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Tuesday 26 June 2012

The Wörgl Experiment




Wörgl was the site of the "Miracle of Wörgl" during the Great Depression. It was started on the 31st of July 1932 with the issuing of "Certified Compensation Bills", a form of currency commonly known as Stamp Scrip, or Freigeld. This was an application of the monetary theories of the economist Silvio Gesell by the town's then mayor, Michael Unterguggenberger.
The experiment resulted in a growth in employment and meant that local government projects such as new houses, a reservoir, a ski jump and a bridge could all be completed, seeming to defy the depression in the rest of the country. Inflation and deflation are also reputed to have been non-existent for the duration of the experiment.[citation needed]
Despite attracting great interest at the time, including from French Premier Edouard Daladier and the economist Irving Fisher,[3] the "experiment" was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the 1st September 1933 on the basis of the "Certified Compensation Bills" being a threat to the Bank's monopoly on printing money because there were other cities in Austria willing to join the experiment (Linz, Steyr and more).[4][5]
In 2006 milestones were placed, beginning from the railroad station through the downtown, to show this history, on top of questioning the authenticity of never-ending exponential growth triggered by the compound interest.


source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6rgl

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