A Return to Bartering

Many readers might not be old enough to remember the great trading companies that had a flourishing business putting together large scale bartering deals around the world. If a steel producer in Korea had a customer in Brazil, who couldn’t pay in cash, but had lots of frozen orange juice concentrate, they could match them up with a an iron ore producer in Minnesota who could sell the orange juice and provide iron ore to the the Korean. Now that the world banking system has all but cratered…

Sterligov, who doesn’t watch television and rarely uses the Internet because of his Orthodox religious principles, plans to start facilitating the barter of debt and goods with his company, the Anti-Crisis Settlement and Accounting Center, by early March.

While the global economic crisis didn’t sweep into Russia until September, Sterligov said he sensed that trouble was looming in August and got to work.

“I decided that barter trade would be the right choice for the world in times of liquidity problems and payment delays,” he said in a recent interview.

So from August to November, computer programmers hired by Sterligov created an interactive database allowing the barter of debt and goods worldwide.

…we’ll be sure to keep watch on this area, it looks to be a very good idea that will help many, many businesses.