California IOUs Wanted on Craigslist

Monday, July 20, 2009
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

California’s ongoing budget debacle has produced a new kind of profiteer: IOU buyers. Once the state government began its new fiscal year on July 1 without a budget, officials offered IOUs for everything from tax refunds to payments for vendors. At first banks honored the IOUs, but many large institutions—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo—stopped accepting them about a week ago, leaving individuals and small businesses in the lurch because the state won’t redeem the IOUs until October 2.

 
So speculators have jumped in and begun advertising on Craigslist that they will buy up IOUs, but at a discount ranging from 60 to 95 cents on the dollar, figuring they will make a tidy profit come October when the state will buy up the IOUs at face value, plus interest at an annual rate of 3.75%. As of July 15, the state controller’s office had issued 137,000 IOUs worth $640 million.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Investors Offer Cash on Craigslist for Calif. IOUs (by Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press)

Comments

KingofthePaupers 14 years ago
Jct: Of course, California IOUs are wanted. There’s nothing wrong with small denomination municipal or California State IOUs if anyone can pay their taxes with them. When Argentina’s government workers were faced with cuts, their unions talked 6 state governments into paying them with small-denomination state bonds which could be used to pay for state services and taxes by everyone. When the local currency is pegged to the Time Standard of Money (how many dollars per unskilled hour child labor) Hours earned locally can be intertraded with other timebanks globally! In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours. U.N. Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments is for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture. See http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers Too bad California IOUs won’t be accepted in payment for state taxes and services like state bonds were in Argentina. Too bad California IOUs will be denominated too big to use as local currency. Too bad Argentina people were smart enough to avoid the tent-cities catastrophe and California people are too stupid to follow their example. If they make IOUs legal tender, I'll take back every joke I ever made about Girlieman Governor Musclehead if he engineers the California state currency lifeboat. B

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