Healthy Money, healthy planet : Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems

Deirdre Kent, Craig Potton publishing, New Zealand, June 2005

Healthy Money Healthy Planet offers some solutions to a range of environmental and social problems throughout the world. The pressure for continuing economic growth has caused widespread environmental damage from overuse of natural resources and destruction of habitats. Social problems are created by rapidly increasing debt in the form of mortgages, credit cards and student loans, and the concentration of wealth and power.

Deirdre Kent maintains that many of these probems result from the creation of most of the country’s money by private banks as interest-bearing debt, and that some central bankers, economists and politicians appear to be keeping the public in ignorance about the origins of money.

In order to reverse this trend and help develop more sustainable communities, Healthy Money Healthy Planet looks at complementary economies and monetary systems which have been tried in various countries, including New Zealand, and suggests how they could be implemented in the future. These include changes to the taxation system, community banking, commercial barter, voucher schemes and currencies with a circulation incentive.

From : localcurrencies.blogspot.com/2005/06/healthy-money-healthy-planet.html