Overview | How | Basis | Name | Backing | Implementation | Paper | Presentation | Risks | Benefits

Risks

What is at risk?

This local currency plan requires no substantial investment of time or money and can work with as few as two participants. The Common Goods part of each member's checking account, savings account, loan accounts, and even stock holdings will all be handled as separate individual accounts, bundled together into a single "virtual" account with many interrelated component accounts. We plan to do that anyway (just not with so many standard component accounts), so there is very little new software to be developed.

The new software required is simple (less than $10,000 worth):

• A program to track each depositor's transactions in Common Goods credits
• A program to report account balances and activity to depositors in a clear, attractive way

What might go wrong?

Nothing we can't handle. For example, in the worst possible scenario, what if a community makes some local currency grants to local nonprofits, then all of its depositors suddenly die or move away (to somewhere with no common good bank)? No problem. Those depositors can withdraw their funds as dollars. Any resulting shortfall just gets absorbed collectively by the other Community Divisions as additional common good credits.

With tremendous potential benefits, little to lose and very little chance of failure, this proposed system is a clear winner.