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1

The Show / Housing options for Free-Staters

« on: July 22, 2010, 08:01:36 PM »

Just thinking about the comment on the show tonight about affordable housing for Free Staters, something I'm involved with in the UK which started not far over the state line in Burlington, VT (sure, it was Bernie Sanders, but don't hold that against the idea!) is called "Community Land Trusts".  It's often arranged as a co-operative, in which residents buy as much of the equity as they can afford, rather than according to the size of unit they need.  So you might get a relatively well off single with a one bedroomed apartment but who owns a bigger chunk of the equity in the development (and which is what he or he gets to sell out if they decide to move) and they are effectively cross-subsidising the less well off family that needs a three bedroomed property on a lower income.

Another fun option for some type of people, especially if they share a common interest, but which can actually often work out more expensive, is something called "co-housing" which is a development where everyone gets the house they want, but there's also usually "common space" built in - such as a common dining room for when you want to share meals, space for home-schooling or home-working and so on.

2

The Show / Email the presenters

« on: August 27, 2009, 11:35:02 AM »

Somewhere I once saw an email address to get hold of the presenters during the show, but I can't find it now.  Can anyone remind me please?

Jock

3

The Show / Temprance and "classical" Liberals in UK - Firday 10/07 show

« on: July 10, 2009, 08:45:09 PM »

As I understand it in the UK towards the end of the nineteenth century the Temprance movement was actually supported politically most by the Liberals (ie "proper" liberals in the UK sense of classical liberalism).  Apart from the fact that the party was greatly influenced by Welsh Methodists who were religiously tee-totallers, the economic argument was that the brewers were monopolies that operated in order to fleece the working classes of their wages through the "coercion" of intoxication.  Every town had its monopolistic brewer, owned by some local big-wig family of the privileged few.  It was only a bit later, when the "social democratic liberals" started to do their research on the causes of poverty in the big cities that it became a moralizing issue.

4

The Show / Complementary currencies - Sat 4th July show

« on: July 07, 2009, 09:46:35 AM »

I noticed you had an interesting discussion with a caller on Saturday about him wanting to use a complementary currency in his store.  This is a real live issue and one that libertarians could usefully pursue in any community.  It doesn't even need to use a silver backed currency - if you are a local enough network you can use virtually anything - usually paper or nowadays electronic transfers of tokens.

Mark, or perhaps it was Ian, mentioned that this could enhance the caller's business - there is an international trade barter system and several organizations that help match 'buyers' and 'sellers' - and some of these reckon that they can help increase a business's turnover by 15%.

During the depression there were apparently over a thousand local currencies in the US that the New Deal and Banking acts put an end to (allegedly because the folks in DC felt that it was unconstitutional for anyone other than the Federal Government to print money).  In Europe there was the WIR Bank system established by followers of the "Libertarian Socialist" Silvio Gessel in Basle in Switzerland to help keep the network of medium sized mostly locally owned businesses going at a time when there was no state money circulating.  It still exists today and trades many billions of Francs a year.

I believe that "free money" is the only way we're going to prevent a crunch like we are having at the moment in future and that these local networks are one of the ways we can work without troubling the state money institutions as much as we do now!

I'm working on one for my county in the UK, so we'll see how it goes.

5

The Show / "Notch Babies" - Carmen from Florida on Sat 4th July

« on: July 07, 2009, 09:22:38 AM »

Over here in the UK I'm only just listening to the Podcast of 4th July's show.  There's a woman called Carmen on calling from Florida about letters her and her late husband have been getting about "Notch Babies" and some campaign to get them more money from Social Security.

I went off and had a look for "Notch Baby" on the web and found a piece on the Washington Post website (I know, we don't all believe the WP!) that these are a scam:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/quinn/columns/030299.htm

Just so you know...