1. Public Money for Public Access: Monetary Solutions for Water Finance
Gwendolyn Hallsmith
Global Community Initiatives
Vermonters for a New Economy
Vermont, USA

2. Global Community Initiatives
Founded in 2002
International Board of Directors
North/South Mission for Cities and Communities
Sustainability Planning
Development and Demonstration Projects
Training and Technical Assistance
Youth Engagement
Empowerment and Capacity Building
Emerging Economic Crisis
Vermonters for a New Economy
Public Banking Initiative

3. Legacy Project Action Plan

4. New Planning Methodology
inventory community assets
create shared vision
understand city systems
set goals and indicators
develop action plan

5. EarthCAT Workbook

6. Sustainable Master Planning Project
The City of Newburgh
Sustainable Master Planning
Project

8. Planning and Implementing a Sustainable City

9. Montpelier Implementation
$22M District Heat project to serve downtown with biomass heat
Bike Summit and festival to make a bicycle friendly capital
Time Bank complementary currency
Local Food – a garden in every school
Capital City Challenge

10. Local Action for Sustainable Economic Renewal (LASER)
Economic Development planning workbook
Identify Assets and Capital
Take Action

11. The Role of Money
Analysis of monetary roots of unsustainable economics
Complementary Currencies that work around the world

12. Community Currencies Step by Step Guide for Community Leaders
Translated into Twelve Languages

13. South Africa Bike Project

14. Main Street Economics Local Investment Options
Examples of Successful Local Economic Actions

15. Envisioning a New Economy
State Bank Initiative
Study of Economic Impacts of a public bank
New Economy Week
New Economy Camp

16. The Challenge: Water & Money
Billions of people lack access to basic water and sanitation
Trillions of dollars are needed to solve the problem
The world has reached its debt and investment limits
Income inequality makes higher taxes and fees impossible, unenforceable, and increasingly unjust
Fixing the problem requires new thinking about old solutions
In Africa, in order to provide safe drinking water to the 40 percent of the population still lacking access, investments would need to be raised from USD$7.6 billion/
year to USD$14 billion annually. Seventy-five percent of the countries in Asia are under water stress and USD$59 billion is needed annually in water supply
investments.

17. What is Public Money? Sovereign Money
QE for the people – Positive Money UK
Deficit spending without debt – Minsky
Understanding public money requires a particular view of money itself.
Is it a commodity, credit, or fiat?

18. Historical Public Money
British Tally Sticks ( )
British “Bradbury Notes” WWI
Ways and Means Advance in Britain (until 2000)
United States ( )
Bank of Canada ( )
Bank of New Zealand ( )
Japan ( )

19. What about inflation???
In all of the cases just described, careful management of public money did not lead to runaway inflation. When money is spent into existence for goods and services, the problem of too much money chasing too few goods and services does not exist.

20. What causes runaway inflation?
Zimbabwe – economic collapse that came with land reform
Weimar Republic – privatized central bank issuing too much money, combined with reparations
Central and Eastern Europe/NIS – economic collapse and balance of trade issues
NOT PUBLIC MONEY

21. Paradigm Change
“Never, ever think outside the box…”

22. Public Legitimacy & Commons
Neoliberal era has delegitimated public sector.
Peak debt and investment drives privatization.
Debt and taxes limit government thinking.
Private banks and investors dominate finance.
Sovereign debt has reached crisis point.
Money is a social institution, it can change.
Water is our birthright, water is life.

23. How do paradigms change?
The old system doesn’t work anymore.
Anomalies drive additional research/strategies
Early adopters find new ways of doing things.
Experiments in one location succeed and spread.
Non-violent direct action campaigns reduce public support for old institutions.
The “better mousetrap” is widely adopted and used.

24. The End