TED Conversations

Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
Campina
Romania

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

Goods and services exchange with your own bank in your pocket. Reviving the old times easy business making with the new technology.

You probably read about old times goods and services exchange when people didn't had coins or a way to pay for their goods and services and they where doing things for each other. Families where happy and the life was beautiful with no hurry and stress like in modern times. People where doing works to sustain their families and also to help their community. The life in the community was like a harmony and each family had something to offer for the community and they where doing this with pleasure and passion. Now days life has a lot of stress and a lot of people don't like their jobs because of the working environment or because of the team they work with and so on ...
The idea is to have a free working environment where business is done like in old times and where people work with pleasure and passion and where they can change the place of work and kind of work when they want and they need without any restriction and without schedule of working.
My idea is to start small business communities like in old times with people and companies that want to work but do not have money to invest in the community but they have the working staff and they want to keep their people.
The global recession is not about lack of money or resources is about the global almost closed bank system with a lot of "tricky" things to make "money" from nothing and in the same time to grow in complexity, This is not the case for a free social community like in old times and is like we forgot the root of the business and in my opinion is a wrong way that world economies are following.
This is why I am thinking to start a parallel economy together with the existing one but in a way to let people chose the one they like more and how they interact with the needs of the local community.
Think about a teacher a gardener and a dentist that live close to each other and they are friends but they have to involve a whole bank system to make a job to each other... Think about the resources...

Sort By:

Fritzie Reisner 100+
- 0
Host

Sep 27 2012: Do do an internet search for barter communities and you will find them. This may give you some extra ideas for what you are doing or want to do.
- Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
  - 0
  Sep 27 2012: Yes I already done this and found a better solution i think than the micorocredit or microfinance nobel priced idea of Muhammad Yunus. The idea is big but with a very good path and can solve almost all problems evan tiefs one and can give you a real state of the economy and not an inflated form by means of receiving investments.
- Rick Ryan 10+
  - 0
  Sep 27 2012: Like Fritzie said, there are many Internet resources that explain existing bartering communities. So I agree they can work.
  
  My only concern is that despite them explaining that they are still taxable, you don't seem to think that is necessary.
  
  I'm not trying to say your idea isn't a good one, but just needs to be re-evaluated about the need for taxation or not.
  
  I sincerely hope that you CAN establish a community like the one you want in your idea, but at the same time keep in within the confines of current laws.
  - Fritzie Reisner 100+
    
    0
    Host
    
    Sep 27 2012: Rick, Iulian lives in Romania. Perhaps the tax status of business activities works differently there.
    - Rick Ryan 10+
      
      0
      
      Sep 27 2012: Agreed, Fritzie. That's why I said in my very first reply post, "Be aware though, depending on where you live and the tax laws,..."
      
      The TED forum here is a multi-national community. I just wanted everyone to make sure they understood "bartering" as it applies to their own country's tax laws. Wouldn't want anyone to end up in jail for something they read about and implemented on TED.
  - Fritzie Reisner 100+
    
    0
    Host
    
    Sep 27 2012: I understand, Rick. I only thought that might be why Iulian was not worried about the tax issue you raised.
    
    As you wrote, the scale would likely determine whether tax issues come into play. This afternoon I and neighbors will (with luck) lift an injured Great Dane into or out of his home with stairs. This sort of neighborliness, as you wrote, would not raise tax issues.
    - Rick Ryan 10+
      
      0
      
      Sep 27 2012: Thanks. Sometimes I hate "written communication" and am fallable to the dangers of it too. My apologies if any of my posts came across overly critical in nature. That's the last thing I would want for any of my posts to do here. It would be against my own beliefs of the standards of this community.
  - Fritzie Reisner 100+
    
    0
    Host
    
    Sep 27 2012: You have no worries at all in that regard. You always come across, in my opinion, as the gentleman you are.
Rick Ryan 10+
- 0
Sep 27 2012: Everything you are proposing is possible already if you can find enough people in your local community to participate. If you have a service they want, and they have a service you want, go ahead a barter it together. Nothing is stopping you. Just keep doing business for non-available goods and services with "money" the way it currently exists, like you said you would.

Be aware though, depending on where you live and the tax laws, you don't get a "free lunch" by bartering your goods and services. For instance, in the U.S. any goods or services you receive through bartering are required by law to be reported as an "equivalent income source" and must be reported at a "fair market value" that you are required to pay income taxes on. Whether most people do this in their everyday lives with occassional bartering between themselves is questionable. But if you establish a known "community" bartering system that is successful enough, you are going to attract enough attention that you probably won't be able to get away with income tax evasion.

This link is a short example of the law from the U.S. Tax Code:

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html
- Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
  - 0
  Sep 27 2012: Thank you but can i ask you what is the difference between a very big company that make a lot of services to their staff and the kind of community I am talking about. I mean lets take google that i suppose has a lot of buildings and owns houses for their staff and pay as usual to the state but they make this service free for the staff or get them to party or holidays. So if our organisation that is non profit is doing same thing, what is the difference ? We do not make profit from our work, we just work for each other so why to pay tax if we do not make profit in terms of money and we also help the local economies grow. Think about ..... we help also the state like this :) we pay taxes to the state and we offer services to the state and the state represents the community and is not a "force" to be against the community evolution.
- Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
  - 0
  Sep 27 2012: Maybe you can see it better in this way: If the state represents the community and the state is not a profit entity and the local comunity is theone that pays the state representatives why to put a tax to the community that is maybe in a profitable state in terms of growth and why should a central entity "force" asmall community contribute to something that is not agree with. So if I am part of a community and I work why i am not asked about were our money should be invested by voting the direction of the investment and in an easy way. Just receive a question and vote on the phone and propose ideas from every person in community. This is fair enough for all to be happy and our needs to be solved. thank you
  - Rick Ryan 10+
    
    0
    Sep 27 2012: I'm not saying your idea is bad. But you seem to have a few assumptions about it that are in error.
    
    1. You are essentially hiring each other to perform services or supply goods to each other. If the services/goods are available, you are "trading" (bartering) your time and effort to supply those services/goods with each other. If the services/goods were NOT available, you would have to pay someone money outside of your community for the service/good. If you did have to pay somebody for a good that you acquired, the person you paid would either be self-employed, or an employee of a business. Either way, there is a money-value-exchange that takes place that is required to have taxes paid on it. Doesn't matter if the good/service you get is paid for with "real" money or is "traded" for (bartered).
    
    2. Your "bartering community" is essentially a separate economy (like you say), but you are also operating as a "business" too. You have a demand for services and goods, and a supply chain to provide them. If you don't pay the equivalent taxes on the "income value" of the goods and services provided, you eliminate that tax revenue from the "bigger than your own community" tax base. Now, if you are willing to quit being supplied the services that tax base provides to your "local bartering community", all is well. But it you continue to accept those services (water, roads, sewer, legislative, judicial, safety/security (like a national military to protect the entire country your community is in), do you think you should continue to get those services for free while citizens outside your bartering community still pay for them?
    
    Remember, "money" is nothing more than a "tool" that makes direct bartering unnecessary in the first place. Money is a way of "keeping score" for the exchange of an individual's time in providing a service or the value of a good. Use bartering instead of money? Taxes still need to be collected.
    - Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
      
      0
      
      Sep 27 2012: For the first thing you say is an error in thinking of the idea I say is not becouse we as organisation will pay the taxes for goodsand services we need from outside but the first thing we will do is to use internal resources of the organisation and propose people to join the team so they will not pay as usual for things in the community so there should be no taxation if we use our internal resources and staff but we will pay as usual to the state like you said the bigger part of the community the other services that we need until we have all we need inside the organisation so we will see like this how real is the local economy in the community and we clean like this from the base the community and we do not cheat in any way we justsee who work and who is paid for doing nothing useful. I do not think i have to pay a tax for exchanges inside the organisation and we will have a money income if we offer services to the community but we should not be overtaxed becouse we do not make any profit from it and we use internal resources and goods and staff. This is not profit is a better management of internal resources. Good ? A profit is when you get something from an entity and you do not return back the same amount and have a plus in the income so you exploited the local resources for your own or company needs. Thisis profit from my point of view.
  - Rick Ryan 10+
    
    0
    Sep 27 2012: (continued)
    
    Let me take your example "separate economy" to the extreme. What if you replaced the entire existing economy where taxes were collected with your totally new bartering economy where no taxes were collected? The only way the services the tax revenues were supllied from would be if your own new society provided them for free to each other.
    
    Now, if that is what you are proposing, I'm fine with that. But if you have your SEPARATE bartering economy working within another economy that is providing you tax-funded socieyy-services, you should still be paying taxes for those services.
    - Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
      
      0
      
      Sep 27 2012: Yes this the goal of the idea to not pay taxes for something that we already pay as community. I am taxed for geting a new home or geting a new passport or things like this that the state is doing for us all so me like a good citizen that i contributed working for the state i should have them for free becouse they are part of the needs of the community I am part of. I will pay the people in the state that are making this things but as like now from local resources and everyone contributions but those are needs of the community so we can see them not like taxes but like paying for a service that we need and exchange with our local representatives of the community so we are all the state not just few people making decisionsfor us without asking each of us what we need and what we want. Every small decision should be discussed and maybe voted by theones that care about the community they live in but they have the right to be asked even if they can not answer or do not want and they have the right to be listened if they have ideas to share and voted also. If the idea is a foolish one next time they will think twice before asking a community vote but they feel the freedom with goods and bads and democracy in the real way.
Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
- 0
Sep 27 2012: --- Just and example to clarify the working environment proposed by me:

Think about a teacher a gardener and a dentist that live close to each other and they are friends but they have to involve a whole bank system to make a job to each other..... Think about the resources they consume just for involve a central bank system and not distributed one.

I am a teacher and network and software engineer and want to work but do not have any opportunity in my community but I have resources to make some jobs.
My neighbor is gardener and need to teach his kids how to work with the computer but do not have the knowledge to do this. Another neighbor is dentist and has a big house with a beautiful garden. We all do not have "money" now to pay for our needs like me going to dentist and the gardener to teach the kids and the dentist to arrange the garden. This is a small example just with three persons with their needs and in this way the community is formed of three people that will make services to each other. I will teach the kids of the gardener and the gardener will arrange the dentist garden and me get a dental control to the dentist without involving "money" or credit cards. In now days bank system if I do not have cash to pay the gardener I have to go to the bank to get some cash and pay for gas for my car and if the dentist do not have credit card machine will have to get money from customers and so on a lot of stress and resources waste even if we are in the same living zone and community. We all have now mobile phones or smart phones but we do not use all the resources they have. Think that your phone is the your own bank in your pocket and you will use it for counting your working activities like in the old days papers with debits and credits.
- chen xin
  - 0
  Sep 27 2012: what you said is reasonable .at some point
  and also you may did .and yo can did ,just do it ,
  while what i want to say is that you live in Romania while i live in china .if i want to pay your
  network lessions .how can i do ,should i take a plane to Romania .i dont think so
  - Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
    
    0
    Sep 27 2012: Less than 5 minutes ago: No, of course. :) haha but you have two ways to pay the service we make for you. You can make another service to us that can be made via Internet or phone, I mean from distance (any service even good exchange via post) or you can pay us with the existing bank system and we use the money for paying the people that want to leave our working network and they have done work that exceed their consume in the network. thanks for commenting and hope you are satisfied with my comment
  - Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
    
    0
    Sep 27 2012: You can start your own network there in your community and if you have something to offer to our community we can make exchanges and most important thing is that there is no ruller of the network just people doing work to each other and of course the one who contribute to the community most has a right to be listen more than others like a "boss" elected by people in the network but "freely" doing works and beeing apreciated by the community. And the most important thing is that we all vote the service and goods price and all have a point to say when we interact with new workers or new communities. This is the beautiful part in the working network I imagine :) we vote every day :) and we all have something to "say" :)
    - chen xin
      
      0
      
      Sep 27 2012: nerther do i have a network nor do i know waht it is .can you explain how can i open a community .
      
      there are thousands of resouces online ..hoe can you attact me with your goods or waht is your advantage ?i even dont know what your community is about
  - Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
    
    0
    Sep 27 2012: First when I said working network I am talking about a working organisation or a team. I can say that this kind of working environment is more attractive becouse you do not have a schedule and you work as you need and is closer to old natural way of feeding from nature when people where geting from nature just how much were their needs. No one force them to work much more than they need and if they wanted to make an effort to help the others and they could make that, they were doing this freely. Now days you are forced in some way to work also over normal schedule especialy in China and also other countries. The goods will be made by people working with pleasure so will be of good quality becouse workers do this with pleasure and experience so the quality of the product is better and better becouse grows naturaly. About how you can open a working community there I can tell you that we are working to make and distribute a software platform for this and we need help to make it faster and better. And a working community is like any other company or organisation but with a better working environment and tou can work even from your home
    - chen xin
      
      0
      
      Sep 27 2012: a website or something ?
      nobady forces you to do something . we just do what we like in china
      may be you dont know much about china you know china is not what it was ,,,if they do they just want a high pay
      and thank you very much for your reply for you explain.thank you very much .

Showing all 23 comments

Sign In

To join or start a conversation, you'll need to sign in. Not a member? Register Now (it's free and fast).

Live Conversations

Live Conversations are hosted by TED speakers and TED Fellows. Ask your questions and participate in the discussions on the following dates and times: