Save Your NT, use Barter Dollars Instead (Details Inside)

I agree that there are a lot of ways this kind of system could go wrong, but I also think it’s an interesting endeavour. One worth checking out at least. While, I just like the next guy, like to roll around in my monthly cash :rainbow: , there are a lot of things about ‘real’ money that suck.

I don’t fully understand this whole barter ‘LETS’ thing, but I do know that it has worked really well in other places in the past. If presented correctly I’m sure there would be a valid market for it in Taiwan. As was mentioned earlier, the Taiwanese and their ‘money’ are rather attached, but look at it from the other side. A lot of people would just drool at the idea of not having to part with their precious cash. Just my opinion though :stuck_out_tongue:

Just to keep anyone who’s following this updated, I finally filled the forms out today. So it should be up for testing as soon as next week. Also, I plan on doing a small presentation in person about it at the next .

Should be good. For the record, one thing I think this will work really well with is language exchanges.

More to come…

To clarify,

The main benefit of the LETS system is that you can provide services to each other with a very high value / price ratio.

I.E. normally the recipient of the website that Miltown Kid had designed would have had to pay hard earned cash in order to gain the service, but instead it was able to provide an equivalent service which normally Miltown Kid would have to fork out too much cash for.

Basically the system enables and encourages the provision of services because everything seems cheaper, but in actual fact I don’t believe it really is. I guess (please confirm MK) that in actual fact this system concetrates much more on a services based industry rather than product based, since from the example that I previously gave, products must come from a place that charges real money.

The reason that is has a very high value / price ratio is because when we provide specialised services to each other, we don’t really mind giving of our time.

Other than this it really is simply replacing one monetary system with another.

The scam part about it is that it completely circumvents tax. How can a government tax barter dollars :smiley:

Yes, that sounds about right. It can also be used with tangible products, but the service industry is where it really shines.

Don’t know exactly how things work here, but they have a special form for it in the US. I’ll be sure to get that stuffs figured out.

[quote]Barter Tax and Accounting Issues
Barter transactions can provide your company with important financial, sales and marketing benefits. Like other transactions, however, barter sales are taxable, and your company must report them to the IRS. This is also true of credits you receive or spend through a barter exchange; regardless of how you use barter credits, they are taxable as though they were cash.

Barter Income and the IRS
The U.S. government considers barter exchanges to be legal third-party record keepers, similar to banks, brokerages and other firms that deal with taxpayer records. Barter exchanges are required to complete and submit Form 1099-B, “Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions,” for each of their members and the IRS. In order for the exchange to complete this form, you’ll need to give the broker your taxpayer identification number.[/quote]

Edit: Oh, and it another benifit is suppose to be an increase of real dollars that come from “marketing” through the system.

Good luck MK! :bravo: :slight_smile:

MK, I think it is a good idea and worth pursuing. One consideration though is that its not really a profit generating business. It would be more like a community service thing with volunteer time needed to setup and manage. I was toying around with something similar last year.

My thought at the time was also to try and tie in some type of rating system (like using the digg.com or pligg method) so barter points can also be generated by higher quality postings on forumosa. Perhaps better articles may help forumosa attract more advertisers(?). It seems there are a lot of writers here in Taiwan (teachers with Lit degrees) and it would be a good outlet for them to practice and get some recognition (and maybe even small payment) for their work. Perhaps the new city magizines that pop up here/chn/HK can reprint the articles they write. It would be a way that the mags can find content and give some small payment to either Forumosa by buying ad space or to the author via barter points awarded that bring in ads revenue. They can exchage the points for goods/services.

Another suggestion is to have a service where people can donate goods or services to forumosa so they can resell and maybe generate enough income to cover hosting costs. (or donated stuff can be used as give aways for writing contests?) I know logistics would be an issue, but with some thought it can be solved. You are welcome to use any of the ideas mentioned.

This site maybe worth checking. They also have a blog that may give you some good ideas: favorville.com/

Exactly what it’s going to be for the most part for me. I never considered making a “profit” (dollar one) until I was told it could be done. Thanks for the ideas and the site. I’ll check it out more when I’m not so tired (a long weekend :slight_smile:.)

Just an update. I got all the login stuff for the system. Looks like there’s quite a bit of work I need to do with setting things up. I’ll be messing with it over the next week or two.

I’ll setup a mailing-list/group page somewhere and post the information here. I’ll also be setting up a meeting of sorts for anyone interested in participarting (and I’ll probably hold meetings like that monthly.)

If anyone wants to have an early look at the software, take a look here:

letstaiwan.xolimited.com

You’ll notice that “Contact Us | Help | FAQ” don’t have anything because I need to write that all up and add it to the CMS (Content Management System.)

I’ll probably have to talk to some lawyers about the Privacy Policy, and Terms and Conditions. I have generic ones from the company, but I’m sure it’ll have to be modified here and there.

Besides the written stuff, I need to go through and get just general settings in place, so it’ll be some time before it’s UP up. I’m pretty sure I’ll be ready for a meeting next weekend (April 1st and 2nd) for anyone that wants to “Beta test” the system.

It’s suppose to have the ability to do transaction on mobile phones and send SMSes to members as well. I’ll also be able to change the logo and colors to whatever pleases.

If anyone wants to help out with any of this feel free to PM/email/call/SMS me (0935392720.)

This should be fun. :slight_smile:

Is there or will there be a different login, signin, sign up stuff for different people, like businesses vs. regular people?

Nope

I believe the system could work if the barter dollars have an equivalent monetary value, giving users the ability to physically buy & sell them. However you then (as the bank) take the risk of loosing each time a user leaves the system with a negative dollar value. There is then also some type of transaction charges involved…

Without a monetary value, how does a person taking weekly language classes earn enough BD (barter dollars) to eventually pay for those classes? The business that is mainly selling a service will earn lots of BD, how do they then convert this to real money to be able to replenish stock (or in the case of teachers get cash to pay their rent or beer).

I guess ideally you could simply not allow users to go overdrawn. However this will stifle the growth…

I see the main problem with the system that some users will predominantly be spending BD whereas other will predominantly be collecting, you somehow have to balance this, presumably via real money.

Of course if you get the system up and running, I will come up with a method (already have a few ideas) to allow your users to easily and quickly earn BD, which will earn me real money :wink: so I hope you have the mechanism to allow me to spend some of that real money to keep my balance in the positive.

[quote=“Connel”]I believe the system could work if the barter dollars have an equivalent monetary value, giving users the ability to physically buy & sell them. However you then (as the bank) take the risk of losing each time a user leaves the system with a negative dollar value. There is then also some type of transaction charges involved…
[/quote]
They do have a monetary value, but it is probably different for each person, depending on what you value your time as worth. There is a limit to how much a user can go in debt. My guess is that people are probably given a credit rating

[quote=“Tyc00n”]The arbitrage between BD and real $$ is an interesting concept from an economics perspective, and I

[quote=“Tyc00n”][quote=“Connel”]I believe the system could work if the barter dollars have an equivalent monetary value, giving users the ability to physically buy & sell them. However you then (as the bank) take the risk of losing each time a user leaves the system with a negative dollar value. There is then also some type of transaction charges involved…
[/quote]
They do have a monetary value, but it is probably different for each person, depending on what you value your time as worth. There is a limit to how much a user can go in debt. My guess is that people are probably given a credit rating

Ah! That too. I remember thinking the same thing when I was first investigating the system. I can’t remember if such acts are suppose to be frowned upon or not, but they seem legit to me. As long as everyone keeps trading and keeps the system going.

And this sytem is suppose to allow for SMS/WAP (mobile phone) transaction. I’m going to make time for myself to go through things more this weekend, but it’s looking pretty cool to me so far.

If you go here:

ozonebarter.com/XOB2B/Home3/Login.aspx

You can see some of the things people are REALLY trading right now. I saw 2 day get-aways, translation services, ink cartridges, accounting services, all kinds of stuff.

I may have pointed it out once already, but a really cool benifit of spending trade dollars (as opposed to real money) is it “garuntees” business coming back. When you spend real money, there is no garuntee that it comes back to you.

[quote=“miltownkid”]
I may have pointed it out once already, but a really cool benifit of spending trade dollars (as opposed to real money) is it “garuntees” business coming back. When you spend real money, there is no garuntee that it comes back to you.[/quote]

not really … your limit on spending trade dollars is just like the limit on a credit card (without the interest), and in either case there is no guarantee it comes back to you. In both cases you have to convince someone that you have a service to offer (that you are valuable)

I think what you really mean is that since you have a small community that is encouraged to trade within itself (rather inbred isn’t it), that if you are the only person offering a particular service you’re pretty much guaranteed to get business. (but not money and if the community is small you are limited on the kinds of services you can buy)

The whole community thing works like a marketing tool in a way which makes it easier to sell your services.

The problem is that in order for this system to work it requires a minimum mass (like a nuclear weapon I guess)… you need a number of business offering the service before it can grow.

This system seems built to work in the US. A country that understands service, but where such service is costly. Taiwan is a country that has a very immature and in my opinion unethical and irresponsible service industry. (and people just don’t really want to pay for service)

Just saw this thread and thought I’d add my two BD cents…

One of the places I grew up in was a town called Totnes in Devon (England). The town is fairly neatly divided between toffs (Landrovers, big dogs, gumboots and wax jackets) and hippies (dogs on strings, dreadlocks, whale music). This kind of barter system was in use there too, with the currency called the ‘Acorn’. Yes, I know, crappy name, but the implementation of it was pretty interesting.

Obviously this idea originated in the ‘alternative’ community, who were soon using it to exchange goods (beads, tofu) and services (reiki massage, psychic healing) with each other. So far, so groovy, but eventually this system reached a cross-over point where so many independent businesses were using it that the non-hippies started to take note too. When I was twelve I got paid for cleaning cars in Acorns which I then exchanged for real consumerist possessions in the local shops. The idea, at first roundly ridiculed, actually worked on a fairly large scale.

Unfortunately all this cosmic harmony was interrupted by the Inland Revenue, who pointed out that no tax was being paid on all this exchange and the whole system dissolved fairly quickly under threats of court action.

So, a real-life report of the system in action. Moral: Don’t let the taxman find out!

Back in those days without the high-tech internet they didn’t use real acorns did they ?

And they say “Money does not grow on trees” :laughing:

Back in those days without the high-tech internet they didn’t use real acorns did they ?

And they say “Money does not grow on trees” :laughing:[/quote]

Yeah, I think that was the logic behind the name. :laughing: It was actually implemented using ‘Acorn chequebooks’.