MEMO from Thomas H. Greco

Dear friends,

Here's your link to the excerpted, e-book version (in PDF format) of my new
book, MONEY: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, just
published by Chelsea Green in January, 2002 (Paper, 295 pp, $19.95):

http://www.chelseagreen.com/Livelihood/MoneyEBook.htm.

This book has been in the works for more than 4 years. It goes well beyond my
previous books in demystifying the subject of money and outlining equitable,
community-based exchange alternatives. Once you've read MONEY, you'll never
think the same about what money is, what money does, how it is created, whom it
benefits, and how the creation of parallel currencies outside of money as legal
tender has the potential to transform community economic life.

Vicki Robin, co-author of the best-selling YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE and writer
of the book's Foreword, gives us the metaphor we need: Dorothy's little dog
Toto pulling back the curtain to reveal the "wizard" for what he really is, a
fraud and a deception. So it is with money. We are dazzled by the glittering Oz
of money, banking, and finance, thinking it magical and beyond our
comprehension. But wait a minute, like the little man at the controls trying
desperately to pull the curtain closed, the financial cognoscenti are happy to
keep us uninformed. Money is actually nothing more than a human idea, an
agreement about how goods and services are exchanged.

And, guess what? The rules of the money game are made to favor particular
groups. They're set and controlled by the banks, (not the government, not the
people) where 95% of all money is created as interest-bearing debt. This
inherently unstable system  (the money supply is always lagging behind the
growing amount of debt) creates and fuels the cancerous growth that now
threatens to overwhelm the life support systems of the planet. Imagine playing
a game of Monopoly in which all money must be borrowed at interest from the
bank    who do you think would win?

But, there's hope. "The forgotten history of money is about how people can
create their own." This book shows how the creation of parallel currency and
credit systems can work to sustain and protect communities and their local
economies, reinforcing the values of social justice, self-reliance, economic
equity, and personal freedom. These alternative money systems have a long
history, from depression-era scrip, to the Swiss WIR business group trading
system (17% of Swiss businesses and 2.5 billion Swiss francs in annual
trading), to the newer LETS (local employment and trading) systems, Toronto
Dollars, YES (youth employment scrip), e-currency models, and more. The growth
of alternative currency systems world-wide has been astonishing, from  less
than 100 in 1990 to well over 2000 today.

In Argentina, currently perched on a mountain of debt and threatening to topple
into default, the RGT (Global Trading Network) is a social money movement that
sustains a half a million families and offers insulation and protection from
the adverse effects of economic globalization. Perhaps New York City  should
look to this model as it struggles to counter the severe economic effects of
the World Trade Center attacks (see my  letter to Mayor-elect  Bloomberg).

Need more reasons to read MONEY? Check out the above website.

Bound copies can be ordered through Chelsea Green, Amazon.com, or Green Books
(UK).


Sincerely,

Tom Greco