Ithaca is Gorges In Rear-View Mirror:tribute to the most God-forsaken hell-hole in America

Cornell Review ^ | 5/1/2003 | G. Quentin Mull

[babyface00]

According to the site, you're still liable for taxes. I don't suppose the state of NY or the feds accept EvilBucks in payment though.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Why would you want to live in a city you consider "evil" and drive around that city with a bumper sticker proclaiming it as such?

Why do so many liberals want to live in a COUNTRY they consider "evil" and drive around with blame America first bumper stickers?

[Scothia]

Well, I can think of one additional advantage to the "Ithaca Hours" currency - it's strictly grey-market; nobody pays taxes on exchanges mediated by it.

Supposedly, you keep track of your Hours earned and spent, and declare them as barter on your tax return. At least, that's what the cover-our-butts clause on the Hours says. (tee hee)

[yep willow its me fed]

lurky
Since Apr 4, 2003

[thegreatbeast]

You wrote, "Why are all these conservative students complaining about the liberal colleges they go to? They've got to know they're liberal to begin with!"
Seniors in high school are hardly fully formed in their political orientation. Nor can they be reasonably expected to anticipate exactly how obnoxious and pervasive the commie culture can be. Radical feminists, radical greenies, radical queers, nihilists, maoists, leninists, stalinists and the "anarchists" perched all about the center of campus creating a cacophany, denuding forests so that other students might carpet the sidewalks with the latest horrors and atrocities contained in their multicolored flyers!

[stands2reason]

Noticed on your homepage you're a CSICOP fan. I'm a BIG fan of James Randi. Is Martin Gardner still around?

[Behind Liberal Lines]

<>Seniors in high school are hardly fully formed in their political orientation. Nor can they be reasonably expected to anticipate exactly how obnoxious and pervasive the commie culture can be

Good Point. Seeing the excesses of the left at Cornell during my freshman year did a lot to drive into the arms of conservatism.

[Clemenza]

Reporter: Why is it that you are so critical of America, but choose to live here?

HL Mencken: Why do grown men go to zoos?

[stands2reason]

You're right. There aren't "extreme leftist" warnings in the college guides. Anyway, that's the last thing your average nonpolitical kid or "liberal" kid from the South or Texas checks out about a college, anyway. I use the scare quotes around liberal because many kids from conservative areas consider themselves "liberal", even though they've never met a hardcore leftist in their lives. Many soon discover they have more in common with the conservatives that governed the nice place where they grew up than the nutcases that surround them on campus.

These kids don't know what they're getting into. Texas Democrats are often more conservative than New York Republicans...

[lurky]

I like Mencken, but this ain't one of his better ones: we don't live at the zoo; we spend one day there.

[lurky]

>Seniors in high school are hardly fully formed in their political orientation. Nor can they be reasonably expected to anticipate exactly how obnoxious and pervasive the commie culture can be

This is a valid point, but I would bet good money that highly motivated political college pundits (like our author) were also very engaged in politics in high school. They usually are, in my own anecdotal experience.

[lurky]

Texas Democrats are often more conservative than New York Republicans...

lol. Often, yes.

[okie01]

Would 40 Ithaca Hours equal an Ithaca Week?

Or has Ithaca adopted the socialist 30-hour week (which is worth 40)?

[lurky]

lurky Since Apr 4, 2003

Yes...and? Does this mean something?

[lurky]

I asked you first. And your comparison isn't quite equal. Show me the bumper sticker "America is evil" that liberals are driving around with.

[Billthedrill]

Supposedly, you keep track of your Hours earned and spent, and declare them as barter on your tax return.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

(snork! snork!)

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

[ntnychik]

Seriesly, why are there so many suicides in those gorgeous gorges?

[Under the Radar]

Is Martin Gardner still around?

I get regular mailings from CISOP and the Center for Scientific Inquiry, but I haven't seen anything about or from him recently. At 88, he isn't too active, I don't imagine. I google'd his name and didn't see an obituary for him, which is good news.

I am a big fan of Randi's as well. I really want to get down to his institution in FLA soon, but real life is such a pesky beast. You know, I have lived disgustingly close to Buffalo for four years now, and have only been to the Center for Inquiry once. I am kind of ashamed to admit that, but most of their activities seem to center more around secular humanism rather than investigations of pseudoscience, and that doesn't do much for me. I did get to meet Paul Kurtz however, which was quite pleasant.

[yankeedame]

Ithaca Hours circulate voluntarily, rather than by force of law, and are placed into circulation by businesses that agree to be listed in a monthly directory, who either pay their employees with them or spend them at other businesses in the directory.

So for example, a farmer might pay his workers in Hours to pick corn, and then the market might pay the farmer in Hours for his corn, and then the workers might go spend their Hours at the market for their groceries....

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Interesting. On average, how many businesses use these chits? Does any particular business seem to use these chits more than any other, e.g. dry goods, green grocer?
You also wrote: "....businesses...pay their employees with them..." Do employee have a choice in the mode of currency they are paid? Can they change their minds every payday? Can they take half their pay in chit and the other in US dollars? If an employee discovers a merchant no longer accept these Ithaca chits, can he (the employee) go to his employer and redeem/convert these paycheck chits for US dollars? At par or can the employer charge a transaction fee to (help) cover the cost of the necessary bookkeeping adjustment?

How are pay roll taxes, workman's comp, income withholding, city and state taxes, social security, etc. etc. handled? Likewise, how are automatic payroll (non-tax) deducations handled? e.g. car payments, child suport,etc. Does this mean that the employer must, in essence, keep two sets of books? One for chits and one for US dollars? Doesn't this, in turn, drive up the cost of doing business?

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No debt, no banks, just voluntary exchanges of value.

All this, of course, assuming that both John Doe and Richard Roe immediately agree on the value of the "voluntary exchange". If they do not and the two fall to bickering than the price of the item (XYZ) rises in cost - for time is money. Is the chit allowed to float or is its value mandated? If so, by whom and how is it enforced?

Also, agreeing the accept chits as currency, can John Doe set what price he wants, whenever he wants, for XYZ or must he offer it at a set price? Can he charge more for the items if the customer pays in chits (highly limited acceptability) and less for the same item if the customer pays in dollars (unlimited acceptability)? Or must he sell the item at the same price payable in either currencies? Does anything "back up" these chits? The US federal government implicitly backs up the dollar with tax revenue (amoung other things). Does the city of Ithaca use its tax (or other such) revenue?

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By Adam Smith's ghost, but the questions are endless....

[Under the Radar]

You're right. There aren't "extreme leftist" warnings in the college guides. Anyway, that's the last thing your average nonpolitical kid or "liberal" kid from the South or Texas checks out about a college, anyway. I use the scare quotes around liberal because many kids from conservative areas consider themselves "liberal", even though they've never met a hardcore leftist in their lives. Many soon discover they have more in common with the conservatives that governed the nice place where they grew up than the nutcases that surround them on campus.

Excellent point! Being from Texas, I learned that the hard way once I got out in the real world.