“A resilient, efficient system needs to be diverse and interconnected. On the other hand, diversity and interconnectivity decrease efficiency. Therefore, the key is an appropriate balance between efficiency and resilience.”

There are whole different families of complementary currencies. One of them is local currencies. One is regional currencies. Another is functional currencies. Another is social-purpose currencies.

The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.

Look at any financial institution, at any bank. They’re all photocopies of each other. There’s no diversity of institutions and even less diversity of currency.

Therefore, just as you say its very logical that an ecosystem like this will collapse, it’s very predictable a monetary system like this will collapse, too. And it hasn’t finished collapsing, by the way.

Our [American] money system is structurally brittle. It doesn’t matter if you put a very clever guy or a stupid guy at the wheel.

GREED AND COMPETITION ARE NOT THE RESULT OF IMMUTABLE HUMAN TEMPERMENT…

Complementary currencies work in addition to existing money, rather than replacing existing, official money.

The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World

They send you into the world to compete with everybody else to get the second $100,000 that never was created and bring it back to them. So if we’re in a world with zero-growth population, goods, services, and money, the problem would be obvious.

Basically, for any complex to be sustainable needs to have a balance between two factors: resilience and efficiency. These two factors can be calculated from the structure of the network that is involved in a complex system.

Conventional money is supposed to be doing everything. By adding in complementary currencies, you actually get different types of things and different outcomes from different complementary currencies.

The clever guy will take a half hour to have an accident, and the stupid guy will take ten minutes.

Money is created through bank debt. When you go for a mortgage through a bank, they give you $100,000 to buy a house and basically send you out into the world to bring back $200,000 in the next twenty years. The first $100,000 is principal, and the second is interest.

I know that if I could really understand mental illness, then it would be appropriate to make a big career shift.

There are times in all of our lives when a reliance on gut or intuition just seems more appropriate – when a particular course of action just feels right.

Wine is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man.

If you believe in your value, how could it possibly be appropriate to hide it from people who need it?

Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.

I like to be able to wear something that is appropriate for wherever the day takes me: to work, on a hike and then out to dinner. I like to take the formality out of the day’s schedule and be ready for any off-road detour.

Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts.

I support public and private partnerships whenever appropriate in order to achieve our goal of a prosperous and vibrant downtown.