Euros discarded as impoverished Greeks resort to bartering

[Prepper1]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan...rty-crisis



t's been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done good business with her fresh pies.

But not a single euro has changed hands – none of the customers on this drizzly Saturday morning has bothered carrying money at all. For many, browsing through the racks of second-hand clothes, electrical appliances and homemade jams, the need to survive means money has been usurped.

"It's all about exchange and solidarity, helping one another out in these very hard times," enthused Ioanitou, her hair tucked under a floppy felt cap. "You could say a lot of us have dreams of a utopia without the euro."

In this bustling port city at the foot of Mount Pelion, in the heart of Greece's most fertile plain, locals have come up with a novel way of dealing with austerity – adopting their own alternative currency, known as the Tem. As the country struggles with its worst crisis in modern times, with Greeks losing up to 40% of their disposable income as a result of policies imposed in exchange for international aid, the system has been a huge success. Organisers say some 1,300 people have signed up to the informal bartering network.

For users such as Ioanitou, the currency – a form of community banking monitored exclusively online – is not only an effective antidote to wage cuts and soaring taxes but the "best kind of shopping therapy". "One Tem is the equivalent of one euro. My oil and soap came to 70 Tem and with that I bought oranges, pies, napkins, cleaning products and Christmas decorations," said the mother-of-five. "I've got 30 Tem left over. For women, who are worst affected by unemployment, and don't have kafeneia [coffeehouses] to go to like men, it's like belonging to a hugely supportive association."

Greece's deepening economic crisis has brought new users. With ever more families plunging into poverty and despair, shops, cafes, factories and businesses have also resorted to the system under which goods and services – everything from yoga sessions to healthcare, babysitting to computer support – are traded in lieu of credits.

"For many it plays a double role of supplementing lost income and creating a protective web at this particularly difficult moment in their lives," says Yiannis Grigoriou, a UK-educated sociologist among the network's founders. "The older generation in this country can still remember when bartering was commonplace. In villages you'd exchange milk and goat's cheese for meat and flour."

Other grassroots initiatives have appeared across Greece. Increasingly bereft of social support, or a welfare state able to meet the needs of a growing number of destitute and hungry, locals have set up similar trading networks in the suburbs of Athens, the island of Corfu, the town of Patras and northern Katerini.

But Volos, the first to be established, is by far the biggest. Until recently the city, 200 miles north of Athens, was a thriving industrial hub with a port whose ferries not only connected the mainland to nearby islands but before Syria's descent into civil war was a trading route between Greece and the Middle East. Once famous for its tobacco, Volos was home to flour mills and cement factories, steel and metal works.

But, today, it is joblessness that it has come to be known for in a country whose unemployment rate recently hit a European record of 26%, surpassing even that of Spain.

"Frankly the Tem has been a life-saver," said Christina Koutsieri, clutching DVDs and a bag of food as she emerged from the marketplace. "In March I had to close the grocery store I had kept going for 27 years because I just couldn't afford all the new taxes and bills. Everyone I know has lost their jobs. It's tragic."

Last year, the Greek government stepped in with a law that supported finding creative ways to cope with the crisis. For the first time, alternative forms of entrepreneurship and local development were actively encouraged.

Although locals insist the Tem, which is also available in voucher form, will never replace banknotes – and has not been dreamed up to dodge taxes – they say it is a viable alternative.

For local officials such as Panos Skotiniotis, the mayor of Volos, the alternative currency has proved to be an excellent way of supplementing the euro. "We are all for supporting alternatives that help alleviate the crisis's economic and social consequences," he said. "It won't ever replace the euro but it is really helping weaker members of our society. In all the social and cultural activities of the municipality, we are encouraging the Tem to be used."

[cryingfreeman]

Bartering is very difficult for many people who lack the patience or the nerve to try it. I think it's another one of those survivalist concepts that seems great now but when it comes to it will be daunting.

[Scythe13]

I get what you're saying CF. Having done sales as my main jobs, I love bartering, and will push people well and negotiate well. The problem with that, it allows bidding wars and the price people get for their products goes right down. Benefit to me, but not to the person I'm buying from. I'll also sell as high as possible, because that's what get's more profit. Really, unless people have the nerve to stand out a deal, bartering can be as ruthless, if not more ruthless, than the system we have now.

Why do some market stalls last many years, some become supermarkets, some get crushed by opposition selling the same products? Simple economics. It's the same system that we're in now. If you want something cheap, go to the supermarkets and purchase at the end of the day. Why doesn't everyone do that? Because as a nation/species, we're idiots.

We shop at Tesco, Morrisons, and the alike. They don't have the best prices, but people pay extra because of the 'benefits' of buying from a supermarket. Well, that's totally BS!!! We do it because we're lazy and dumb, as a nation. It's cheaper to grow your own carrots, peas, potatoes, etc. But we prefer others to do the work for us.

Does a barter market guarantee a better product at a better price? Only if you can shaft the person selling the item to you and get the best price from them!

Bartering is ruthless and it's a skill in it's own.

[Highlander]

(7 January 2013, 12:16)cryingfreeman Wrote: Bartering is very difficult for many people who lack the patience or the nerve to try it. I think it's another one of those survivalist concepts that seems great now but when it comes to it will be daunting.

I am sure that many people in Greece might well have thought the same before the situation went sour on them,... but hard time will always make people think in different ways

Bartering is rife where I live, we barter a lot here, usualy we barter skills, I have lost count of the number of times I have done this, the last was when I did a persons lawn and in exchange I had that person feed my dogs when I had to go away,.... even today, I am fullfilling a barter, I am looking after someone house now while they are on holiday, in exchange for a tree they cut down in the summer [ for logs]

As preppers its something that we all should be thinking about, remember to have one of those shelf for bartering goods

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The very same would happen with more important things like food,..if you want food, you dont have to offer food in return,... barting covers every aspect of what we need, so a loaf of bread could well be worth a bag of loags.

The beauty of what these people in Greece have done is form what you might call bartering societies,..where you join the group or community, so that everyone is helping each other, this will take away any of the aggressiveness, or the bidding wars,.. they have clearly done this with helping people and the community in mind, and not out of an individual need to survive

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The very same would happen with more important things like food,..if you want food, you dont have to offer food in return,... barting covers every aspect of what we need, so a loaf of bread could well be worth a bag of loags.

The beauty of what these people in Greece have done is form what you might call bartering societies,..where you join the group or community, so that everyone is helping each other, this will take away any of the aggressiveness, or the bidding wars,.. they have clearly done this with helping people and the community in mind, and not out of an individual need to survive

[cryingfreeman]

http://ferfal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/usa...it-be.html

See paragraph 3!

[ObongoPox]

What happens to the socially marginalized who've no social skills and nothing to trade?

[Scythe13]

(7 January 2013, 15:12)ObongoPox Wrote: What happens to the socially marginalized who've no social skills and nothing to trade?

Natural selection, I guess.

[I-K-E]

(7 January 2013, 15:16)Scythe13 Wrote:

(7 January 2013, 15:12)ObongoPox Wrote: What happens to the socially marginalized who've no social skills and nothing to trade?

Natural selection, I guess.

or unskilled labourer

[Scythe13]

(7 January 2013, 15:18)I-K-E Wrote:

(7 January 2013, 15:16)Scythe13 Wrote:

(7 January 2013, 15:12)ObongoPox Wrote: What happens to the socially marginalized who've no social skills and nothing to trade?

Natural selection, I guess.

or unskilled labourer

Unskilled Labourer could make it by just by lending a hand. Mow my lawn and you'll get a bag of carrots, that kind of deal, means that people should be able to survive.

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You'd just start getting stuff like carrot, pea, and bean seeds and the alike, and that'll sort out most people's need to eat.

[Skean Dhude]

They join Plod and become enforcers for the new local government.