.
Meanwhile, the professor was beginning to have financial troubles of his own as he redeemed mounting numbers of simecs for twice the sum in lire at which he had sold them, though Prof. Auriti won't disclose exactly how much money he lost.
The pro-simec store owners, too, were feeling a pinch. Instead of accepting 1,000 simecs for an item that cost 2,000 lire (90 cents), participating merchants began charging 1,000 lire plus 500 simecs, to keep enough lire on hand to pay their creditors. That cut shoppers' simec discount to 25% from 50%. Merchants who weren't participating were still upset, and some loudly demanded damages from the professor.
By mid-August, says the professor, a total of about 2.5 billion simecs had circulated. That's when local magistrates called in Italy's Finance Guard, a militarized police force that deals with such crimes as smuggling and tax fraud. More than a hundred guardsmen invaded the town, carting off boxloads of simecs and prompting protests from an angered citizenry.
For a time, the saga appeared to be over. But after a brief investigation, a local court in Chieti found that Prof. Auriti had done nothing illegal and ordered the simecs returned. Although local prosecutors are preparing to appeal the decision to a higher court, Prof. Auriti and his supporters rushed to relaunch the simec last weekend.
This time around, however, the currency will be managed by a committee made up mostly of local merchants. Although the professor heads the committee, he is no longer putting his own money into the venture. "Now, we'll only use the lire already in the simec till to redeem the simecs we receive from customers," says Giovanni Di Canio, a jeweler.
He is sure there will be enough lire, if only because numismatists from all over Italy have descended on Guardiagrele to buy simecs for their collections. Mr. Di Canio says one collector just bought two thousand 1,000-simec bills, none of which are likely to be spent.
Maria Teresa Sciubba, a dishwasher in a local restaurant, bought her simecs for more prosaic reasons. The "simec makes me feel rich," she says as she shops in an upscale boutique on Guardiagrele's main street. "Before this, I could only afford low-quality clothes -- nothing like the designer stuff I'm buying now."
But the Bank of Italy isn't amused. In a stern statement released last month, the central bank reminded Italians that the "collection of funds among the public, emission and management of means of payment are, in the best interests of the public, reserved to subjects authorized by law" -- and those don't include Prof. Auriti.
Even so, his simec crusade has attracted vocal support from some unexpected quarters. In coming months, a Franciscan Catholic college in Abruzzo's capital city, L'Aquila, plans to open the School of Monetary Values, an institution dedicated to Prof. Auriti's theory. And the Northern League, a sometimes-xenophobic political party that wants to wrest power from Rome, has invited Prof. Auriti to address its mayors on how to spread "local money" nationwide.
Prof. Auriti is looking ahead to February 2002, when many European countries are scheduled to replace their national currencies with new euro bills. "A storm is coming," says Prof. Auriti, who thinks global central bankers, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, will use the occasion to provoke an artificial cash crunch, turning Europeans into monetary slaves. "The simec," he says, "will help European peoples to survive."
by Howard S. Katz, March 1978
END
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