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Economy

Micro-Currency: In French City Of Nantes, Soon You Can Pay In Nantos

Accelerated by the financial crisis, Europe has seen a trend for small businesses looking to make more cashless exchanges. Nantes is becoming Europe's first major city to experiment with a virtual currency that can be used both businesses and ind

Nantes moving forwards (Pierre Hurtevent)
Nantes moving forwards (Pierre Hurtevent)

*NEWSBITES

NANTES – This city in western French is getting ready to launch its own local currency as a complement to the euro. Though Nantes is following the example of the WIR cooperative bank in Basel, Switzerland, where 60,000 small and medium-sized enterprises are already using a cashless payment system, this will be the first time a large-scale European city is willing to try the experiment with both businesses and individuals.

The measure addresses the increasing importance of non-monetary exchanges between firms, a tendency that is particularly visible in times of financial crisis. By the summer of 2013, businesses that have signed-up for this system will be able to pay or be paid in currency units already nicknamed "Nanto."

Firms won't be able to amass Nantos or to cash them in, and there will be a system of penalties – for companies over a certain negative or positive fixed limit, as the objective is to converge towards a balanced budget. Nantos that aren't spent can be used to finance non-profit organizations.

One of the main goals of the system is to accelerate trade between local companies. Members of the "Nanto zone" will be able to limit the use of cash, thereby reducing cash flow problems and making exchanges easier.

Nantos respond primarily to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses in the services, construction or restoration. The city intends to put public transport companies, car parks and after-school programs in the loop. Contrary to the Swiss WIR bank that limited its action to businesses, Nantes also wants to include individuals in its system, who could then receive additional remuneration and bonuses in Nanto.

Read the full story in French by Emmanuel Guimard

Photo – Pierre Hurtevent

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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