"How the recession could improve your life"

(This section is taken from Thomas L Greco's Report From New Zealand, April 21st 2009, covering the many talks and events he attended whilst in NZ):

The national Community Currencies Conference (April 17-19) brought together well over 100 enthusiastic participants who convened at the Quaker Settlement in Wanganui to share information and discuss new possibilities. My Keynote presentation delivered on Saturday morning (April 18) was titled:

Reclaiming The Credit Commons: The Key to Sustainability and Relocalization.

Prefaced with a brief outline of my vision of societal metamorphosis, I argued that liberating the exchange process from monopoly control by means of localization and popularization of credit is a necessary prerequisite to achieving a steady-state economy and the devolution of power to local communities.

On Monday, the day before my departure for Australia, Laurence took a few of us on a tour of the Environmental Center and a couple  of Community Gardens around Wanganui. Towards the end of our tour he received a call from Merania, a reporter who writes for the local daily newspaper. She wanted to do an interview for a feature story, so we hurried back to the Environmental Center to meet her there. She spent quite a bit of time asking questions not only of me but also of Helen Dew and Margaret Jefferies, conference presenters who were in our party. Merania called back later in the evening to say that the editors had liked the story so much that it would be a front page feature in the next morning’s edition.

Before leaving for the airport the next day, Laurence went out to fetch some copies of the paper. There it was, complete with photo of me with Helen holding a copy of my previous book, Money. The headline read:

"How the recession could improve your life" and was capped with the tag, "Finance guru’s claim". Gosh, there’s nothing like a bit of praise to make one feel humble."

Tom

Tomas L Greco's website http://www.Reinventingmoney.com

[Pip's interpretation.... to keep the money and build value into our community, we have to support the local economy.  Time Banking and alternative currencies, like bartering, as well as shopping for local goods and services all help.]