulls Government Bookshop on the corner of Lambton Quay and Bowen Street has ordered a lot. They will be in there on July 7 so after that the books will go out for publicity and review purposes. Helen Dew of Living Economies says she is selling steadily too. And my launch will be at our home on July 9, so I now need to prepare for this.

Meanwhile the local currencies conference which was to have been held in Denver 1-5 August has been postponed due to the illhealth of the organiser. Fortunately others have scheduled one for the few days beforehand at Louisville, Colorado. I will be going to that!

At Unity Books Wellington

2005-06-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

At Unity Books Wellington. It is also in Easts and Scorpio in Christchurch, and places like Paper Plus in Hokitika!
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Deirdre with books at Dymocks bookshop Wellington

2005-06-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

Deirdre with books at Dymocks bookshop Wellington
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

Note the Dan Brown books nearby...

Healthy Money Healthy Planet in window at Unity Books Wellington

2005-06-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

Healthy Money Healthy Planet in window at Unity Books Wellington
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

And they got me to sign a dozen or so copies too!

The Cover of the book

2005-06-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

The Cover of the book
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

In case you can't read it, the subtitle is Developing Sustainability Through New Money Systems.

Deirdre Kent

2005-06-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Deirdre Kent
Originally uploaded by localcurrencies.

How to order the book

2005-06-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

You can either buy the book from the organisation of which I am a trustee, Living Economies or from Craig Potton Publishing. If you live overseas it would be easier to use the publisher's website.

Comment from Hazel Henderson

2005-06-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

A clear well-researched analysis of the dysfunctionality of our crisis-prone money systems. A wide array of case studies and viable options for reform are presented from global to local. Kent has provided a multi-disciplinary roadmap for shaping healthy, homegrown economies linked worldwide by a financial architecture based on principles of fairness, diveristy, social and ecological sustainability.

HAZEL HENDERSON, author of Building a Win-Win World and Paradigms in ProgressTEXT

TEXT

Comment from Richard Douthwaite

2005-06-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

This is the most comprehensive book on community banks and complementary currency systems I know. Not only that – it is packed with fascinating information and is a delight to read.

RICHARD DOUTHWAITE, author of Short Circuitand The Growth Illusion

Comment from Stefan Brunnhuber

2005-06-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

Congratulations! The money system is the most overlooked topic within the sustainability debate. This book is right in line with our argument which is going to be published as a Club of Rome report, 2005.

STEFAN BRUNNHUBER, psychiatrist and economist, co-author with Bernard Lietaer of Our Future Economy

Comment from Prue Hyman

2005-06-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

Deirdre Kent's book should be read by everyone concerned about social justice and the survival of the planet and humanity. It particularly indicts the orthodox and 'sick' monetary system as responsible for much of the failure of the world economy to deliver decent living standards to all and advocates 'healthy' and varied local currencies. Full of fascinating histories of earlier and current alternative money systems in New Zealand and elswhere, it is a compelling read.

PRUE HYMAN, Victoria University feminist economist

Comment from Margrit Kennedy

2005-06-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

Deirdre Kent in this powerful book provides a much-needed overview and critical evaluation of the reasons for changing our monetary beliefs and the theoretical as well as practical solutions which exist on a global scale. Without losing clarity and simplicity necessary to reach the layperson she has been able to include the complex issues surrounding the topic of money often ignored by the experts. This book is truly worthwhile reading for everybody who finally wants to understand contradictory developments caused by our moonetary system. It is 'economics for everyone' in the very best sense.

MARGRIT KENNEDY, author of Interest and Inflation free Money.

What people are saying about the book

2005-06-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

Beautifully done!! It is without question a very important piece of work that will help enormously in community sustainability.

ELIZABET SAHTOURIS PhD, author of Living Systems in Evolution

Deirdre Kent's book shoudl be read by everyone concerned about social justice and the survival of the planet and humanit.

PRUE HYMAN
Victoria University feminist economist

This is the most comprehensive book on community banks and complementary currency systems I know. Not only that - it is packed with fascinating information and a delight to read.

RICHARD DOUTHWAITE
Author of Short CircuitandThe Growth Illusion.

Healthy Money Healthy Planet

2005-06-21T02:28:00.000-07:00

Healthy Money Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems, by Deirdre Kent. Published by Craig Potton publishing June 2005.

Healthy Money Healthy Planet offers some solutions to a range of environmental and social problems throughout the world. The pressure for continuing economic growth has caused widespread environmental damage from overuse of natural resources and destruction of habitats. Social problems are created by rapidly increasing debt in the form of mortgages, credit cards and student loans, and the concentration of wealth and power.

Deirdre Kent mainatains that many of these probemes result from the creation of most of the country's money by private banks as interest-bearing debt, and that some central bankers, economists and politicians appear to be keeping the public in ignorance about the origins of money.

In order to reverse this trend and help develop more sustainable communities, Healthy Money Healthy Planet looks at complementary economies and monetary systems which have been tried in various countries, including New Zealand, and suggests how they could be implemented in the future. These include changes to the taxation system, community banking, commercial barter, voucher schemes and currencies with a circulation incentive.

Email me