Terra Currency

The Terra Currency Proposal, a proposal for monetary reform.

URL = http://www.margritkennedy.de/english/articles/bernard.html

"One proposal is the Terra (Latin for Earth), a supra-national currency whose unique characteristics would make long-term financial thinking automatically rewarding, while assisting in stabilizing the world economy. Characteristics include:

1. The Terra is defined as a standard basket of the most important commodities and services in the global market for which futures markets can be established (e.g. oil, wheat, copper, etc., and some standardizable services, or for example Carbon Emission rights). Because it is fully backed by a physical inventory of commodities, the Terra would be a very robust international standard of value.

2. The Terra is designed as an inflation-proof currency. Inflation is always defined as the changes in value of a basket of goods and services. Therefore, by selecting the appropriate ingredients in the basket, the Terra can be made inflation-proof.

3. The Terra currency is complementary to conventional national currencies, operating in parallel to, and without replacing them. It basically would amount to introducing some standardization to the international countertrade activities which grow by 15% per year, three times faster than conventional currency denominated trade.

4. The cost of storage of the physical commodities would be applied to the bearer of the Terra at an estimated 3.5-4% per annum). This makes the Terra a 'demurrage' charged currency (the opposite of a positive interest rate currency), and insures its use mainly as a trading device, as it costs the bearer to store or hold onto it. Therefore, it is beneficial to keep the Terra in circulation, which in turn benefits all.

5. The Terra is a public service project, with profits earned used to fund other projects for economic development globally."

More Information

See also this text on Lets and monetary reform, at http://copsewood.net/writings/foundatn.html