We received this in our Madison Hours email and wanted to share the concept. This is a new system that uses potential energy as a non-inflationary store of value.

You may be interested to learn about Kilowatt Cards - gift cards that pay for 10 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity in any residential utility account, anywhere in the world. They demonstrate fixed-value paper. Electric utilities don't accept them - we do, thorough www.kilowattcards.com - and then send payments directly to the power companies, at the rate they normally charge their residential customers for that exact amount of electricity (including taxes and fees).

As our economy continues to stumble, the housing crisis deepens and our national debt skyrockets the government has decided to try to sweep it all under the rug. The Bush Administration will shut down the popular economicindicators.gov on March 1 because of "budgetary constraints."

The site, administered by the Economics and Statistics Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce, is widely used by academics, economists and reporters. It is invaluable towards an informed public understanding of the state of our economy. It links data from a wide variety of Government agencies such as the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis to allow easy access to government data. One great feature of the site is email notification when selected agencies or departments issue new reports.

Here's an animated video that explains how money works. There is a short section on Hour based money systems and on interest free money. Interesting ideas about how an interest-free government issued "value" money could work. "Setting up a local barter money system, even if little used now, would be prudent emergency planning for any community." - Narator

One of the best part of this video is the quotes from bankers and politicians.

Here's a quote from Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence..

Most sustainably grown food is also locally grown food. Why shouldn't we be paying for it with local currency?

Local currency is one of many tools we can use to fight corporate globalization, but it is of particular significance in the "food economy."

Sustainable production of food is something which is inherently labor-intensive, since diversified, small-scale production (rather than monocropping) is required, as is avoidance of heavy machinery which can damage the land. Because sustainable food production is labor-intensive, we will never find a way to make its end-product cheap, at least if food producers are to be given a livable wage (part of what makes sustainable food "sustainable.")