Fwd: BIG Ithaca HOUR News!

[Michael Perelman]

I don't think that the Ithaca hours would be a solution to a massive
amount of unemployment, but I suspect that it does offer a certain amount
of opportunity for some people and the margins of the economy.  In that
respect, it can improve the lives of a few people -- but Doug is probably
correct that the overall effect would be rather modest.

Doug Henwood wrote to LBO:


> Joanna Sheldon wrote:
>
> >For those of you interested in local money...
> >
> >I believe my home town of Ithaca, NY was the first to develop the
> >idea, encapsulated in Ithaca Hours (each one of which is, by common
> >agreement, worth ten dollars).  And Paul Glover's the madman behind
> >the "local tender" scheme.  He's also the one who started the health
> >fund, mentioned below.
>
> This scheme strikes me as largely silly, though in a different way
> from Paul Virilio. The economic problem is not the lack of the means
> of exchange - it's the structure of power that the means of exchange
> represents. What difference will spreading a few pieces of paper
> around Ithaca - the total stock of which is a fraction of 1% of the
> county's personal income - make? They're bartering haircuts for
> bread, and not much more. Does it matter half a damn?
>
> Doug

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu