Time Banks

[Disneyphile]

So, I've been thinking about joining a community time bank (http://www.timebanks.org/) and wanted to know if any of you are familiar with them?

I think it's neat to essentially "work for trade", but don't want to get sucked into working for something that I'd never be able to see returned.

[Tref]

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z1/Tref_foto/20257_124178197467.jpg

"Banks!"

[Alex]

Not familiar with it. Seems to essentially be barter system build on the assumption that all things that can be done in the same amount of time are equally valuable.

1 hour of electrical work = 1 hour of pet sitting = 1 hour of talking to someone on the phone = 1 hour of text translation.

The big potential flaws that leap out to me are:

1. As nice as it sounds most people will not view all activities as equal if they take the same amount of time. I suspect the distortion would be that people will seek to contribute those tasks that take the least effort per hour while "paying" for those tasks that take the most.

2. Is there a process to get a "refund" if your work is not done adequately? If all things that take the same amount of time are equal in value then is not someone spending an hour cleaning your bathroom poorly just as valuable as someone spending an hour cleaning your bathroom well?

3. Similarly, there's no way to create action against self interest. Regardless of how vital it is to you personally to get someone over to snake your septic tank, if nobody who has that skill wants to do it, you have no way to incentivize them to do it anyway. (You can't say "Ok, I'll pay five hours instead of one!")