Madison Hours Cooperative

I'm curious about how people plan to spend their economic stimulus check. Of course, I'm ignoring the larger question of whether this is good policy or not...

My plan is to put half towards energy efficiency improvements on my home and the other half on my mortgage.

Your thoughts?

As our economy continues to stumble, the housing crisis deepens and our national debt skyrockets the government has decided to try to sweep it all under the rug. The Bush Administration will shut down the popular economicindicators.gov on March 1 because of "budgetary constraints."

The site, administered by the Economics and Statistics Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce, is widely used by academics, economists and reporters. It is invaluable towards an informed public understanding of the state of our economy. It links data from a wide variety of Government agencies such as the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis to allow easy access to government data. One great feature of the site is email notification when selected agencies or departments issue new reports.

On November 15, several offices and operations of the Liberty Dollar were raided by the FBI and Secret Service. The seizure warrant was issued for money laundering, wire fraud and mail fraud. The Liberty Dollar is, like Madison HOURS, an alternative currency, but unlike Madison HOURS, not a local currency.

I, for one, don't know enough about Liberty Dollars to know what role it plays in our economy, compared to federal currency or local currency. What might this action mean for local currencies like Ithaca Hours and Madison HOURS? What does the raid say about federal government?

Liberty Dollars: http://www.libertydollar.org
WikiPedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar

Thoughts? Ideas?

Here's an animated video that explains how money works. There is a short section on Hour based money systems and on interest free money. Interesting ideas about how an interest-free government issued "value" money could work. "Setting up a local barter money system, even if little used now, would be prudent emergency planning for any community." - Narator

One of the best part of this video is the quotes from bankers and politicians.

Here's a quote from Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence..

That's what Emile (3.5) said when I asked him about what he thought about the pancake breakfast.

Well, I did too!! It was good to relax, and eat good food. The apples and pears and potatoes all warmed and filled our bellies. But how does Rob M. stay warm wearing no shirt with overalls, maybe cooking up the pancakes heats him up!!!

We can't find the pancake stickers. TO mark the next gathering.

We came home to listen to Paul Bunyan with the music by Leo Kottke, and that's all about eating pancakes and well logging in Wisc and Minn.

MJ

The striking fall of the dollar against other world currencies (-27% against the Euro over the last 2 years) has prompted many to wonder if the long-predicted collapse of the US financial empire is at hand. Combined with the still-unfolding “sub-prime” mortgage crisis -- expected now to wipe as much $1 trillion off the world economic ledger, mostly from the accounts of the working class and poor -- the resulting global recession may ultimately run the economies of rising stars like China and the European Union off the rails.

Mainstream economists had largely been blind to the crisis until the symptoms became too obvious to ignore in the past 18 months or so. Those who study money systems -- including such notables as Bernard Leitaer, who designed the European monetary union -- have been warning about the dangers of a central-banking-induced monetary catastrophe for years.