EarthBenign is a software company based in Austin that’s putting together a system that is meant to serve as a replicable alternative economic model in order to help easily set up intentional local communities with their own localized economies using our collaborative consumption methods. We provide the benign-to-earth and benign-to-people technology platforms which power the alternative monetary systems that, when implemented by a community, ultimately yield the Space all of us need to abide in in order to flow with our purpose. EarthBenign offers a medley of technology platforms designed to usher in the New Economy. Our flagship offering is our Trade Exchange system, which is based on the idea of ‘self-issued credit’ proposed by Paul Grignon – who is part of our staff - in his movie ‘Money As Debt 3’. For more information on the idea of self-issued credits as well as a general critique of our current monetary paradigm, please check out Paul’s websites – www.digitalcoin.info and www.moneyasdebt.net In brief, the Trade Exchange system allows participating businesses and individuals to issue vouchers for their services, which serve to act as the money to purchase those services. The money that is created is essentially a promise that you release into the community - a “self-issued” credit - where you promise to deliver something specific (a good or a service) at a specific time. The value of the money that is created is completely dependent on the community’s trust in the issuer that he/she really will deliver the good or service at the time he says he will. EarthBenign will provide the system (the online marketplace) to track the movements, transfers and values of these vouchers up until they are extinguished by redemption i.e. presenting them for receipt of the promised product. In this way, these vouchers will serve the function of money as a medium of exchange – but this will be a money that is not a commodity itself, but rather redeemable in actual goods and services.