If the IDs can work, do it. But I see many aspects of their benefits that could be achieved with other policies, and I see feature-creep galore. The concept needs ride upon effective and simple policy if it is to succeed.

1. The Councilmembers made it very clear that the program has to be self-supporting and directed staff to explore a number of options including using SF’s security machinery for the cards to avoid the cost of buying it for Oakland.

2. Crime is a real issue in Oakland. We need everyone who is here, regardless of their status, to feel safe reporting a crime to the Police. That’s not ‘legitimizing’ anyone, it’s just common sense. Would you rather we wait until the thug victimizes a citizen?

3. Let’s keep in mind that we are largely a nation of immigrants, some of whom didn’t exactly follow the rules getting here. When my Aunt landed at Ellis Island 90 years ago from Europe, she would have been automatically turned back because of her cerebral palsey and probably killed in WWII. Instead, another sister took my Aunt’s exam. Despite her disability, she went on to work and pay taxes for more than 50 years.

The card apparently is supposed to do everything! ID, Currency, Library card, parking ticket card… it slices, it dices, it makes juillienne fries!

If a technology project is too complicated at inception, it is doomed to fail. Apple and Google introduce products that do one thing, and damn well. They only add features when the public has had time to understand the original product. And when they add features, those features do one thing, well.

IF this card proves to be feasible and not a boondoggle, it must begin by doing one thing, and damn well. Any additional bells and whistles will be a wasteful mess.

There’s an Economic Law (really, a theory), called Gresham’s Law. In short, it states that if you have multiple currencies and one has a lower perceived worth or backing, then the bad money will drive out the good. The good money will be hoarded, and the bad money will be preferred in exchanges so as to preserve the supply of good money. So, back to Oakland: As more and more ACORNS get passed around, the politicians will congratulate themselves and, of course, reward us by issuing more ACORNS (requiring maybe more be paid in ACORNS to city employees, etc.). Well, who on earth would ever part with dollars to buy what an ACORN will buy? So, Oakland businesses will become flush with ACORNS, but their taxes and utilities and purchases outside Oakland (we’re not going to ban that are we?) will still be owed in dollars!

What a recipe for success! It’s no wonder the Marxists’ first prescription is that the whole world must succumb to revolution before the paradise arrives. Unless the whole world adopts or recognizes ACORNS the system is bound to collapse. We have nothing to lose but our chains!

So Riles (and apparently a frighteningly many others) believe that they can bring the cargo to Oakland not by addressing the ills that keep money backed by the full faith and credit of the US away from it–crime, blight, etc. No, the problem can be solved by creating our own new money and forcing city employees to be paid a fraction of their wages in it. Let’s see how this would work. I’m a local merchant and I average 1K a day in sales. Let’s give Riles the outlandish assumption that the new ACORNS would only supplement existing sales (a major concession). So now I make 1K in real money and, say, 100ACORNS as well. By hypothesis, this 100ACORNS would only be good for goods and services made in Oakland. But, even supposing that I make some purchases from suppliers in Oakland, how to guarantee that my Oakland supplier will accept ACORNS? Well, we’ll have to force them too.

So far, so bad. My supplier is forced to accept my 100ACORNS in exchange for some supplies. But what are they going to do with their Oakish windfall? Why, exchange it for something else Oaklandish. OK, fine. But, unless the banks will accept ACORNS for debts acrued in dollars, the supply of ACORNS will never grow (remember Reserve Banking from Econ 1?). We’ll all just be passing around the same amount of ACORNS (like Deadheads used to do with their barter systems). They only conceivable way this could help Oakland is if the ACORNS free up dollars for purchases outside the system. But what reason is there to think it will have this effect? In fact, because you’re decreasing the amount of US$ in the system (by cutting municipal pay), you’re going to get less dollars in the system and a fixed amount of ACORNS passed from hand to hand. No business can expand by using ACORNS, no taxes can be paid with ACORNS.

We’ll just have cargo for nothing. Yea!

Since NH, SF, and now Oakland use the shakedown for cash scenario as a reason for issuing the muni id, I would really like to know how real this problem is.