Website review: Ithaca Creates Its Own Money
R-R discovered this in Counterculture
•11 reviews since Dec 10, 2006
counterculture, money
•sustainabilityinstitute.org/dhm_archive/index...
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Reviews of this website
MagsHills rated 14 months ago- The town of Ithaca in New York State has it's own system of currency. There was/is a system like this in Leamington Spa in the U.K. Leamington is a town of about 45,000 people and only a small percentage opted into their scheme but it seemed to work well, and promote a sense of community. It was basically bartering with credit based on a trust system. I love the idea of the old bards in Ireland, who would travel through the land, entertaining by telling tales and singing songs. They were'nt paid in money, but were given food shelter and clothing. As they travelled they would gather knowledge and information which then would be passed on to the next community they visited in the form of stories. This oral tradition preserved knowledge through the generations in a largely illiterate society. When the Bard turned up it must have been like the newspaper arriving :-) Of course now there's Stumble!
- crayzedweasel rated 15 months ago
- Locally printed "Labor Hours" - good for one hour of labor. There's a similar program in the Lehigh Valley, PA. I've actually gotten paid in these.
- Piusbovis rated 15 months ago
- "One HOUR is worth ten dollars. That's roughly the average wage in Tompkins County, New York. The idea is that one person's time is as valuable as anyone else's, so an HOUR can be exchanged for an hour's work, whether that work is farm labor or dentistry. There's nothing to prevent professionals from charging several HOURS per hour, of course, and a babysitter might accept a quarter-HOUR per hour. But HOURS are a leveling force, raising the minimum wage, allowing people to buy things they couldn't afford before, and stimulating everyone's business. "HOURS help us hire each other to get what we need," says the newsletter."
- skipp0023 rated 15 months ago
- From the page: ""We printed our own money because we watched Federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and fight wars," says Glover. Ithaca Money encourages local spending, it supports neighborhood entrepreneurs, and it creates a web of friendships."
- mrsenatoriii rated 15 months ago
- Berkeley, CA also has a program similar to this; the name is also all in caps: BREAD.
- xcrissxcrossx rated 16 months ago
- Very interesting idea.
- mikeize rated 16 months ago
- Cool. Other places have this too. I believe Mendocino(?) county CA has a local currency called "seeds", but I don't know how they valuate it...
- Nullin rated 16 months ago
- Damn cool idea, that.
- No-Life-King rated 16 months ago
- That's interesting. I wonder how inflation would figure in to such a system.
- Heggs rated 21 months ago
- This is a very cool idea. Ithaca, New York has successfully created its own monetary system that measures costs in Hours. It's not quite the barter system but it's close. "Forty-six thousand dollars worth of HOURS are circulating through Ithaca, contributing to what the system's founder, Paul Glover, calls the Grassroots National Product. "We printed our own money because we watched Federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and fight wars," says Glover. Ithaca Money encourages local spending, it supports neighborhood entrepreneurs, and it creates a web of friendships."
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