The Parallel Currency

June 29, 2025

The Parallel Currency, June, 2025

A way it can work.

Bright blue sky over sparkling water, with silhouetted mountains in the distance, some snow-capped.

“We know how far we can go with war, it is time to see how far we can go with peace.” S.C.

Imagine if Governments have passed a law that a Parallel Currency, which provides food, shelter, education and healthcare, be universally instituted. One of the questions we are most often asked is, how can it work?

Consider this. An apple farmer has 10 apples. He is required, as a citizen under the new law, to invest two apples in the Parallel Currency. In return he is given two Parallel Currencies. He can then buy two apples with those two Parallel Currencies from another apple farmer, and sell those apples he has received into the existing general market for whatever he chooses to charge (making local currency profit on them) and the other farmer can do the same with another apple farmer, on and on. We can extend this formula to other basic needs. Shelter providers and builders donate a structure to the Parallel Currency system. They can receive income from another shelter provider with an equivalent rental and that provider then donates and receives in the same way. Rotating donation and income within the businesses involved. Education; all teachers will donate teaching time of a determined percentage, receive compensatory income with local currency in rotation from teachers in the same discipline and level. Health care providers operate in the same way within their areas of expertise and level of advancement. The percentage of individual participation is paid for initially with Parallel Currency, as each provider enters the system. This money will then rotate within the PC loop for each of the basic needs. The PC does not mix with other currency and can only be used for basic needs. Providers can receive local currency income for their services and can increase their percentage of participation above what is required, (to be determined), if they wish.

This is the same thing that happens with exchanges within Capitalist money markets but in the case of the Parallel Currency which is invested into something real (the survival and education of people) it is not making money on money, a cause of inflation.

Money is an accounting device.

Government debt is not the same as personal debt.

Government is the issuer of money and receives it back in taxes, which they then destroy.

Banks and stocks give interest on money they borrow from individuals, (they game the economy by encouraging people to invest in stocks and their bank so that a bank can invest that borrowed money in whatever makes them money), this interest money when spent by individuals into the economy can create inflation. Because there is more money available it becomes less valuable. More money than before has to be used to buy whatever people want. Businesses want to make the same profit so prices have gone up. The result is inflation.

This process has created an excess of money that was not intended and is not controlled by the government with its tax and destroy method.

We are all participating in the money sequence of events. We don't have a choice. The Parallel Currency presents an opportunity for people to make choices. And cut most taxes, (this aspect can be addressed in another blog.)

These ideas have been presented in order that they can be discussed and amended.

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Sea days

February 11, 2026

We have several sea days before we arrive again in Cairns, Australia. This means we will not see land for a while. The rhythm of sea days is very different from shore days. There are a variety of activities you can participate in. Almost anything you can imagine is being invented as a result of the variety of people onboard, some of whom want to duplicate the entertainments they enjoyed where they used to live. This is a residential cruise ship so a lot of the passengers are onboard long-term, meaning many months or years or the rest of their lives. The longest stay, if you “buy” your cabin, is 15 years. When Jeff and I bought our cabin that was all that was offered. Now you can buy a cabin for 5 years. Each circumnavigation takes about three and one half years. We are going to try to stay onboard for at least one circumnavigation. Before the sea days began, we visited two of the islands of Tonga. At the first stop, people scuba dived over a reef right next to our ship

French Polynesia, the islands

January 27, 2026

The float of cloud drifts and encircles a mountain leaving just the very top, a pointed witches cap poking through. These islands have the most magnificent mountains. They brood around the harbors, snagging the clouds that pass. No doubt they have inspired fantastic stories. The cloud shadows create chameleon-like changes on mountain surfaces, making them even more expressive than oceans that amuse themselves by hiding what they contain; mountains are hysterical by contrast. Always looking for attention. “Look. Look again!, what about this?” They may hold a pose for a while seeming docile, then you look up and they have disappeared. White mist covers just a grey suggestion, then suddenly black silhouettes like broken giant teeth rise defiantly. So much animation, millions of years after volcanic upheavals shook these mountains from the sea depths.

Notes from Fiji hospital, Oceana Hospital system and Denareau private hospital

January 13, 2026

Medical emergencies all have a similar feeling. Intensity, urgency, a changed perception of time; only events and human encounters progress, time seems warped, unimportant. After several sleepless nights because Jeff was having difficulty peeing and he was beginning to have pain, he went to the onboard clinic to get catheterized. There were three attempts with successively larger catheters. This was painful and distressing for him, though he kept joking about it, “this is not good sex!” The attempts were unsuccessful. He was given pain killers and an ambulance met us at the dock for a 10 minute ambulance ride to the hospital. Jeff is an 80 year old man with an enlarged prostate so he normally has trouble peeing. But this time it stopped altogether and there was blood. We are waiting at the hospital for the urologist. Nurses and a general practitioner have spoken to us in English. Very kind, polite, casual and patient. The urologist arrives and talks with Jeff. He is going to get the operating room ready and put Jeff out. Then he can do the operation. We wait in our curtained off cubicle Jeff is lying on a bed. A woman who came with her husband, who has high blood pressure, is behind the curtain to the left of us. He had collapsed. She is reciting the Lord's Prayer and Hail Marys over and over in an emotional whisper. She is crying. A young man is in the cubicle to our right. He seems to have broken his arm. It is all wrapped up in white gauze. Earlier a man had been stung by something and ointment was applied. A pregnant woman has come in. This is a modest hospital, very basic, two floors. They have what they need. A few flies buzz lazily around, but most are killed by the electric device on the wall. A very slight smell of urine is in the air. We arrived here about 8:30. It is now 2:00. Jeff has had an ultrasound, blood pressure checks and an EKG. Now he is in a wheelchair waiting for the nurse to take him to an operating room. The waiting room has about 10 people waiting. About 50 chairs in all. Not terribly busy for a Saturday. Light and darker coffee colored skin, attractive, rounded features and large expressive eyes set apart the native population. They are only a little curious about us. There is no rushing here.

The Parallel Currency