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PAUL
GLOVER ESSAYS: community
control of food, fuel, housing, health care,
planning, education, finance. |
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China
Visits Ithaca HOURS by
Paul Glover, HOUR Town,
January 2001
Ithaca's local paper money, the Ithaca HOUR, has brought hundreds of media, tourists, activists, academics and dignitaries to Ithaca, since 1991. Two years ago, Madame Mitterand, former First Lady of France (and international socialist) visited for a day, preparatory to her visit to the President of the World Bank. Government officials and nonprofit representatives have purchased and spent HOURS, while speaking with residents about how local currency benefits them, and our community. ![]() ![]() Their visit was particularly exciting because it reaffirmed, at the highest level, the critique of global capital which has been one of the many reasons we've traded our own money. Wen Tiejun said that the Chinese government has become profoundly concerned about the domination of world trade by U.S. dollars. They understand that the dollar's value is artificially inflated by U.S. military control of oil regions, extraction of irreplaceable natural resources, and by high consumer debt. "When the bubble breaks," he said, "there will be chaos in markets. Millions of our rural poor could starve." ![]() Chinese HOUR swap meet
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![]() China has been vulnerable to the same banking shocks that befell Thailand, Indonesia and Korea in 1997, as a result of global currency speculation. Food riots resulted. The International Monetary Fund has been pressuring China to replace socialist safety nets with market services, especially since China joined the World Trade Organization this September. ![]() Dollars, on the other hand, are no longer backed by gold or silver but by less than nothing-- by a $5.8 trillion national debt. There is in fact not enough gold in the world to support a medium of exchange sufficient to transact the needs of six billion humans. As well, HOURS help stimulate extra trading and job creation, meeting needs on local levels that national currency does not reach. As one World Bank analyst said, the Chinese economy "badly needs a new engine of growth and job creation for tens of millions of rural migrants and laid-off urban workers" (China Watch, 5/8/98). ![]() In Ithaca, millions of dollars worth of HOURS have been traded by thousands of residents, including over 500 businesses (including a bank, movie theaters, bowling alley, health clubs, 55 farmer's market vendors, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, our hospital and our public library. HOUR grants have been made to 57 community organizations, and HOUR loans up to $30,000 value have been made interest-free. [email protected] |
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