STYLE LeftMargin 3,RightMargin 6,TopMargin 1,BottomMargin 1
R 65,J,T 5
John Zube, POB 52, Berrima, NSW 2577, Australia       15 May 96

Thomas H. Greco, Jr., POB 42 663, Tucson, Arizona 85 733

Dear Thomas,
             thanks for your very welcome letter of May 1,received yesterday and the enclosed leaflet and print-out.

While I do recognize the need for adequate cataloguing of longlists of books, who is to do the labour? David Taylor died ca.1990, after he had databanked my collection to about PP 868 onhis Amiga system. I do not know what happened to that databank.In his last days of sickness he did become rather unreasonableand blamed everybody, even those who tried to save his life. Iwas on the road in the U.S. or Europe when he died and do notknow his last contacts.

I do include more and more descriptive terms or cross referencesin my general list, mainly by authors and the computerizedversion of it, as I pointed out in my previous letter, can besearched very fast with a good computer. Admittedly, it does notabstract all the titles systematically but it is a start. A moredetailed description would require probably a threefold tofourfold length of the present list, i.e. ca. 2,000 to 3,000pages. I have still not got a copy of the zipped version of it,which would make the list available on a single disk. It may havebeen loaded in this version on the IN, too.

I did acquire another system back in October 94 but it took me meabout 18 months before I got around to set it up, roughly with asmall new laser printer. In the meantime I simply used the oldersystem for word processing. But now half its screen isdeteriorated and the HD is getting noisy. So I had to act withthe new one. And this system has already given me lots oftrouble, with a broken main switch, broken mouse seating in thecase, vanishing back lighting and continuously running disk. Thelast 2 faults remain still, after the guaranty is long expired,and I intend to bring it it for a probably costly repair duringthe next few days.
It is an Olivetti laptop, the Philos 20, with an Intel 80 486 SL-25 MHz processor and 120 HD and inbuilt Windows 31, MSDOS 6 and120 HD and 1.4 MB diskdrive and Smallprinter from Xerox. All toomuch is taken up by the too me so far largely useless WindowsSoftware. So I continue operating it with Sprint word processoron a separate directory. So far it gives me only one font -another one, reduced and only on the left half of a page, onceappeared accidentally, never to see the light again. It is a neatlittle machine, small and lightweight, but with the usual batterytroubles. I had the original 4 MB RAM added to or replaced by a 8MB RAM - but still my drive keeps running all the time. On theold Zenith it only cuts in occasionally, during typing pauses,and automatically, to save the latest entries.
With the new machine, only twice, for seconds it stopped, givingblissful silence, then it took up its noise production again, onits own. That neither does do good to drive nor to the batteries.I fear that a loose contact is involved regarding the back lightand a too sticky one for the drive. When I started this letterthe backlight was out again. Knocking the machine and shaking itdid not help but closing and opening the lid did!
On such flaws they ought to give more than one year guaranty. Butthen, if only I had installed it immmediately or soon, all thetroubles might be ironed out by now, without cost to me. 
To a complaint letter to Olivetti I got only a telephone enquirymonths later, after I had finally installed the system and it didsomewhat operate. I forgot to mention then and there the tworemaining complaints. And another one, a too small cursor. Itried to follow the advice in Wolverton's Supercharging MSDOSexactly, but it did not work out as he said that it might. Nolarge cursor yet, flickering on the whole square of a letter andthus easy to see.

I have still boxes of free banking writings that I want toinclude in my series and further boxes of Beckerath writings,mainly on this subject. This material is so important that I willstop only once I run out of it. Then I will start by indexing theBeckerath writings first of all. Perhaps partly translating it,at least significant passages, in the process.

To distill and disseminate this knowledge, I still plan upon analphabetized free banking handbook but I do doubt that e.g. LETSenthusiasts and other local currency advocates and practitionerswill be interested, in most cases. They showed no interest inalternative ideas during a public meeting here, where Linton waspresent, but were rather annoyed that I dared to offer them. Whenyou believe that you already know the solution then you do notexplore and think further but become selectively blind andprejudiced instead.

I am also thinking of tabulating, further, the characteristics,flawed and true, of proposed alternative exchange media and valuestandards. That would also help to classify entries on particularmonetary reformers and theories. But so far only some oldtypewritten drafts for such tables exist, very incompletelyfilled out. Ideally, dozens should collaborate on such a project.

In a way the unworkability of the central banking system isalready proven by its results - inflations, deflations,stagflations, their bankruptcies and mass unemployment. Alas, thesystem and its supporters were and are still able to blame othersfor their mistakes. Rittershausen wrote a book on the centralbank, to make it run as good as such an institution could be run,doing as little damage and wrong as possible. But, inherently andinevitably it does already do much wrong and harm. But there aredifferences even between despotism and despotisms and somethingseemingly as contradictory as a somewhat enlightened despotism isalso possible.

I would have liked to see compiled, e.g., a history of legaltender legislation and its results in the following inflations.With enough such information almost fully compiled it would nolonger be a mere "post hoc ergo propter hoc" observation but anaccumulated economic experience.

You have, of course, "the" Beckerath booklet from Theo Megalli? Ido not know what you mean thereby. Apart from numerous articles,published and unpublished, and numerous letters and drafts onthis subject, Beckerath wrote 3 major books on free banking ( PP9-11 ) and one practical action programme, for Berlin, in theheydays of its post WW II unemployment, the Berlin Programme.

I was thinking of sending you now one of the Milhaud volumes onthe Scrip alternative, in PP 769 and its predecessor. Alas, theEnglish version of the latter has apparently not yet been filmedby me, probably because it is not in my possession. And 769 youmust have got when I sorted out free banking titles 766-816 foryou. It also contains a Zander article on scrip. Let me know thetitles you do have.

You suggest a conventional desk top and a colour monitor. I doabhor both, as additional radiation risks. I still do not fancybeing irradiated, sitting hours a day a short distance before acathode tube display. There are radiation risks I cannot avoidand there are others that I can avoid or reduce. Thus I havealways confined myself to laptops with their less hazardous LCDs.

You did once send me or give me a copy of file express but I havenot yet got around to use it. I also bought or got some otherdatabanks, cheaply and one is enclosed with Microsoft Works,bought October 94. This package is still unopened. Another may bepart of my Word Star 5 word processor but I have not got aroundto try it, either. Robert Carnaghan sent me a copy of Protec orsimilar but again, I got not the time and energy to try them outand compare and then to apply them to my list. The ordinary otherwordprocessing and microfiching chores do keep me busy enough.Some of the disks were not accepted by my old system at all andothers, like Klaus Falke's disk on his clearing system, weremutilated in the text into illegibility.

I ought also to find a way to clear my system of programs, again,again, once I find them useless, if I do. My system is alreadyhalf filled with the pre-programmed Windows and MS-DOS, most ofwhich I do not use.

Theo dropped out of monetary freedom activities for the timebeing. Siegfried Schwenke may still be somewhat active but I havenot heard directly from him for a long time. The MackayGesellschaft is being revived by Uwe Timm, with hits own littlemagazine. Mark Sullivan has also been inactive in this respectfor a number of years.

I do think that you do pursue a red herring with your macroeconomic researches into the total amount of debt and thequantity of currency existing and calculated in one or the otherway. "It is very hard to extract the nucleus of truth from thingsthat just aren't so." - Will Cuppy in ANALOG 5/96.
An ancient fallacy seems also involved, which might be statedthus : "The quantity of money does not automatically grow or isnot intentionally and accurately increased, as required, whileinterest grows and grows and thus money would become sooninsufficient to pay all debts plus interest and interest oninterest." The same kind or argument exists for, or, rather,against, dividends, profits, rent and the so-called "surplusvalue", supposedly extorted by employers and not ploughed back inthe economy, and, naturally, for all kinds of taxes and otheroffical takes and for monopoly charges above free market rates.The same fallacy is involved in mercantilist "thinking" andsupposed "balance of trade" deficits. It exists also for asupposed and unnatural gap between savings and investments,between hoarded and circulating money. Monopoly money is alwayspresupposed.
It should actually surprise you that there are ever times inwhich most debts, including interest, are actually paid and moreor less in time, too, with the remainder being covered by therisk premium also involved in the interest charge.

The crisis theory that is involved in these kinds of notions isjust one among literally hundreds. I wish they were all listed onthe IN, together with all the counter-arguments and the pro andcon on these.
That workers can't buy back their product and that businessmenand factories go broke does indicate at least one flaw in thepayments and clearing system but that one is not necessarilyeither "interest" or "profit" or "rent", or "price gauging" or"exploitation" or any of the facile over-simplifications andfalse "explanations" and "leads" that are popularly quoted oreven advanced by "scientists", who blame population, immigrants,machines, automation, computerization or, simply "greed".

While this argument has a superficial plausibility and in somerespects even a backing by some facts, namely that the monetarysystem in existence is often not able to mediate all possible anddesired exchanges, two major factors are ignored in this view.The one is the time factor. The other is the monopoly factor orthe possibility of free issues that adapt to all economicrequirements for exchange media and value standards and that ofreally free clearing options.

Perhaps the myths, fallacies, errors, false definitions orconclusions on money, currency, credit, banks, covers andsecurities, issue and reflux requirements, legal tender, freemarket rating for currencies, assets and capacities that can be"monetized", debts that can be cleared, deposits, savings,investments, etc., are more numerous - and less catalogued andrefuted that those on any other subject as yet. Even many of theadvanced money reformers, like yourself, have still not been ableto shake off all of them. It does require a cooperative effort.Others will have to bother to list and prove mine.

We ought to make at least a start with efforts to compile such ahandbook on monetary freedom, starting with the basic terms,their various definitions and varieties ( e.g. free banking inthe U.S., vs. the UK vs. the German tradition ) and the variouscontroversies surrounding each of them, e.g. Say's Law, Gresham'sLaw. I have so far one German such listing and two English ones,all three not yet combined, a long rambling compilation, not evenprinted out yet and numerous older and new notes which just needtranscripton and alphabetization into a single listing. I am notafraid of repetitions or a number of slightly differentdefinitions and explanations on the same concept or experience.They can be edited lateron. Completeness is the primary aim, asfar as an individual can reach it, without making it a lifetimeof labour. A round robin on disk between us, and perhaps someothers, prior to its deposit on the Internet, may speed up thisprocess. Some more on this below.

"We are still very far from really KNOWING the economy" -someone, one day said. We only more or less pretend to know itand that our definitions and descriptions would fit itsufficiently. But one can lay down ground rules for soundalternative currencies and can describe some basic mistakes thatcould and should be avoided in free issues and free clearingattempts.

In a really free system each official or private paymentcommunity ( circle of extensive two way payments within it )could and should issue most of the exchange media it requires, orarrange for corresponding clearing instead. In essence allexchange media are clearing media, too, just utilizing adifferent and multi-level and annonymous clearing technique. Itdoes not matter whether the clearing tokens are gold or silvercoins, nuggets or bars, wooden, plastic, cheap metal tokens orbook entries or electronic signals. As long as they fulfil amoney function they do also fulfil a basic clearing function.Giving it another name does not give it another function. Therare commodities that were long and almost exclusively used didconfuse the issue and introduce the unnecessary notion ofconvertibility at any time into them even for all papersubstitutes. In many cases the tokens simplify the clearingfunction. E.g. it would be cumbersome to pay for your newspaperor Coca Cola or coffee or tea or milk shake in every case withyour credit card. ( Unless it is a smart card. But even then, theinstalled computer power behind it and even the electricity usedin the process would be wasteful. )
Issue and clearing freedom could take care of any short term debtpayment plus interest payment requirements ( including instalmentrepayments of large capital loans, repeated in short intervals).In essence, the debtor would then be paying or would be enabledto pay with assignments upon his goods or services or labour. Hewould no longer and almost absolutely depend, for monetarypurposes, upon a monopolized exchange medium and value standardand their current manipulation techniques and practices.

Sometimes even the interest and dividend coupons, attached tocapital securities, can and have been used directly, as means ofpayment, towards those who would otherwise and a bit later haveto redeem them in cash ( which might be in short supply ).Naturally, that can only happen a few days to a few weeks beforethese interest payments become due. One of the ancestors ofUlrich von Beckerath, in Krefeld, in the Rhineland, was a smallbanker and he got somewhat wealthy by promoting such and similardebt settlements, which saved the participants cash, which theyoften did not have in abundance, and it added to the supply orreadily usable exchange media.

Normally, a soundly issued local currency would be locally morewidely used than just by the issuers, their direct creditors anddebtors, i.e., used to settle many other accounts between otherlocal people, too, even capital accounts. And the same quantityof money could not only settle its own total amount in aninstant, if all paid in an instant, but, over a short period,many times its total amount, by changing hands frequently, beforestreaming back to the issuer, or by completing several circles,including the issuer, before the note is withdrawn fromcirculation. Moreover, a relatively small quantity of ready cashcan also normally bear a large overhead of non-cash and clearingtransactions, in NORMAL payment times, mind you, when almost noone, in his right mind, thinks of demanding a cash settlementinstead. Difficulties arise only when a juridical, customary andpanicky claim for cash payments is made and when people areallowed to refuse possible clearing settlements, precisely when,under monetary despotism, a temporary and severe cash shortagedoes appear, which a centralized banking system is not ready torapidly enough respond to. Thus a small shortage of cash can berapidly blown up into a very large one.

When you consider all money as essentially a means for clearingand when all clearing is free and all clearing options are knownand sufficiently utilized then the whole notion of a supposedneed for a minimum "quantity" of money disappears into thin air.Clearing does not need a quantity of exchange medium or one orthe other forms of cash, far less legal tender cash, Actually, itneeds no "money" in the usual terms at all, far less a certainquantity of money. Only an agreed upon value standard is requiredand that has also to be used, or a convertible equivalento it, inexpressing the debts and credits involved, the prices, wages,fees and charges. Money circulation and requirement in theclearing transaction itself is zero. The transaction speed or "circulation" speed of the accounting standard is theoreticallylimitless, the "value" can be transmitted across the earthinstantaneously. Only proof of the transaction takes longer. Itdoes not even, in essence, take a minute or a second or anyquantity of time to settle equal debts and  arrive a  zero debtsituation between two people, for the time being, or at acorrespondingly reduced balance between them. Nor does such atransaction require the presence of any quantity of money incirculation. Some money in circulation merely somewhatfacilitates the total number of clearing transactions thathappens in the economy.

In reality many clearing transactions, especially the importantones of turn-over credit, do use physical means of payment,especially for wage payments, and require a settlement period of1-3 months, traditionally. That time might be shortened nowadaysbut is in practice not reduced to zero. But such a reduction isoften not required, either. Many merchants will not even botherto charge you interest, if a direct or indirect settlement isassured to them in 1-3 months. Currently even 6 to 12 months ofinterest free credits are offered or freedom from paymentinstalments for the next 3 months. Compared with their profitmargin their possible interest claims, on short term consumercredits, wax into insignificance.

Interest payments are not something inherently unnatural,obstructive, sinful, exploitative, usurious etc., but, under fullfreedom, just a fee, charge, price, part of the total flow ofearnings and expenditures and they do have a special role to playin guiding and rewarding the efficient use of savings and creditsor loans.

Indeed, the position of a debtor, for the payment of debt andinterest can become desperate when he and his customers arevictims of monetary despotism, when the central bank system or a100% gold dollar a la Rothbard, is not then and there insufficient supply to mediate the exchanges and debt settlementsthey desire and which would otherwise be economically possible.

To compare the total amount of money circulating now with all thedebts it and clearing is to settle over a prolonged period, on xdifferent dates, in y different instalments, is simply absurd. Itis like saying that every person in a country can spend only asmuch in e.g. a year as corresponds to his part in the total moneycirculation of a country that exists either at the beginning orat the end of a year. The quantity of one breath does not have tolast us for a full year, either. We can breathe in even the sameair several times, though with much reduced efficiency. Which isthe quantity of air a man needs. Does it have to be instantlyavailable to him? Is he in deperate straits if it is not? Thatmight apply to a space ship pilot, on a year long trip but not tous. A medium can either go on circulating, numerous times, or,like theatre tickets, it can be replaced numerous times, wheneverneeded and to the extent that it is needed. I have never heard oftheatre owners complaining that they have difficulties inproperly managing the quantity of their tickets to satisfy alltheir potential customers. The same applies to railways, busesetc. And if one printer charges them too much then they simply goto another.

When there are no blockages to free exchanges customers will pay,in the prices and rents and fees and charges, also all theinterest charges that are involved - out of their normalearnings. And their normal earnings will come from exchanges thatare facilitated by monetary transactions and more so by suchtransactions under monetary freedom.

Monetary freedom does not exist in order to reduce interest. Insome cases it might do so, e.g. in turnover credit. In othercases it might not. The freeing up of all innovative optionsmight lead to more venture capital being successfully investedand the average investment returns, including interest returns,rising. And it is quite possible that the options for more andmore profitable capital investments will continue to rise fasterthan capital is saved, if saving and investment remains anactivity that is mainly and consciously engaged in only byrelatively few instead of by all who could and should profit fromthese opportunities. Perhaps at one stage investmentopportunities might level off. E.g. if most of us becameself-supporting retreatists. Then an abundance of savings wouldchase after the few remaining opportunities and interest even forlong term, secure and inflation and tax proof investments andinterest earnings might become very low. Only the actualhappenings on the market and its free haggling can determinethat. But we should not aim mainly at no interest or low interestbut at freeing all transactions, even uneconomic oncs, for thosewho want them.

What is to be confronted, if one could statistically do so andwould have to do so, is not the current cash with all thecurrently due debts and interest PLUS all the future or near,middle term and long term debt and interest payments but onlywith the currently and very soon due debts and interest.

Basically, one only goes into debt, commercially, agriculturallyor industrially, when one has reason to believe that one's addedvalue will not only repay the capital plus the interest, plus therent, the labour, the taxes, the supliers, the tradesmen used,the wear of the machines, the management, the utilities, i.e.that one will be able to pay the costs and make a profit.    
Why single out interest here?

During my U.S. trip I made one interest free loan of $ 500 to oneof the persons I visited. My complaint is that I did not get thecapital back but merely  a repeated promise of payment.  And eventhis promise has not been repeated for years. Nor was aninflation adjustment promised. Do you think, that as a result, Iwill make many more such interest free loans, to that person, oreven to close friends and ideological affiliates or fellow moneyreformers or monetary theoreticians. He was a monetarya reformerand computer specialist, too. Perhaps such persons should beblacklisted in the Internet?

Unless they have charitable or tax motivations or philantropic orfuturistic or ideological ones, why should anyone, who managed toacquire some capital under present conditions, feel any incentiveto make it available to others at rates that do not even recoverhis inflation, tax and bad debt losses?

Indebted countries, in most cases, could easily repay theirinternational debts and interest payments upon them ( governmentdebts excepted ) by free trade, using international clearingcertificates, as suggested by Milhaud and Beckerath, for theirtransactions. They could even introduce free trade unilaterallyor only for their supporters of free trade. Naturally, whengovernments officials of one country make uneconomic loans toother government officials of other countries, such "investments"are often unrecoverable and do more harm than good, e.g. byincreasing the military and police expenditures of the assistedcountries.

You speak of having "to prove the impossibility of paying off thedebt... amount owed to banks." - What gave you this funny moneyidea? Do you really think that that the banks are able andwilling to hold us in eternal "peonage", like some landlords didtheir peasant labour force?
One of the many justified complaints against current bankingpractices is rather that they demand excessive and almost liquidsecurities, which upon a forced sale would easily repay a debt.Other loan requirements are largely neglected in favour of suchones, because they do no longer know the real business of banksbut act bureaucratically. And sometimes they refuse loans evenupon the best securities and upon large turn-overs and provenpersonal integrity. They are not interested in acquiring debtorswho cannot possibly repay them. Nor interested in increasing thenumbers of such debtors and the amounts of such debts. You writeas if banks aim mainly to become creditors of illiquid debtorsand as if they wanted to perpetuate such a relationship. Ascapital investors themselves and as trustees for the funds oftheir depositors, they have a quite different interest.

Only a monopoly money supply CAN BE DEPLETED. Under freedom toproduce lollies, shoes and money tokens we are not likely tosuffer any shortage of either. Under monetary freedom, especiallyfreedom to issue and to clear, any shortage of presentlyavailable cash and clearing facilities can be very rapidlyreplaced, WITHIN HOURS, by people free to do so and knowing andappreciating the technique for doing this.

Monetary freedom will also radically change, in a short time, thehave and have not situation and the free and unfree situation.The ability to pay one's way can work "wonders"in almost everysphere.

"Debt repayments to banks, however, result in money beingextinguished, as you know..." Fiddlesticks! I know no such thing.Nor do the bankers or any of their employees. I have not heard ofa single banker, ever, who always burned or cancelled all thenotes or coins returned to him in debt payment. He used them ortheir equivalent, in new issues ( when the old ones, as in theBank of England issues of old, were worn or were replaced forsecurity and accounting purposes, keeping track of their numbers,e.g. to check for forgeries and issuing new series instead).
Why do you think that banks do act so foolishly? Do you know ofany capitalist who lent out money on interest and then, upongetting it paid back with interest, burns it?

"... in short, most of the accured interest gets loaned out, notspent back into circulation...." - This is a distinction withouta difference. Those borrowing money do not hold it, until it,hopefully, "breeds" interest, but, instead, do spend it to makeproductive or commercial use with it. Thus they do CIRCULATE it.MAKING more money in the process, not only to pay the interestand all other costs but, in the average, also achieve a profitfor them. 

You have inherited in this respect a number of fixed ideas whichyou should closely examine for their validity or non-validity.Even the present system, as bad as it is, is not as bad andabsurd as you make it out to be here. 

A banker, by accumulating many debt and credit relationships,cannot, successfully, act otherwise than successful singlecreditors and debtors would. He and the politicians are notworking in a different and magical world with different laws. Butmany of their transactions could not stand close scrutiny or thetest of time, especially when they are not subjected to full freebanking or panarchistic competition.

At present, in this segment of your letter, you seem lost in alabyrinth of false and prejudiced views on banking and interest.

According to you even the increased owner capital of a bank ownerbecomes a liability rather than an increased asset! So if thebanker gets richer, according to this his debts increase and hegets poorer!

Anyhow, most of the savings and investment banks have nothing todo with the supply of money. The central banks do look after thatpart or fail more or less to do so. The others are forced totrade with the monopoly money of the central banks and put upwith its monetary "policies" or mismanagement. At best they canengage in more or less restricted clearing, thus supplementingthe total exchange opportunities provided by the limited amountsof legal tender cash issued by the central bank. They cannotcreate out of thin air a single additional cent.

Thanks for the non-exclusive right to make and sell microfichecopies only of NEW MONEY FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, up to 200duplicates. When they are finally sold then the agreement is tobe renegotiated. Being limited right away to 100 I was not goingto bother to involve myself in the labours it would cost me andto outlay the initial small costs. 200 are already anothermatter. So far, I have not distributed or sold more than 200 ofany issue yet, I believe, apart from my catalog fiche.

Seeing that both you and Nicholas Albery ( Institute for SocialInventions ) received only a trickle of additional orders throughyour Internet presence, SO FAR, I could, for the time being,expect even less than a trickle for my microfiched literature.This situation might change. I will wait for better indicatorsand in the meantime just have some of my lists and bibliographiesand perhaps a collection of letters and articles on the IN.

I was finally informed where my 1995 LMP list of ca. 605 pp ( ca.2 MB) has been "buried" on the IN, together with my 9/95Australian Freedom Addresses, for a few months now : 
    Usenet, under : Alt.Soc.Anarchy
The one he kept or sent it there, under this label, not veryindicative and suitable, has no direct Internet access yet. Hereckons he would have to invest another $ 1,500 for that andlooked hopefully to me, naturally, in vain. Still no enquiry fromthat source or other entries made years previously, by others.

I was also glad to hear of encryption techniques available now tosafeguard the privacy of electronic payments - but I do not quitetrust them as yet. Alas, sooner or later all cash transactionsmay be computer scanned, too, at least when paper notes are usedand these come to carry bar codes or other readable signals, tooand when you may have to certify their origin with a computerrecognizable fingerprint or retina scan or voice imprint.

Czechs were among the first to utilize vouchers to ordinary taxvistims in their reprivatization scheme. But they do not seem tohave tackled it in this way in an over-all scheme. They do have ahigh percentage of very intelligent people among them.  But mostare as likely to hold e.g. collective responsiblity "points ofview" as people of other nations have.
 
Regarding your YOUTH EMPLOYMENT SERVICE EXCHANGE compare the"Arbeitsbeschaffungsbank" ( Employment Provision Bank ) proposedby Ulrich von Beckerath and its Statutes, in PP 9-11, especiallyin PP 10 : "Must Full Employment Cost Money?" indexed in PP 11.Most of the research you intend to undertake was already done byUlrich von Beckerath, from ca. 1913 onwards, until he died, in1969, and recorded also in some supplementary works, especiallyby Rittershausen and Zander. I am reminded of a story my fatherreported in support of his Ideas Archive project. A Swiss firminvested SF 20,000 in special research and got the desiredresult. Then it found out that the result was long available in abook costing only SF 20.

The real issuers and backers and lenders should, quite obviously,be the retailers, supermarkets, department stores, other storesand service providers in the community and they should organizetheir common note issue cooperatively or in a partnership. Theymust have the agreement of their own employees and of theirsuppliers to accept their notes and also the agreement of otheremployees in the locality and their employers, and, possibly, ofthe unions involved, for the acceptance of these standardizedIOUs ( goods warrants, credit slips, purchasing certificates,shop currency etc. ) of their local shop association, in moneydenominations, in wage and salary payments.  The scrip must alsonot be hopefully and unilaterally issued by some centre, inhandouts  but issued only in short term turnover loans, perhapsbest, as you do also suggest, for wage payments. The totals ofthese loans must never exceed the immediately available shopfoundation or readiness to sell of the participating stores. Normust more than a certain percentage ever be granted to a singleemployer among many others. Nor must such payments be toemployers outside the region and otherside the main localshopping area of most of the employees. And these loans must bestricly repayable and recouped, very soon. To assure this, even ahigh interest or user charge might be levied to speed up therepayment. Some might levy this only on those who repay late andfor the benefit of those who repaid early or on time.
Otherwise the local scrip issue might be as hopeful and misguidedas those of a a central bank issue for a whole country.
Third parties have no right to dispose thus over the creativeenergies of others.

An agreement with the tax and rate levying authorities must alsobe reached. Otherwise, consider that the local turnover mightconceivably double as a result of your issues but only in thisalternative local currency. Then the authorities might demanddouble the tax amounts but not in local currency but ingovernment legal tender insteadtender, of which they do not haveenough even now. That could bring the whole experiment tobankruptcy. Thus an arrangement ought also be made that e.g.local social service payments and local unemployment relief andpension payments are also to be paid in the local scrip, at leastpartly, to the extent that local taxes are paid in this scrip.

A free market rating of the local currency against the governmentdollar and other standards ought to be established very soon, ifnot immediately, so that  any overissue could be rapidlydiscovered and further issues for the time being stopped, untilpar value is again achieved. To continue an issue when the notesare already and remain under a discount is a recipe for disaster.

I can understand that you do want to make a living by getting aminimum amount subscribed. Beckerath, for some years, earned amodest living  by asking for an all-over daily payment of RM 50,including his railway fare and hotel stay and food bills, for aday's work for any German building and loan coop, updating theirstatutes and rules to the best of the English and U.S.traditions. A series of relevant articles in their magazines hadmade him sufficiently known as an expert on this.

I do not have a complete listing of the PP issues that I gave orsent you over the years or that you may have ordered from me.Please let me know which ones you do have. It is easy enough toarrange them by PP numbers and to find the relevant numberthrough the catalog, in most cases.

1172 was just one of my catalog fiche. 1022 has the free bankingbibliography. 1278 is the latest general LMP catalog. Asupplementary listing of ca. 60 pages is being prepared forfiching now.

Please, consult the circulation charts in PP 41.

Maybe there exists in the U.S. still a loophole in the law thatwould permit "bills of exchange" for clearing purposes only. Butit is more likely that the acts that outlawed even clearing housecertificates, after 1907, would have outlawed these, too. 

I have still been unable to get a copy of the Federal Reserve Actof 1913 with amendments. I saw once a copy in the library of oneSocial Credit man and tried to point out the issue monopolyclause in it. But the text was so unorganized that I could notfind it in rapid browing through it.

Pick's surveys concentrated, alas, on legal tender issues. Youget better surveys on private issue from coin and moneycollection books. But the Mitchell and Shafer survey ofDepression Scrip of the U.S. sounds very interesting and so doesthe equivalent, prepared for Europe. I know no better investmentfor my remaining small stock of U.S. notes at present than thesetwo works - if I could get full ordering information for orderingby mail.

Thanks also for the IN addresses regarding money.

I left letters unanswered for years and often for months. Howcould I cope with a stream of e-mail? Ignore most of it?

Perhaps it would be better if we engaged in a floppy diskexchange or, better still, if we worked on one disk discussion,going back and forth, retaining duplicates, and adding when andwhere needed? The very latest queries, arguments andcounter-arguments added, somewhere, could always be accompaniedby a marker, e.g. LATEST, TG, 5/96, LATEST, JZ, 6/96, to enableone to browse quickly through the latest additions. And entriescould all be preceeded by catchwords, under which the whole couldeasily be alphabetized. The slowness even of air mail would giveus breathing space or time in between.

Once, between us, we are, or each for himself is, reasonablesatisfied with expressing our views in it, then we could put iton the Internet and ask for more such exchanges to be added toit, indicating it as a planned handbook on monetary freedomexperiences, theories, facts, terms, beliefs and arguments. Withopen entry it could rapidly grow and grow. The supply of abibliography and a growing abstracts and review compilation andof a directory to groups and individuals and their specialinterests, would be natural additions. Copyrights should berenounced for it.

The already indexed 3 books of Beckerath could be extracted andincluded in such a compilation.

The cheap scanner ( $ 320) that I tried recently in Sydney wasunsatisfactory for old clippings and letters. Only new and quiteclean text was reasonably scanned and recognized by its OCR. ThusI thought at first that it or another scanner would be quiteuseless for me. However, on second thought, I remembered thatsuch a machine could still serve me well to integrate many wellprinted or typed bibliographical compilations of recent yearsinto my planned freedom bibliography ( and with it, combined,sales list for my LMP ). But for this one of the more expensiveflatbed scanners would be more handy. I could then cut apartnarrow columns, which the scanner might otherwise vainly try tointegrate. Narrow strips would not easily feed through the smallmachines, instead of whole sheets, I believe. But it seems thatone has to try out these machines for one's own purposes beforebuying them. Or leasing one at first for trials at home. Morework! Often they try to combine too many functions in onemachine, e.g. combine it with faxing and photocopying facilities,to serve any function well enough.
Perhaps the basic scanning programme on an OCR machine should bechanged to achieve first a recognition of the text lines, then oftheir sizes and with it that of the words and letters itcontains. Then it should be programmed to leave a blank space orquestion mark wherever it can make no sense, in its particularplace, rather than playing guessing games with whole wordrecognition. Then it should concentrate on determining the position of each letter. Then it should analyse each letterspace, one by one, against its recognition comparison charts.Only once this relatively easy letter recognition is finished andperhaps only upon a separate command, when it seems necessary,should a spelling checker programme come into operation. In thisway more might be achieved than the gibberish that I have nowseen in some of them on several occasions.

Sorry that this letter got so long but you need not have the timeand patience to pay for it in a single instalment. You canrecover more time and patience to pay for it later. In themeantime you can have its information interest free, even thoughnot invested and merely buried in a drawer or under yourmattress.    PIOT, John.

I include a page from a May 96 issue of Anarchist Age MonthlyReview, just received, which might interest you. I have parts ofthis series microfiched.
                            PIOT, John.