JAK - a Swedish community system that reminded me of Ryan Fugger's community work in Vancouver with the Work Less Party

[Daniel Treccia]

Hello world, huge huge huge fan of Ripple "classic" and all of its branches and Social realms its found its way to!

I'm Dan T. from the Devcoin (DVC) project, one of the first 'forks' of Bitcoin's original implementation in July 2011.

The Ripple project and the "classic" network amazes me, it's no longer a six degrees of separation world.

Ryan, I'm such a huge fan of your work I had to dig up a podcast from May 24, 2006 that you did while I was still in my junior year of high school! You absolutely nailed the abuses of the system that led to the financial crisis but you also had a proof of concept, a paper I read two years earlier from 2004, and much more (the internet archive helps make up for lost time I spent in my adolescence doing stupid things chasing girls, playing some collegiate and low-level pro baseball... I should've just been looking for this GROUP! All of you have changed my life and I thank you!)

So I wanted to make a contribution. Here's something I found so amazing as this project. As we here persist today and Ryan's original network lives on in many branches that are far spread and wide, I want to honor him with a story that started with a community long ago and is now a fully fledged alternative bank, licensed in one of the richest regions by GDP in the entire world!

Rarely will I quote Wikipedia, or even an entire entry, but I want this on this historic mailing list to put my little mark of appreciation in here before this group becomes part of the archives of legends -- as I fully believe it will. This is for you, Ryan, for changing the way I thought not only about blockchain based currencies, even the one's I've been part of as a team developer, but for making me get a graduate degree in Internet routing, monetary history and economics (in a way I parallel to the mark Nick Szabo's made on me from his public published works), and social trust networks. You made me think differently after I already thought different enough to reject the norms - but this group, your websites, their archives, and the community around you (everyone here, THANK YOU) - has changed my worldview to become even brighter and more community oriented than I already was (and I am working my butt off on a project with ZERO returns just because I believe in open source and the developers inspire me who do wonderful things for the same reasons!). So thank you Ryan, thank you Ripple users, thank you Mike Hearn, and I hope we all talk again some time soon.

JAK - a community currency, a government resistance, and eventually winning against the laws by way of persistence over decades:

JAK Members Bank (https://www.jak.se/) 

The co-operative society Jord Arbejde Kapital was founded in Denmark during the Great Depression in 1931. The society issued a popular local currency which was subsequently outlawed by the Danish government in 1933. In 1934 it founded an interest-free savings and loan system and a Local Exchange Trading System. Though both systems were forced to close, the savings and loan system re-emerged in 1944. The experience of JAK-banking in Denmark inspired a group in Sweden to develop a non-profit organisation named Jord Arbete Kapital - Riksförening för Ekonomisk Frigörelse (National Association for Economic Emancipation) in 1965. This pioneers' group developed a mathematical system based on Saving Points, designated the "balanced saving system". The association grew slowly at first. In 1997, a legislative amendment required the association to receive a banking license from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority in order to continue operating as a financial institution, which was granted in that year. The bank's deposits are insured by the government.
Philosophy[edit]
According to JAK's philosophy, economic instability arises out of and is a consequence of the levying of interest.
JAK operates under the following principles:

• Interest moves money from the poor to the rich

• Interest favours projects which yield high profits in the short term

The main aim of the bank is to provide its members with a viable, feasible financial instrument, sustainable for the environment and serving the local economy.
Membership[edit]
Marketing for JAK is done primarily by volunteers and word-of-mouth advertising. Deposits are accepted and loans are given in Swedish Krona (SEK). Mortgages or personal guarantees may be made only if the property or the guarantor is Swedish. It is compulsory to have Swedish residency to apply for a loan from JAK. The savings of members are covered under the deposit guarantees of the Swedish banking system.
JAK in other countries[edit]
JAK organisations exist in Denmark, Germany and Italy, in addition to Sweden. There was also an earlier attempt to start such a bank in Norway.
The Danish organisations, which date back to 1931, are known as J.A.K. Andelskasser, and there are 14 independent organisations which hold the legal status of andelskasse, which is a form of bank in Denmark. They are all members of Landsforeningen J.A.K., the association of JAK organisations.

The above is all from Wikipedia, directly quoted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAK_Members_Bank

Using this material under:  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0

Daniel Treccia

www.devcoin.org

A-Team, Marketing and Community Development

Open Source Developers and FSF funding cryptocurrency project since 2011

"From the many one, from one, the source"