首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
There was a time when only governments could create money, and as Mike Rowbotham explains in his excellent book, The Grip of Dea
There was a time when only governments could create money, and as Mike Rowbotham explains in his excellent book, The Grip of Dea
admin
2021-03-27
23
问题
There was a time when only governments could create money, and as Mike Rowbotham explains in his excellent book, The Grip of Death, they have long since delegated 97 percent of that responsibility to the banks—which create it in the form of mortgages or interest-bearing loans.
They are helped by the credit card companies, which give the power to customers to create their own debts—and create their own money at the same time—every time their card is swiped through a till.
But now there are also supermarkets and airlines issuing their own money.Tesco, Safeway, and other businesses all issue their own points to encourage regular customers.A whole range of businesses deal in frequent-flier miles, which you can spend on an ever-increasing variety of goods and services, and which then disappear when you’ve spent them.In the United States, there are now a range of off-the-shelf "incentive cards" along the same lines for companies to offer their customers.There is even one card that acts as a combined loyalty and credit card.You can use it to buy things with "loyalty points" you haven’t earned yet, but which then have to be repaid with increased customer loyalty.
None of these innovations help us to improve either the shortage of money, the collapse of local communities, or the damage done by worldwide human greed.But they do open up new possibilities for experiments with new kinds of money which are kinder to the planet—and maybe even turning the base metal of human poverty into something closer to gold.As we know, with Local Exchange and Trading Systems (LETS) in the United Kingdom, people have been experimenting with this technology to invent their own new kinds of money.LETS money is available to anyone with time and skills, is less dependent on the increasingly bizarre fluctuations of the market, and does less damage to the planet by not charging ruinous interest.
Similar ideas are suddenly popping up all over the world.But in America, as befits the great money innovators, the field is even broader, with a range of local currencies all launched to achieve a different aspect of local sustainability.Time dollars, for example, is a non-market kind of money that recognizes the contribution people make to the places they live.Time dollars record, store, and find new ways of rewarding the human transactions where neighbours help neighbours, such as giving lifts to older people.One hour is worth an hour, whether you are a rich lawyer or an elderly widow.
All of the work is voluntary, yet none of it is volunteer work.
Research shows that the Time dollar idea also helps us to see work differently, recognizing that caring work is productive work.Governments may not define it as such, and economists may balk at the whole idea, but it is.
Then there are Hours, the innovative printed currency, which has revolutionized the local economy of Ithaca in upstate New York.Now Ithaca is home to what is probably the biggest local currency in the world.Like so many other small cities, Ithaca local business was threatened by large nationwide chains that took money away from local business and sent profits out of the area.The result was that local incomes were falling, economic self-determination was crumbling, and the city was increasingly dependent on expensive, packaged imports to the area, usually brought in from great distances by multinational traders.
These experiments may be difficult to sustain, but they could potentially give people the means to provide themselves with the money they need—when it normally seeps away to the big cities and massive world capital flows.Taken together, they could mean an economic breakthrough for tackling poverty and social collapse and, given the implications of economic collapse in Russia or the Far East, an urgent one for the whole of humanity.
What does the author mean by "All of the work is voluntary, yet none of it is volunteer work" in the fifth paragraph?
选项
答案
People in the community are willing to help others and they get paid with Time dollars in turn.
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/tHfK777K
本试题收录于:
A类竞赛(研究生)题库大学生英语竞赛(NECCS)分类
0
A类竞赛(研究生)
大学生英语竞赛(NECCS)
相关试题推荐
Theimageofthefamous"henpeckedhusband"iscreatedby______.
—Didn’tyoujustlovethatfilm?—Asamatteroffact,______—Itwaskindoflong,wasn’tit?—Long?Ifellasleepatleasttwice.
—We’vemanagedtoreducetheenergyconsumptioninourfactorybyabout15percentinthelasttwoyears.—That’sexcellent.H
London,England—VirtuallyeverycountryinEuropeisinanimmigrationmess.Governmentsaretryingtobalancetheconcernsoft
London,England—VirtuallyeverycountryinEuropeisinanimmigrationmess.Governmentsaretryingtobalancetheconcernsoft
Feedbackmatters.Whetherwearetryingtofindourwaytoanewfriend’shouse,aimingtoimproveourperformanceonthegolf
Feedbackmatters.Whetherwearetryingtofindourwaytoanewfriend’shouse,aimingtoimproveourperformanceonthegolf
ThenativepeopleofNorthandSouthAmericaweregiventhename"Indians"bythe【21】ChristopherColumbus.Hethoughthehadre
Indianfoodiswell-knownforbeingspicy.Italwaysusesspices,sometimesjustonespicetocookapotatodishandsometimesu
随机试题
试述肺癌的病理分型。
辨别虚证和实证的要点是
下列不属于开发区区域环境影响报告书编制内容的是( )。
建设工程采用设计施工总承包模式时,对于发包人同意的分包工作,承包人的正确做法是()。
“在施工质量事故处理过程中,通过某些具体操作做出确认,评价质量事故的处理是否达到预期目的,是否依然存在隐患”属于()。
会计人员继续教育的主要内容包括()。
在旅游安全事故发生后的伤亡事故处理过程中,责任方及主管部门负责联系有关部门为遗体遣返者家属提供()证明文件。
在信仰崩溃的时代,那些佯癫装疯的狂人倒是一些太严肃地对待其信仰的人。鲁迅深知此中之理,说嵇康、阮籍表面上毁坏礼教,实则倒是太相信礼教,因为不满意当权者利用和亵渎礼教,才以反礼教的过激行为发泄内心愤想。其实,在任何信仰体制之下,多数人并非真有信仰,只是做出相
延安整风运动
常常被称为国家和民族的“胎记”,是一个民族得以延续的“精神基因”,是培养民族心理、民族个性、民族精神“摇篮”的是()
最新回复
(
0
)