> Protective membranes regulating in/out
In modern economies the balance of trade figure reveals how much value a country is gaining or losing. It is obtained by measuring the flow of the national currency across borders. It is very hard to obtain this figure for local or regional economies which use the same currency as their neighbours. With much more localised currencies, this figure can tell us a lot about microeconomic health and activity.
Each member of a mutual credit network has a maximum extent to which its balance can deviate from zero. These limits function like a membrane of a cell, revealing the value going in and out to the wider system. In economic terms a balance-of-trade indicator is built in to each economy and the health and needs of each economy becomes visible. Limits can be set by local economy AND by the higher order system and the lowest limits respected. This affords local economies a level of protection against strong inflows or outflows of credit which would cause inflation/deflation and distort the value of their currency.
As the localities join together to form bioregions, and bioregions to form countries, transactions which have to pass between more balance limits, and more cultural barriers, become more cumbersome and probably more expensive. In this way the credit commons architecture favours localised exchange.