THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

The Japanese population is the second-fastest ageing one in the
entire world. There are already 800,000 retired people needing
periodic help and another million handicapped people, and the
Japanese Ministry of Health forecasts a vast increase in these
numbers in the foreseeable future. In order to face this rapidly rising
problem, the Japanese have implemented a new type of Healthcare
Currency. In this system, the hours that a volunteer spends helping
older or handicapped persons in their daily routines is credited to
that volunteer's 'Time Account'. This Time Account is managed
exactly like a savings account, except that the unit of account is hours
of service instead of yen. The Time Account Credits are available to
complement normal health insurance programmes.
Different values apply to different kinds of tasks. For instance, a
meal served between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. has a lower credit value than
those served outside that time slot; household chores and shopping
have a lower credit value than personal body care. This was the
currency, which was behind the vignette of 'Mr Yamada's Retirement
Plan' in Chapter 1.
These Healthcare Credits are guaranteed to be available to the
volunteers themselves, or to someone else of their choice, within or
outside of the family, whenever they may need similar help. Some
private services ensure that if someone can provide help in Tokyo,
the time credits become available to his or her parents anywhere else
in the country. Many people just volunteer the work and hope they
will never need it. Others not only volunteer, but also give their time
credits away to people who they think need them. To them, it
amounts to doubling their time. It works like a matching grant: for
every credit hour of service, the amount of care provided to society is
two hours.
Most significantly, this type of service is also preferred by the
elderly themselves, because the caring quality of the service turns out