KBOO Radio and Oregon Council of the Humanities panel

[Cascadia Commons]

Below are the questions that Stephanie Potter of KBOO and Jennifer Allen of OCH sent me regarding the Community Exchange Network.


From Stephanie Potter:

1. How long has LETS been in existence?

2. Where is it happening?

3. How successful is it?

4. What's wrong with the present banking system?

5. What is LETS and how does it work?

6. Where do we get LETS credits? Do we buy them?

7. What challenges exist for LETS?

8. How could LETS support a sustainable green economy (Earth Day theme)?

9. Could LETS replace fractional reserve banking?

10. What kind of opposition is there to LETS?

11. What is keeping people from using LETS?

12. How big can LETS get?

13. Do you have to pay taxes on LETS?

14. How do we get involved with the local LETS effort and what is the website?


For the OCH panel:

1. Does our economic system call for revision or revolution?

2. A number of you lead businesses and organizations that support a ‘buy local’ approach. Are self-contained economies viable/scaleable?

3. Is sustainability possible within a capitalist model?

4. Is there such a thing as a moral economy?

5. How do we reconcile consumerism and sustainability?

6. What can we salvage from our current system, and what must we invent?

7. What obligation do we have to global economies we have created and supported?

8. Does any alternative economy have to have a tether to our dominant system of capitalism? Isn't the underlying basis of an alternative economy still based on supply and demand, and therefore any major difference is just a limitation of reach (local rather than international) rather than the alternative economy being based on different fundamental principles?

9. Much of the discussion of how to address the economic crisis focuses on how to spur economic growth. Should we instead be questioning the very value of economic growth? Should we be discussing socialism or communism today?

10. How might alternative economic systems make visible the unseen economies such as parenting and undocumented labor of all kinds?