"Complimentary Currencies"

My favorite solution is from the Futurist Douglas Rushkoff. He speaks about the alternative currency systems like "complimentary currencies".
In his article "Life Dollars: Finding Currency in Community" he speaks about "Life Dollars",an electronic currency used in the Pacific Northwest. Life Dollars are not exchanged for traditional currency. Instead, members of the Exchange earn credits by performing services or providing goods to one another.

Here is an example for such "complimentary currencies":
In 1995, as recession, unemployment rose and shook Japan currency became scarce.This made it particularly difficult for people to continue to take care of their elderly relatives, who often lived in distant areas. Everyone had time, but no one had money. The Sawayaka Welfare Foundation developed a complementary currency by which a young person could earn credits for taking care of an elderly person. Different tasks earned different established credit awards—bathing someone earned more than shopping, and so on. Acc**ulated credits—Fureai Kippu, or “elderly care units”—could then be applied to the care of one’s own relative in a distant town, saved for later, or traded to someone else. Independently of the centralized economy—which, thanks to bad speculation and mismanaged banking, was no longer supporting them—people were able to create value for themselves and one another.

Although that particular financial crisis has passed, the Fureai Kippu system has only grown in popularity. At last count, the alternative currency was accepted at 372 centers throughout Japan, and patients surveyed said they like the care they get through the Fureai Kippu system better than what they get from professional service agencies.

These local or complementary currencies, and many others, are as easy to begin as visiting the Web sites for community exchange systems (CES), local economic transfer systems (LETS), or Time Dollars. According to the most recent data available from the community exchange system (communityexchange.org), more than 180 community exchanges have sprung up around the world, including 55 in Australia, 26 in South Africa, and 33 in the United States.

I like the idea about such an alternative currency system through which we take care of one another!!!