Anyone can write an IOU – and if people generally think you’re good for it and are willing to accept and exchange them, that is in effect ‘printing money’. Cheques for cash, gift vouchers, book tokens, “money off” store vouchers, mobile phone top-up cards; they’re all forms of money.

This bizarre idea that only the government can create ‘money’ – that stuff with the Queen’s head on it – underlies a lot of the nonsense talked about alternative currencies. There’s no magic to it. It’s fair enough that only the elected government can create government money. Nobody else should be able to commit the taxpayer to repay.

To be fair, the government do also impose an onerous pile of regulation on anyone else who wants to do their own on a large scale, supposedly to prevent swindles and failures, that a libertarian could legitimately object to. But if you can meet the conditions, issuing your own formal currency has technically always been allowed.

Money does not need to be centrally controlled to work. That’s the myth of central planning. But it does require payment of debts to be enforced, and it does require the widespread distribution of trustworthy information on the credit-worthiness of the issuing banks.

I would agree that backing it with Sterling is arguably a bit pointless if you want to transition to a post-oil “Mad Max” world. (That’ll be those regulations.) But in a more ideal world it doesn’t have to be backed by metals, either. A farmer’s market can back their currency with groceries – sides of bacon or milk and butter, or even better (for stability), by a ‘shopping basket’ of a wide range of staple goods, for example. Proponents of alternative currencies need to be a bit more imaginative. There’s no magic in gold and silver either.

I wish that just one of these loony leftright groups would actually have an original idea. They’ve been banging on with this back to the village peasant life bollocks for two centuries now.

Hmmm. But we all know that there will soon be a market to exchange the Brixton pound for real ones. People will want real money to buy non-local things and besides, the DofSS doesn’t pay out in Brixton pounds. Changing money is an annoyance though. So what this will do is act as a very small tariff barrier – there are costs in changing and so people might be tempted to buy local to avoid the trouble.

Otherwise I don’t see any use to it at all.

I think it’s a safe bet that the answer to that question is “yes”.

Tim, you surprise me. I thought you were a classic liberal but Krugman is pro-CB, as shown in that series of vids he did at … where was it … Princeton?

CBs must be dismantled, bonds replaced with Treasury issued notes, withdrawal from the IMF and BIS and then we can start getting into some classic liberalism.

I give it a month. Two, tops…

“The currency’s sterling backing is held by Lambeth Savings and Credit Union (LSCU), who provide access to low interest loans for the local community. The B£ supports LSCU as a form of banking that is non profit making and an alternative to the global credit crisis.”

How does that work then? And has anyone given Messrs Brown and Darling the good news?

This has resulted in the usual Lambeth democracy with everyone squabbling to try and get their local councillor / drug dealer / Grandmother onto the note.

Anyway, they’ve now decided risen above all that and decided to approach the other original candidates for permission to put them on the notes instead. Bit of a waste of their first Brixton Pounds, I’d have thought, holding a poll that didn’t have a workable outcome.

Let’s see if they can do better when it comes to the “secure printing” that they mention. I bet it will be copyable on my new Kyocera colour copier.