The Ultimate Barter

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11 . Collect success stories when trading begins, and publish these. (See samples of these stories on page 66.) Economics is 95% psychology, so success stories prompt more success stories, and an ever-widening acceptance of trading with HOURS.

Note: Further details of operation responsibilities are available in Paul's Hometown Money Starter Kit, which also includes forms, laws, barter articles, past and future issues of Ithaca Money, samples of Ithaca's HOURS, photocopies of depression-era scrip from your state or city, and more. Price is $25 from Ithaca Money, Box 6578, Ithaca, NY 14851.

TURBACK'S RESTAURANT

Owner Michael Turback swears that he can practically hear people smiling over the phone when he tells them that he accepts Ithaca HOURS for payment at his restaurant.

As for my personal background, I'm not really a banker by training. My background is in small business, and I got involved in the credit union because I saw that the financing opportunities I wanted as a small business person weren't available. We had a group in the area called the Alternative Fund, which gave out grants and small loans to businesses, and this group basically started the credit union in order to say "Listen, we're businesses that are making deposits to the bank. So why can't we get any of our own money back?" The credit union was started to recycle that money back into the community.

We feel we'll be successful to the extent that we can make the businesses we work with successful. If you think of a larger economic model and the way a community works—for instance, a community that imports more than it exports—it's eventually going to bleed itself to death. The imports that arrive from outside the community require capital to move out of the county. To the extent that we can allow those businesses to maintain capital inside the community, we can strengthen the community, and I think the beauty of Ithaca HOURS is they cannot be used any other way except within our community.

More About HOURS

The percentage of total transactions that include Ithaca HOURS is relatively small because we don't accept Ithaca HOURS as deposits or in exchange for dollars. Depository dollars are close to $17,000,000 and the Ithaca HOURS system is only $5,000 or $6,000 in it's entire capital. It's also difficult to measure how quickly they flow around the community.

We do think about having a collapse or how the system could fail every time that we take hedging positions in investments. And with Ithaca HOURS, we try to find the balance of protecting ourself from the exposure while still engaging the community. So our banking board has said we are going to set a total dollar limit of HOURS that we can hold on hand at one time.

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