"The market's at an early stage – we're really in the infancy of it right now," said Mark Granger, president of Pacific West Managers, a finance company offering to buy IOUs.
They don't want to buy the IOUs of a government they don't respect, and they don't want to keep their savings in a currency they don't trust.
That is logical, given that the Bank of England created £375bn of new money through quantitative easing in the four years after 2009 and has just begun buying £70bn of IOUs from the government and big business.
For much of November, Italy was borrowing at a rate of 7% – and probably the only thing that has kept interest rates from going higher still is that the European Central Bank (ECB) has been buying Rome's IOUs.
George Osborne and the Treasury are still trying to work out exactly what their version of "credit easing" looks like but it is likely to involve buying corporate bonds – IOUs issued mainly by big companies – rather than bonds issued by the government (which is what the Bank of England's "quantitative easing" is).
A trading firm Wednesday launched an online marketplace where people can buy and sell IOUs issued by California's cash-short government.
Those who invest would be buying debentures, which are like IOUs issued by companies.
Those who invest in the scheme would be buying debentures, which are like IOUs issued by companies.
Those who put money in will be buying debentures, which are like official IOUs issued by companies which offer a fixed rate of return over a defined period.
Those who put money into the scheme will be buying debentures, which are like official IOUs issued by companies which offer a fixed rate of return over a defined period.
He is buying bonds backed by commercial planes, IOUs to power plants in the South, a mortgage on an office building in Ohio, debt backed by a Houston refinery and home loans from Alaska to Florida.
