John is the leader of all LETS in the world. Here are his commentaries after reading the book “The French LETS saga”:

Date: October, 26^th 2002

I just got a copy of “The French LETS saga” and must admit that even though the English translation was a little rough at times, I couldn't put it down.

The reason I couldn't put it down is that I had never had the opportunity to build a working LETS model from the bottom up to help support my lifestyle and here we have first hand testimony by a former mechanical engineer who built his! What is disappointing is that Francois quits his LETS at the end because he had let himself be taken advantage of. As a Mr. Fix-it Handyman, everyone called on Francois to repair things. But when they'd ask how much cash they owed, he kept replying "No cash, I'll take Green" and ended up biting the bill for the cash. After a few years of biting the cash outlay, who can blame him for being puked out at a system where he ended up being used by the few (who do provide the funnier stories of the book)? Francois, when you advertise, "come and use me", you'll draw all kinds including those who won't let you use them back. But if you're unemployed and want to create your own LETS support circle, read his books and build it like Francois did to get it going but do not do like Francois and fail to pay for your cash outlays or you too will end up having to write a book about your experiences to cover your outlays.

Finally, Francois, though you bemoan the 3000 credits you have outstanding, when all the little LETS databases are merged into the one big UNILETS database, your credits will be again, in your eyes, good to spend. No one can run away from their debt to you when UNILETS kicks in. Unless they fled to Mars. So don't worry. The credits you say in public that you earned are good with me and I'm sure with every other LETS on the planet.

This is a wonderful book full of jokes and wisdom. Francois was as dedicated LETSer and I hope that when he realizes that it is impossible for him to lose his credits, that he returns to his LETS and admits he was at fault for not covering his costs and then becoming disappointed by it all. Maybe finding out his credits are always good will get him back in the fold. Come on, everyone, tell Francois that his credits are good in your home LETS as long as he lets your credits be good in his. And get the book. I know of other priceless books that never went into a second printing and only those who saw its worth early ever got one. I'm thinking in particular of David Astle's Babylonian Woe, the greatest monetary history book ever written. And I had the thrill of meeting the old gent once. If you can spare the cash, let Francois know we appreciate his time enough to pray he makes a healthy profit and then gets back into his LETS with or without having conquered his urge to make of his time a gift. Once everyone's got enough, then we'll stop the accounting and go potlatching. But while there are possible shortages to share out equitably, proper money is the best machine to allocate scarce resources and so we'll keep it until there are no more scarce resources.

Again, this was the fun-est 400 pages of reading I've had in a long time which explains my effusive congratulations.

Thanks much for The Adventures of France's Robin Hood. Just remember that Canada's police call me our Robin Hood and I got rich winning from the rich to promote LETS for the poor. Then the government broke my machine. Someday I'll have the time to write my Robin Hood adventures too.

Signed:

John C. "The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel, Author of the UNILETS interest-free time-based currency United Nations C6 recommendation to Governments in the

http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel  http://www.medpot.net

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