This week’s edition The Economist has a short box-text on alternate currencies. From the article:
Gerhard Rösl, professor of economics at the University of Applied Sciences in Regensburg, who wrote on alternative currencies in 2006 for the Bundesbank, says the overall stimulus from such schemes in times of deflation may be short-lived—because, though the velocity of money increases, its supply tends to shrink.
Gerhard Rösl happens to be one of the leading voices against alternate currencies and characterizes them as “Social romanticism on the part of people who don’t think in a structured way”.
Social romantics or not, the article is a reminder that there are entrenched interests opposed to the spread of alternate currencies, and that they will face a struggle for their survival and symbiotic existence from those who benefit from the current system.
