Word: barterer
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...that once bought Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach golf courses have been replaced by a growing malaise. Joblessness, bankruptcy, crime and suicide, once rare in Japan, are now just average headlines. In the recession-ravaged hot-springs resort town of Yufuin, citizens are hedging their futures by resorting to barter trade. Taxi rides, sake and even hospital bills can be paid for with a local scrip called the yufu. What backs it? Locals do odd jobs in return for yufu. "Our wealth is slipping away," moans Eisuke Sakakibara, a former Vice Minister in the once all-powerful Ministry of Finance...
...Still, the scrip has value because villagers agree that it does. The system is a form of barter. Residents belong to a club with more than 100 members. Each offers a service provided in exchange for yufu. One woman teaches people how to wear kimonos. An unemployed man gives haircuts. Several townsfolk sell rides in their cars. "In Japan, if you do this kind of favor for someone, people won't accept money," says Urata. "But they'll accept yufu...
...Barter allows villagers with little cash to trade labor for life's small necessities. When resident Tetsuro Yamamoto came down with a serious illness and had to be hospitalized last year, the group lavished yufu on him, which he used to pay part-time workers to assist his wife at their restaurant. "The government doesn't give me that kind of help," he says. "Yufu saved my life...
...community's adventure in economics has inspired dozens of other towns across Japan to dabble in their own currencies. In other countries, barter clubs are frowned upon because they can be used as a glorified tax dodge - people don't have to report yufu revenue, for example, or pay Japan's national 5% sales tax. (Yufuin itself doesn't have a local sales tax.) So far, tax authorities in Japan are looking the other way. "This kind of activity is not large enough to attract our attention," says Masaki Omura, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance. Says Eisuke Sakakibara...
...silver jewelry. "Joli, tres joli," she crooned persistently in French. We smiled politely and walked past. She followed. "Very pretty for you," she tried again. Soon, we were surrounded by women with huge earrings, tiny hands and absolutely unshakable sales determination. A few minutes' worth of sign-language barter later, we had somehow acquired four blankets...