Too wee, too poor, too stupid?

The video clip you have just watched asks whether we in Scotland are too wee to have our own currency.

Iceland isn't ... the Isle of Man isn't ... Jersey isn't ... Brixton, a borough of London, isn't ... so why on earth do we think that we might be?

Is it the habits that we have got into … habits that have stopped us asking questions, for example, who is making us promises on the bits of paper that we pass around each day, that wrongly we think of as money.

It's not money, it's no more than a bit of paper with a promise on it – it is a Promissory Note.

Scotland has a reputation for being inventive, maybe that is what we now need, an ability – at grass roots level – to establish our own money, to make our own promises to each other, to break the habits we have got into?

In a few days, around the world, millions will celebrate our national poet, Rabbie Burns, who gave us these words … “ and there's a hand my trusty fiere … and gie's a hand o' thine”.

Are those words a starting point for how the grassroots can invent a new Scottish currency – based on the promise made to you by a fellow country man or woman, backed by a coin of legal tender, and with their name and signature added in making the promise?

If a fellow Scot offered you their "hand" - would you reject it?

Maybe like the Isle of Man, it would be a “positive statement of independence”, maybe to gain independence, we have to start to show - now - we are independent, and willing to trust each other?

In the video, I refer to “the velocity of money”, and how if a new Scottish currency gains as wide circulation as possible it can help create economic growth.

Creating – at grass roots level – a new “medium of exchange” one we all begin to use as often as possible will help engender economic growth – within and for the benefit of Scotland.

Also in the video I asked “Who owns Boots the Chemist?”, and “Where do the profits go?”

I want to start to introduce why a new Scottish currency is not an end, it is a beginning.

Creating our own promises to each other, our own currency, at a grass roots level – is also the first step in addressing many of the questions that are being asked here in Scotland and around the world – questions of inequality – questions of power.

This is a “long read” … an article by Aditya Chakrabortty from the Guardian headed “ How Boots went rogue.” I hope you will take the time to read it.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/13/how-boots-went-rogue

Scotland has never been to wee to create thoughts, practices and inventions that have influenced the entire world, and now, above all now, is no time to start doubting ourselves!

The future of Scotland, for generations to come, is in our hands!

If not us - who?  If not now - when?