Shire Hours

[Russell Kanning]

I am thinking of starting up a hour based Shire trading system.
Many of us already help each other build houses, move in, fix stuff .... and often we are paid in smiles, thanks, drinks/meals, and future help in return.
I was thinking when someone helps you ... you could issue them Shire Karma Certificates ... or whatever we end up calling them. Residents of the Shire could do work for no $, just the hope that someone in the future will take the Certificates as payment for services later. It would not be backed by any currency or commodity. It would be seeded by those of us that would be willing to work for future return help.
What do you Shire Folk think?

[doobie]

Sounds like a good idea.  You could also have it as an 'IOU' for work.  So I do 10 hours work for you now...maybe in a year you do ten hours of work for me...  And say, some amount of food...or something.  Cool idea.

[jaqeboy]

I can see it now - a big smiling Russell face on front

"In Russell We Trust"

[Kat Kanning]

He'd have to wear his cardinal outfit.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Cardinal outfit on the 1

Turban on the 5

Star of David on the 10

[AntonLee]

that really is a tremendous idea.

[error]

I wouldn't use something denominated in "hours" or which is meant to represent one hour of labor of any type. I might value roofing more highly than putting up drywall, for instance.

[Russell Kanning]

It will be denominated in hours.
You may or may not accept them or spend them.

[jaqeboy]

I wouldn't use something denominated in "hours" or which is meant to represent one hour of labor of any type. I might value roofing more highly than putting up drywall, for instance.

See the info on the Ithaca Hours site. It's in there somewhere - I'd point you to the exact page if I had it handy (it = how people handle the value variation issue)

[Russell Kanning]

Well we already have Shire Silver ... now we can have Shire Hours ... and maybe Shire Coffee Bean Portions

[Lex]

Since everyone will be printing their own money there would have to be some kind of standard for what information should be on the certificate. For example:

Date - It should have the date of when the certificate was created, this would probably be the day someone got paid for their work.
Debtor - The name of the person who created the certificate.
Recipient - Who was the initial recipient of of the certificate.
Work - A word or two describing the work performed. eg, "hung drywall"
Hours - how many hours this certificate is worth.

Then both the debtor and the recipient would sign it.

This way every certificate would be unique so that nobody could photo copy it in mass. If you make 100 copies of a certificate, sooner or later someone will notice you are using the same certificate many times...

Also, by having some kind of original ownership/birth information for the certificate there is any easy way to validate if the certificate is valid: Call up Joe and ask him if so and so hung drywall for them on this date and got paid 6 hours doing it.

The issue that error and jaqeboy brought up regarding hour equivalency of different work is definitely an issue. But I don't think there is any easy way to resolve it.

[Lex]

I guess it would be just like writing a check: date, from whom, to whom, how much and a memo. Then just like you can sign the back of a check and have someone else cash it, you can pass off your certificate to someone else.

When a certificate makes it back to the original creator it will be in their best interest to destroy it (the debt is now gone). So the system will be self-cleaning.

[error]

I would trade in silver or coffee beans.

[Russell Kanning]

the exit door for this thread is available.

yes ... this is not a new currency ... yes this will only work with friends and friends of friends .... yes this will only work with shire folk

Interesting idea Lex. I was thinking of having only online, but anyone could make pieces of paper.

[jaqeboy]

I would trade in silver or coffee beans.

Someone say coffee beans? I'll be bringing more AltJava to Burning Porcupine!

re the hours equivalency - Look on the Ithaca site. They essentially say that when they started their system, a prevailing wage was $10/hr. in their county, so the Ithaca Hour was informally recognized as worth $10. The idea, of course, is to de-couple the trade certificate from the national currency, though, to be more stable amongst  trading partners when the national currency is going through whatever politically-created gyrations it might go through.