Cash versus Credit. Options

[Warlordtheft]

Figuratively. Though not by much. The megacorps own the majority of the world, after all, though sometimes you have to really backtrail the data to find that out.

and that 99% doesn't take into account the SINless. they're not real people, after all.

I've always assumed that that was 99% of the wealth, not the persons. Of course the sinless don't have much wealth. In my games, I figure that megas want to keep their headcount low, to a certain point. Employees must be profitable (I use that term loosely-to account for security and PR stuff) to remain employed. The way I figure each Mega has a minimum of 3 million employees directly controlled by the company, and 100 times that indirectly around the globe. Most of those directly employed use only corporate script. Those not directly employed use either nuyen or whatever the local currency is.

In RL I think the top 100 largest companies in world account for maybe 5 million employees. The rest are other companies which may or may not be owned by another company.

PS: Check out the section on Lagos in Feral cities, they discuss hawalas and hard currency in that section.

[CanRay]

Anonymous CredSticks also allow transfer of resources between departments that can't be hacked/tracked by people looking to see how they'd invest, one of the ways to prevent insider trading.

Example: Ares Macrotechnology is known for their firearms, but they're heavily diversified. If someone gets wind that their munitions department's R&D is being shifted to GMC's R&D, people are going to shift how they're invested in Ares in order to reap the best rewards. Moving a briefcase of Certified CredSticks between departments makes that harder to do, and ensure that Ares keeps most of the rewards rather than paying additional people dividends.

[Fatum]

I'm surprised how people talk about credsticks as things of the past, when they're still an accepted (and relatively secure) way to make payments you don't want tracked. Commlinks are said to have credstick ports, too.

[CanRay]

I'm surprised how people talk about credsticks as things of the past, when they're still an accepted (and relatively secure) way to make payments you don't want tracked. Commlinks are said to have credstick ports, too.

They're starting to be phased out. In the nicer parts of town, even Stuffer Shack no longer has a CredStick port.

On the flipside, your CommLink does, so you can transfer you Cred into "Da Foist Bank A Tony" or whatever other Black Bank Account you have. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)