Alternative Currency

Alternative Currency is the money that can only be used in a community, but not outside of it. Also, alternative currency is for the people that are using the money, not the people that have the money and I think that no one have the money, all of the people are using the money. One of the example of alternative currency is barter. Barter is trading things with things, for example I want to trade my laptop with the watch that I want. Barter have advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantage is we can decide the price/how valuable the thing is. Then, one of the disadvantage is logistics, because sometimes we don't really get something that is worth the thing that we give, but the thing that we get is the one that we want. For example, I want a watch, so I take my laptop to trade with the watch. It's not fair for me, because my laptop is more expensive then the watch, but the watch is the thing that I want.

Pros:

- The money can only be used in the area/community, so the money will keep circulating, it means that if the person in the community are spending the money at their local market or other place in their own town, the money will still stay in the area and it will not gone outside of the community. Moreover, it can also increase the currency in the local market, because they are spending their money to their own community and the community still have that money.

- It can develop their own community, so the bank in the community can lend money to the people they know or the people that live in the community to help them start a business. The bank will want to borrow money to the people, because they know that they will give it back. Moreover, even though the people lose the money, the bank will not really pursue too much, because they know that the money is still in the community and the community is not losing the money. But, it can develop the community, because when the people successfully build their own business, they will make a lot of profit from the people inside and outside the community. The money in the community will become more, because of the people that successfully build their own business and make a lot of profit.

- This can also related to our convenience, because we don't need to bring a lot of stuff to trade/buy something that we need and want. For example, barter, trading things with things, like watch trading with laptop. If we want to trade something big, we need to bring something that is also valuable or maybe we need to bring a lot of things to make it worth with what we want to trade. But, by using alternative currency, we don't need to bring anything to get something we need/want. We don't need to bring like 100 chickens to a market to trade with things that we want.

Cons:

- Alternative currency is the money that can only be used inside the community, then it means that we can't use it outside of it. This will be a bad things, because this can also relate to the convenience problem. If we went to some place that use different kinds of money, we need to exchange it to the money that can only be used in the community first. Sometimes, the money that they give us will not worth the money that we give to them and that is also how they make the profit.

On Friday, 22 February, we did alternative currency in my english class together with my friends in the class for the act part. In the act part, we need to make a alternative currency, so the teacher ask us to get ready to make an alternative currency in class. The teacher made a copied paper money and also a certificate with the thing on it, but the thing is like 'Eating in Class', 'Use Earphone in Class', 'Two day Homework Extension', etc. First, the teacher ask us to go to one seat and there will be things or money and I got $2000. After that, the teacher said that there are two jobs, one is singing for three minutes and the other one is dancing outside of the class, for each job, who ever did it will get $1000. In my class, there were 5 people dancing and each of them got $200, because the total should be $1000. Here, the teacher asks us to think about how valuable is the job and the money. He explained to us that for now, the job and the $1000 is very valuable, because we really need the money. Then, the teacher asks us to trade the things with things or buy the things if we got the money. The teacher also had some 'things' but the cost is very expensive and no one wants to buy it. Then, we go back to our usual group, the teacher said the team that got most certificate/'things' will get double points and we still can buy the certificate/'things' from the teacher. Now, there are two teams, which means there are two communities, we all combine our money in our community, because we are in a community, so the money is ours. The teacher is negotiating the cost of the things, he add $100 every time both teams are putting their hands up. The negotiation will stop until one of the team don't have enough money to buy the 'things' or one of the team stop putting their hands up. At last, our team get the certificate, because the other team don't have enough money. The teacher has two more certificates and he is negotiating the price again. But, now we don't have enough money, so the other team gets the certificate/'things'. We have 5 certificates/'things', while the other team has 4 certificates/'things' and we all don't have enough money to buy the last certificate. So, the teacher gave us one more job and it's only for one person from wh*** class. The job is to sing 'I Love you' Barney song outside of the class and we will get $1000/$2000. Then, one of our team member gets the job and he is going outside with the teacher. We need to pay $100 to watch him sing. But no one is going at this point, because now the money are valuable and worth a lot. Finally, one of the member of our team gets the money and we can get the certificate/'things'. So, we can also get double on our points. After that, at almost the end of class, the teacher explained to us about what happen when we are doing this alternative currency. Especially when we need to pay $100 to become the audience, no one is willing to pay and enjoy the entertainment. What I just say, this is because at this point, the value of money become higher, so we need to keep the money and save it. We need to save it because, we need to buy the last certificate and we can also get doubled on our points if we have the most certificate. The certificate and get double points are very important for us, so we will think that paying $100 for becoming the audience is not worth it. But, at last my team gets the certificate and also double points.

After this experience about alternative currency, I learned a lot of things about what is alternative currency and how does it work. I learned about the value of money, the value will depends on the situation. For example in the alternative currency experiment, when the both teams were fighting for the last certificate that the teacher had and he opens one more job, singing. We need to pay $100 to watch one of my friends sing, but no one is going. This is because the value of the money goes up, so we need to save the money to fight for the last certificate. I also learn that once a situation has changed, the certificate/’things’ will be more valuable. For example, on my experience, once the teacher said which team gets the most certificate will get double points, the value of the certificate will increase and become a lot more valuable then before. If I connect this with real life, this situation always happen as well. Like when the rice is not growing for a few weeks, then the price of the rice will increase few weeks and the price will be normal again when the rice is starting to grow. This is because if the rice is not growing, the people that sell the rice will don’t have anything to sell and will not make profit, if all of the people buy the rice in a low price. On this experiment, one of my friends got only $100 the first time and he can’t do anything, so he need to get the job, even though the job is embarrassing. So in the experiment the teacher gave us three jobs, dancing in front of the building, sing a three minutes song in front of the class and sing ‘I Love You’ the barney song. My friend that got only $100 did two of them, dancing in front of the building and sing ‘I Love You’, because he really needs the money and he done the job, even though the jobs were very embarrassing. This situation also always happen in real life. If the person don’t have money to buy food for their family, he/she will go find a job and will also do any jobs. He/she will be lucky if they find a good job and have a high salary, but they will still do the job if the job is very bad and embarrassing, also with a low salary.