By Amaury Abreu
Lebanon, Pa- “Why?” May be the first question that you may be asking yourself as to why Lebanon County should have its own local currency. The world economy is constantly changing and the value of the Dollar is not what it was yesterday or the day before or 10 years ago. Every day the value of the dollar currency goes down. Many wonder how they are going to meet their needs as prices of goods and services are going up. This is where the idea of Lebanon County having its own local currency comes in. Studies and testimonials of other communities around the world who have struggled with their local economy due to a larger national crisis, these smaller communities have implemented the idea of creating its own currency in order to boost the local economy and improve the standard of living of those who live in the area where the currency is circulating.
There are goods and services that Lebanon produces in larger amounts and that could be used more, there are community needs that people could work and earn “local credit” for the work they do, small business owners need community members to go out and support them. A local currency will do just that. These ideas does not mean that Lebanon County shouldn’t have the Dollar, obviously that would not happen as we need to do commerce with other counties, states and nations. The local currency would be a supplement to the already established Dollar. This local currency would help as an incentive to spend money locally, build community projects and drive innovation in a community like Lebanon where there are plenty of opportunities.
My friend Sam Yolen, a community member in Lebanon, was the first person who introduced me to this idea in one of our many conversations on how we can make our community better. After much research him and I believe that a local currency would be a supplement to the local economy that will help community members to thrive and gain new opportunities that otherwise would not be accessible.
For example, Lebanon City could provide community members who clean the city a form of “credit” for the time the spend cleaning the community, the city could create a system to track people’s work by the amount of bags with trash they pick up from the city and take to the designated area by the city in order to keep track of the work community members do, once community members do the job and earn “credits” for their work, they could use the credits to purchase food from the local farmers market, then the local farmers market businesses owners could earn credit that could be used to get city tax bill discount. The credit given to community members must be used within a certain period of time so that community members do not hoard the local currency and keep the economy flowing.
This is why I am personally looking into launching a cryptocurrency token that will be a digital currency with a specific project behind it that will provide benefits to the token holders and those who trade the currency and make transactions with it. This token would be limited in its supply, providing an extra value behind it and thus creating benefit to those who hold it in their digital wallets.
The goal behind with local currencies is to build community connections by encouraging members to take care of their community, support other small businesses and cooperate with each other. The currency could be exchanged for dollars by any person who decides to do so, and therefore giving community members with the power to support their local economy and also be connected with the national and international economy by using the national currency that accepted all around the world.
Author: Amaury Abreu
