Refugees arriving in Italian town given notes to be used as local currency
bbc.com
bbc.com
This probably can't scale. Once enough money is involved organized crime will find a way to siphon that money out of the community. For example, WIC debit cards can be exchanged 50 cents on the dollar for cash.
Whether or not this is a good thing overall depends on your priorities, but remember that the consequences of a decision include not only the things that happen because of it but also the things that don't happen because of it -- and the former are much more visible, so it's easy to accidentally forget about the latter.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency
This was especially common during times of economic hardships: wars and famines. Ex. Russian revolution, the pogroms. Things used were food vouchers, lottery tickets, checks and obligations all sorts of things.
Some interesting issues were money in Jewish ghettos / concentration camps during wwii
If you are interested/live in NYC there is a library with a ton of research materials on currencies/ history from all over the world at the American Numismatic Society's library: http://numismatics.org/Library/Library
It seems like Rome has provided a cash stipend to immigrants, but the local government has intervened and restricted the immigrant's purchasing choices. For example, this could be bad for the recipients if local shopkeepers had significantly higher prices than online retailers or if they charged a premium for extending this credit.
I see the benefits as well, which seem to be well represented in the other comments so far. I'd be interested to see whether this actually helps everyone in practice.
> €35 (£29; $39) per asylum seeker per day from the central government in Rome. This has to cover everything, from accommodation, food and medical care to Italian language lessons, work placements and assistance with asylum bureaucracy.It also includes a couple of euros for pocket money.
What is not clear is: do they give a migrant 35 "fake" euros and tell him to do everything himself, or do they just do this on the food part, but still provide housing etc.
An exploit I could think of is if a local Italian goes and buys the migrants "food stamps" for let's say 80% of their price. The migrants would be free to buy anything with real € but he would pay an unnecessary 20% tax to the Italian. And the Italian would be able to buy 20% discounted food. That's not a huge amount of money at stake: Only whatever the Italian consumes in food over the year. And the migrant would need to be stupid/greedy to trade all of his fake € as he also need them for food.
Then the applications for refugee status can be fairly processed. This way people won't be converted into organs, thrown off boats, enslaved or otherwise taken advantage of. It should also serve to distinguish between genuine refugees (for non-permanent visa) from warzones and the holidaymakers/opportunists.
The current scenario is the worst possible route. Talk of migrants obtaining work is a shibboleth that discerns whether you have your head screwed on properly.
Are we really supposed to believe that millions of migrants are supposed to integrate without understanding the language, law, culture and without the schooling of so much as a secondary school student?
It is preposterous. Inexplicably stupid.
Even with successful integration it can take up to a 100 years for it to work. Look at how long the Italians and Irish were outsiders in the United States. And they were whites in a country historically unusually open to migration. And they trickled in instead of millions per year. That's the easy route and it is not that easy.
In 1847 New York had a population of ~375,000 and had 52,000 Irish and 53,000 German immigrants in one year.
Same year Boston with a population of ~115,000 had almost 40,000 irish immigrants.
During that time there was Irish immigration alone equal to about 3% of the US population(650,000 immigrants vs 17m). The current EU situation is equal to about 0.2% of the population(1m vs 500m)
(Turin so yea it's a little cheaper)
Actually, the money really comes mainly from the European Union, so as a eurocitizen (not italian) I'm actually paying it, not you (with 12€/day you shouldn't pay any income tax).
Anyway, and I'm glad we provide for them, 35€ is not that much when one starts their life over from scratch.
Also note that the refugees are likely to spend everything in local shops, which in turn pay their tax to the italian governement. All in all, such an operation provides dignity to the refugees, increase the income of local shop owners, whose money they also spend in Italy, and all in all, most of the money goes to the italian governement. It's rarely presented with such a perspective, but providing to the poor actually costs very little.
But I do understand why many Italians are so upset about the amount.
I worked for two years (and paid my share of taxes) to finance my studies I don't understand why you assumed I don't pay taxes.
>are likely to spend everything in local shops
same goes for scholarships, actually more because we don't have families outside the EU
This program is essentially an acknowledgement that large influxes of immigrants imposing a cost on society, and that cost is paid locally. Amazon is not being asked to give up rooms and apartments for the immigrants, the local folks are. Pets.com doesn't have to deal with non-native language speakers, and the big bank chains don't have to wait in line at the DMV. This program is not as much about doing the economically optimal thing, this is about smoothing over immigrant relations in the local communities.
As long as the migrants don't get robbed and are fine with living there, they're better off with this system.
What are the credit notes backed by? I assume the shopkeeper can change them to euros. But does the city have enough euros cover all issued notes? Or are they effectively running a ponzi taking the real 35 euros a day from the government and covering the refugee obligation with a credit note.
This should not be legal (and probably is not).
First off: Why plot pictures of communist leaders on the notes?
My guess is that they know what they are doing and want to put the "fog of politics" over it.
Don't accept our "patriot dollars"? I guess you hate our freedom, damn french person.
Think our "refugee euros" are a ponzi scheme? Nasty racist bigot.
Making sure that any discussion of the soundness of the scheme degenerates into a discussion of divisive politics.
Secondly: The 35 euros pr. person the state gives the city to cover all expenses of taking in refugees is probably not a windfall. It is probably too little as it needs to cover everything from hospitals, schools, food, housing, processing cost and so on. (And not enough to give cash handouts for the refugees to wire back home.)
But if you are a manipulative politician you can use the cash you get from the state to run a ponzi scheme and claim the temporary surge in activity is due to the benifits of multiculturalism, your forward-looking leadership or whatever.
Hahaha, what are Euros backed by?
Or are they effectively running a ponzi
What is the ECB running? You have to remember, this is exactly the same thing as how our official money works. Someone just gives it out and creates it from nothing.
Frankly, private currencies are the solution if the state-backed currencies fail, and they seem to fail more than they should. Not to mention, the Euro is dictated from outside, not even from a central bank in the country but from the ECB who has no clue what's happening and needed in South Italy. A classic disaster of centralism.
Alas, the story illustrates a not-so-nice point some are making: a big incentive for indefinite protraction of the European refugee crisis is the concomitant wealth transfer from tax payers (almost everybody), savers (many), and indigenous workers (many) to businesses (few).
Still misleading; I thought they were being given counterfeit currency. "Local alternative currency" perhaps?
They'll often trade at a discount to their "cash value", depending on transaction costs and the risk that it'll be no good.
The only promise that can't fail is the promise to redeem for an alternate form of the same currency (fiat-backed bonds from the issuer, like treasuries e.g.).
When people say "real money" as opposed to "fake money", they're usually referring to the above distinction.