Target Market and Key Messaging

This is a good idea, so as not to clog up the main document (a la FAQ doc).
So:

"Keeps wealth in communities
MC does not always keep wealth in a community (it might, but you would need to define what “community” means in this context... ) To most people a community is geographical or interest based. Either way, I from London could spend MC with someone in Scotland or Argentina, who does not share my interests… so wealth can travel internationally through mutual credit - which means it transcends communities…”

• Wealth transfered between communities via mc schemes still stays in communities, because there's no legal tender to be sucked out. This is about extraction. We want to stop money being extracted from communities and concentrated in v few hands / finding its way to tax havens. Mutual credit / credit commons prevents that – the bigger the mutual credit sector, the less possible it becomes.

“A second argument against the use of “Keeps wealth in communities” as part of our key messaging is that (ignoring the first argument) it would only be true of the entire economy ran on MC. If only a % of the economy runs on MC then the rest of the economy will still allow wealth to travel out of communities… Just because MC exists it does not mean that wealth is “kept” in communities. Wealth is still free to be extracted."

• Could just add the word ‘helps’, or could just be re-phrased: "mutual credit / credit commons is non-extractive " - i.e. rewards for value generated go to the people who generate it. Of course the existence of MC doesn't prevent extraction from other parts of the economy, but MC itself doesn't do it. Problem is that most people won't understand what extractive means, and so 'helps keep wealth in communities' is a handy alternative - but only within the mutual credit sector. Mutual credit keeps wealth in communities / the corporate sector extracts it.

For me, the non-extractive naure of MC is its most important feature.

I've written something exploring a re-focus emphasising becoming a useful platform for business networks - building Mutual Credit into a platform that supports a dynamic community, as opposed to building Mutual Credit in the hope that it will be the catalyst for a dynamic community to form.
It incorporates a straightforward way to make blended trades possible within the platform, which I believe makes it less necessary to 'explain' or 'sell' mutual credit - in this context, it 'just works'.
I think this is a really important decision area, so please do comment - preferably here, not in the gdoc (unless it's typos/spelling etc).

PS: The doc also relates to Members Agreement and credit limit calculation. This isn't really the thread for it, but then nowhere else is either, so here's a sketch of a credit limit algorithm.
Comments in the gdoc, for this one, please!

I think there are a couple of tools we can use to recruit members. Firstly, a 'guarantee society' for mutual assurance of performance of contracts by businesses with a 'common bond' by location, by trade or both.

Secondly, a generic community loyalty point scheme. I'll fill you in on both later.

Really interesting idea Dil - and it's encouraging to see more lateral thinking in order to figure out ways to get OCN off the ground... however I struggle to understand how this is of benefit.

1. you say "This system gives members short-term cashflow easing without undue risk." but members need to pay in upfront to use the system - so how does that help with cash flow??? I must be missing something...

2. I'm just not seeing the benefit to businesses. They need to put in cash to use this system, and still get charged fees - so it's worse value for money than just using a free business bank like Tide. And it's more complicated - as I have to understand it... when everyone already understands the present system... - what is the value proposition to the customer (the businesses)?

3. Who can I pay? I think from what you have written that I can only pay other people in the network ... so we still have the same network / market building problem ...

I'm encouraged by the recognition that we need to do something differently but I'm not sure this is it...

I have tried to show in the examples that the weekly credit clearing system makes it possible for businesses in the scheme to get over short term cashflow issues that does not depend on their reserve balance. Maybe it isn't clear enough.
Can you read that first example again and see if it could be made clearer?

sorry - I really don't get it - in that example Jeffry simply persuades someone to pay for something sooner so he can spend the balance sooner - that's not a benefit of the app, it's simple sales / payment negotiation that could work in fiat or whatever... perhaps I am still missing something.

OK, I've made a more explicit example - have a look.

Credit within the clearing system will always depend on someone having more in that system than they need - but here's the thing. If we take that community college model, the £185 they put into the local clearing system pays forward into Jeffery's account, then almost immediately into Maria's, then into Susan's.

Unless Susan is really short of cash, she's likely to leave the £100 in the system (it costs 50p to take it out). She's likely to be happy to pay someone with it. If they get it on a Wednesday, they have a week of short term credit of £100.

The Community College is not an unlikely condition. Diana from Bristol Pound told me that Good energy, who are local to Bristol, have £180k in the Bristol pound system, and never spend any, because the book-keeper doesn't get it. In Bristol, no-one pesters them to pay in £BP, because they are useless. But in this system, they could be shown that without affecting their balance, they could help the local economy to the tune of whatever their average weekly receipts through the system are.

The money the businesses pay in is theirs, not the network's - it's an escrow system. If you read the section on Credit limits, you'll see that it fulfils the function of a bond for the Mutual Credit system, without getting us into legal action or regulatory problems. If they leave (on good terms) they get their money back.

The great thing about this network conveners group is that we can find out for real whether they think their members would join, whether they think it is useful etc.