| Bartering has been part of our economic activity, | | | | street, because main street had credit. |
| since we first settled, and started to develop on | | | | Bartering can also solve food problems. If you |
| this planet. Until money was invented, bartering | | | | lack the cash, or the credit to buy food, then |
| was an essential part of trade, and kept | | | | perhaps you can trade the goods you do not |
| communities alive, in times of famine and war. In | | | | need for food. Cash strapped communities could |
| recent years, bartering became common in | | | | form cooperatives, and trade unwanted |
| communities where money was hard to come by, | | | | possessions into food. This basic approach to |
| or even non existent. In the early to mid-1990's, | | | | trade, works as long as it is organized. |
| many Citizens in the former Soviet Union, were | | | | Look in your home, in the basement and attics of |
| paid in cash and goods and it was a common | | | | your home, in the boxes that gather dust in your |
| sight in the rural East to see people barter the | | | | bedrooms, and you find a host of unwanted |
| products they made. Countries barter products, in | | | | goods, that someone somewhere in your |
| the late 1990's Indonesia traded a small aircraft | | | | neighborhood, needs. And chances are, they |
| for the equivalent value in rice and Chili's from | | | | themselves may have something you need. So in |
| other Asian countries. New Zealand supplied Iran | | | | theory, exchanging goods for the equivalent value |
| with fresh lamb, in exchange for oil, based on the | | | | of another, does not mean you need to go |
| international price for both produce. In both cases, | | | | without something. |
| this "trade" worked. | | | | So in a cash strapped society, were credit is |
| In the pre October 15th economy, Banks and | | | | scarce and the majority of people own more |
| Stockbrokers did in reality "trade" stocks and | | | | consumer items then ever before in history, why |
| assets, without the use of cash. Bartering or | | | | not use the method of bartering goods between |
| "trading" has been a part of globalized trade and | | | | people and communities? |
| commerce, its just that it has not reached main | | | | |