Healthy Money Healthy Planet - library.uniteddiversity.coop

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acquisitions and the concentration of wealth.
• Commercial barter exchange is a relatively new industry that has thrived because
computers are now inexpensive and hence commonplace in business.
• The WIR 1973 experience (see page 000) was salutary. You can’t have too many
interest­free loans or you will flood the market with trade dollars and they will
consequently devalue. In turn, this will tempt members into selling them for cash,
which is something that needs to be regulated against.
• There is always a temptation for participants to use part trade, part cash in
transactions. This must be addressed in the rules and strictly enforced.
• Those who don’t make and enforce rules bring commercial barter into disrepute.
Fly­by­night exchanges that have not learnt from the past do the industry a
disfavour.
• Education is needed to help members use the exchange. This must be provided by
skilled brokers or account managers who help advertise for new business.
• Barter is useful in disposing of distressed goods and is a powerful tool in
attracting new business. It uses excess production capacity, including empty
restaurant tables, empty hotel and motel rooms, and empty offices.
• Full e­commerce facilities must be used, including eftphone swipe capabilities.
• There should be a debt reserve fund, sufficient to protect the integrity of the
exchange.
• A barter exchange is really just like a bank holding the credit and debit balances of
its members. It is a business­to­business marketplace.
• Commercial barter exchanges, unlike green dollar exchanges, aim to have a
balanced mix of businesses with not too many participants in any one category.
• Members of barter exchanges pay income tax and GST just like any other business.
• Members shouldn’t carry out more than 10–15 per cent of their business in barter.
Notes
1 Denis Orme, White paper #27 denis.orme@bartercard.co.nz. Barter transactions
provide growth opportunities for your clients. [???Author to clarify]
2 Tim Hyland, ‘Bartering Back Thanks to Tried and True Tactics’, News Journal, 15
August 2004, accessible at www.bniusa.com/release­08­15­04.html.
3 Tony Dowse, Bartercard New Zealand, in an email to the author, 20 October 2004.
4 See in particular Richard Douthwaite, Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies
for Security in an Unstable World, Totnes: Green Books and Dublin: Lilliput Press,
1996, and Richard Douthwaite and Dan Wagman, Barataria: A Community Exchange
Network for the Third System, Utrecht: Strohalm, 1999.
5 Thomas Greco, tr., ’60 Years of the WIR Economic Circle Cooperative: Origins and