Greece develops cashless, Euro-free currency in tight economy

[thomkaufmann]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/16/greece-develops-euro-free-currency-in-tight-economy/

Has anyone heard of exchange between these tems and bitcoin?

EDIT: So there has been some discussion about the system behind tems, Cyclos (http://project.cyclos.org/), already: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=692.0

[cypherdoc]

"The Greek parliament recently passed a law encouraging “alternative forms of entrepreneurship and local development”, including exchange networks such as Volos’s, giving them official non-profit status for tax purposes."

its time for a Bitcoin exchange to set up in Greece.

[coretechs]

Bitcoin will be really useful as a "crypto gold standard" to back alternative currencies and barter systems like this.  You could seed new currencies with a fixed amount of BTC.  Of course you would have to establish trust in the issuer of the currency not to spend the balance, but there are various means to do so (combined keys, multi-sig, etc) and that is independent of how bitcoin could provide a value base.  It also enables valuation and global use of any such currency.

[kangasbros]

These other alternative currencies are good for bitcoin as well. Local (internet) currencies are more "human" and easily approachible than bitcoin. When people get used to these, they slowly get used to bitcoin as well.

[realnowhereman]

“You are not poor when you have no money,” she said, “you are poor when you have nothing to offer – except for the elderly and the sick, to whom we should all be offering.”

Too true.

[hazek]

These little social centrally run experiments of paper money are really nothing new and are by design destined to fail. Once they figure out that those who print them are getting goods and services for free they'll abandon it like oh so many local currencies before.

Poor people really, getting conned yet again. Has anyone explored this system in detail on their site?: http://www.tem-magnisia.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=2

[evoorhees]

I find it amazing that they think it's wise to limit the amount of this currency anyone can have to 1,300 units or whatever! Basically, it forces one to consume as much as he produces unless he uses some other vehicle for savings. But one could not use gold to save based on this currency, because who would trade an ounce of gold for this stuff? The market for goods/services from these local communities is so small that the only way to trade for gold would be to offer a ridiculously good price. 

Stated differently, while goods within the community may appear cheaper, goods outside the community will be far more expensive, thereby limiting the extent of the market and thus subsequently limiting specialization, efficiency, and productivity.

And in the article they were saying, "it feels so good not to use money."  LOL they are using money, just worse money than they had before. With that said, I fully advocate them dropping statist fiat in favor of market fiat... but far better would be to drop fiat altogether and stick with commodities like gold or Bitcoin.

[3phase]

Not so fast guys. I understand you might get excited with such a story, if you don't know the local situation.

These networks are a complete joke with 95% comprising of utterly useless offers for services and stuff. I'm currently in one of these towns  (Volos) for other business, and virtually nobody has heard of this thing. Plus they're all dragging along a socialist mentality of "fairness" and "equality" which deters any serious investor, and therefore any possibility of a real market developing there. Yes, of course, the people behind it are idealists, with not much practical business or economic experience

I've tried to enter into some discussions about Bitcoin in various relevant forums. At best, I got a response that "I need to read more about it some time". At worst, I was devnulled.

So, in short response to the subject: Not yet really.

[evoorhees]

3phase, I think we were all pretty much in agreement that it's a joke

[3phase]

3phase, I think we were all pretty much in agreement that it's a joke

I probably don't get foreign humor. Never mind me

Also, I probably can't avoid being bitter and pessimistic about the current situation in my country.

I hope this will change.

Cheers.

[markm]

I don't think its about efficiency.

Ultimately a whole lot of the spoils/fruits of efficiency are in any case to get more inefficient things done that you want done than inefficient things other people want done or even want to do.

There are lots of inefficient things people like to do, want to do, or want others to do for them.

A huge amount of what the people who use efficiency as a mantra actually want is to be able to get other people to do inefficient things for them.

It would be great if we could let everything get done by mega multinational utilities using robots so humans hardly ever have to work at all and with such excellent control interfaces that almost any volunteer can enjoy the feeling of doing some of the "work" themselves instead of letting robots hog it to themselves.

But these "efficiency" touters don't want that, oh no, to them it is inefficient not to force everyone else to be their houseservants or something, no way they favour other people having leisure unless that leisure costs plenty payable to them...

Maybe some people would rather do each other's laundry plumbing whatever than suck the dick of some billionaire for the protein in their emissions while robots owned by the billionaire do the laundry plumbing etc...

-MarkM-

[hazek]

3phase, I think we were all pretty much in agreement that it's a joke

+1

[hazek]

I've tried to enter into some discussions about Bitcoin in various relevant forums. At best, I got a response that "I need to read more about it some time". At worst, I was devnulled.

So, in short response to the subject: Not yet really.

Don't worry, "Necessity is the mother of invention". I believe Bitcoin is such a superior digital commodity currency system that everyone will eventually end up using it, they just need to get pushed into a small enough corner by the status quo.

[evoorhees]

I don't think its about efficiency.

Ultimately a whole lot of the spoils/fruits of efficiency are in any case to get more inefficient things done that you want done than inefficient things other people want done or even want to do.

There are lots of inefficient things people like to do, want to do, or want others to do for them.

A huge amount of what the people who use efficiency as a mantra actually want is to be able to get other people to do inefficient things for them.

It would be great if we could let everything get done by mega multinational utilities using robots so humans hardly ever have to work at all and with such excellent control interfaces that almost any volunteer can enjoy the feeling of doing some of the "work" themselves instead of letting robots hog it to themselves.

But these "efficiency" touters don't want that, oh no, to them it is inefficient not to force everyone else to be their houseservants or something, no way they favour other people having leisure unless that leisure costs plenty payable to them...

Maybe some people would rather do each other's laundry plumbing whatever than suck the dick of some billionaire for the protein in their emissions while robots owned by the billionaire do the laundry plumbing etc...

-MarkM-

I'm not sure where I just read there    But, I'll give a +1 to this sentence: "It would be great if we could let everything get done by mega multinational utilities using robots so humans hardly ever have to work at all"

[wachtwoord]

3phase, I think we were all pretty much in agreement that it's a joke

I probably don't get foreign humor. Never mind me

Also, I probably can't avoid being bitter and pessimistic about the current situation in my country.

I hope this will change.

Cheers.

Try to get away ASAP. There is free traffic in the European union, move to Germany/Netherlands/Finland ...

[kangasbros]

What Bitcoin could copy from these local currencies is good marketing.

[markm]

How would bitcoin be different from the Euro? Either one is an external currency they have to buy, whereas their own local currency is simply credit they can give each other "out of no-where".

Also, their own currency doesn't have foreigners all over the world with hoards of it that could be used to disrupt the local economy or buy everything and ship it out or whatever.

Even if you give them a million bitcoins they can then give to each other to represent credit, chances are someone among them will sneak off to an exchange and cash it in for Euros or USD or something, taking it back out of the local economy... All of which kind of defeats the purpose of their local currency, doesn't it?

-MarkM-

[kangasbros]

How would bitcoin be different from the Euro? Either one is an external currency they have to buy, whereas their own local currency is simply credit they can give each other "out of no-where".

Also, their own currency doesn't have foreigners all over the world with hoards of it that could be used to disrupt the local economy or buy everything and ship it out or whatever.

Even if you give them a million bitcoins they can then give to each other to represent credit, chances are someone among them will sneak off to an exchange and cash it in for Euros or USD or something, taking it back out of the local economy... All of ehich kind of defeats the purpose of their local currency, doesn't it?

-MarkM-

As I see, the problem is two-sided:

- Public sector overspends and overloans, too much workers in the public sector.
- Private sector is heavily taxed, and therefore evades taxes as well as they can.

There is not much trust in this kind of society. How could bitcoin help in this country, I don't know. Maybe the underground economy could help the country survive, while public sector crashes.

[weex]

Here's a better headline: Bitcoin use exploding in Greece's struggling economy

Is it true? How can it be? What's a Bitcoin?

Srsly though, is it exploding?

[evoorhees]

How would bitcoin be different from the Euro?

It's not debased in perpetuity.