Seditious Currency

Communities in North Carolina, Massachusetts, Arizona and elsewhere print their own money to encourage shoppers to patronize local businesses.

A few dozen local businesses banded together this spring to distribute the Plenty -- a local currency intended to replace the dollar. Now 15,000 Plenties are in circulation here, used everywhere from the organic food co-op to the feed store to, starting this month, the Piggly Wiggly supermarket

"The Plenty is not going to get siphoned off to Wall Street, or Washington, or make a stop in Bentonville on its way to China," said B.J. Lawson, a software entrepreneur who is president of the board of the Plenty cooperative. "It gives us self-reliance."

If the federal government can no longer be trusted with the money reserve, it's time to go local. My question is at what point of popularity do the feds start cracking down? Within a local town, that's probably small potatoes but I think it is telling that a major supermarket chain (and for you folks who have never been to the South, despite its funny sounding name, Piggly Wiggly is a major supermarket chain) is accepting this currency.