Art Dankwalther, or when authors go too far |
Art Dankwalther, or when authors go too far |
Feb 26 2005, 06:39 PM
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#1
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
Hey, I was browsing through threats 2 due to my inquiries in the black lodge thread.
I ended up reading through the Art Dankwalther file. I love that threat because I'm studying management and have just started my concentration in finance. You can see where I could find that threat a hoot. Except when you read, the narrator tells how a think thank of financial maverick managed to augment Art's fortune. "Though losses were accrued, I would estimate that in less than six-month's time we were able to increase our total investments into trillions." p.114 Threats 2 The initial investment is 20 billions. Let's be generous and assume it was exactly six month and one trillion instead of trillions. If you consider compound interest capitalized monthly : that's a 92% increase a month, for an effective annual growth of 249 900%. This assumes that every month, these maverick are able to find a few hundreds fresh investment occasion that will yield on average 92% in order to maintain the growth. If we want it to be less than six month and trillions, like 5 months and 2 trillions for example, as hinted in the text, that would be 151% growth a month and 6 309 573% effective annual growth. This is Shadowrun, and nothing is impossible. But this is impossible. by such a large margin that it boggles the mind. On occasion, small investment can yield a fortune (such as a mine suddenly reporting large new deposits of gold), but you can never find a trillion worth of such investment. Oh well, players don't have to see the numbers. PS : If some of you are familiar with financial term and think I've screwed them up, it's because I'm studying in french and haven't got all the translation down pat yet. |
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Feb 26 2005, 06:52 PM
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#2
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Man In The Machine Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,264 Joined: 26-February 02 From: I-495 S Member No.: 1,105 |
This is the age of the nano second buy out, some times people get really cleaver.
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Feb 26 2005, 06:59 PM
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#3
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,144 Joined: 22-September 04 Member No.: 6,690 |
And some people have a great dragon helping them out to do stuff like that.
That's just one of the problems with Art. I was amused at the resolution to that part of Dunklezahn's will, but then we ended up on the whole, "Art destroys Novatech' bit, and that just got really lame. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:11 PM
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#4
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,353 Joined: 5-June 02 Member No.: 2,840 |
I personally loved the Dankwalther story. I always wondered who this guy was that got such a specific amount from Dunk, and this was a fairly scary story about what one man with unlimited resources can do.
I realized that the numbers were a bit fudged (using simple multiplication), but to me, the numbers matter less than a good story. And this was a good one. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:13 PM
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#5
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i've never understood why people think that. i mean, the whole balance of power in SR is based around the idea of corporate war--if a corp war ever breaks out, this is what they'll be doing. the shooting, the bombing, all that is just icing on the cake; the real war will take place in the boardrooms. the threat of corporate war isn't the physical mayhem it will engender, it's the destabilization of the world economy that such a war will bring about--Black Monday (or Friday or Thursday or whatever) in every nation in the world. the rate at which art built his fortune into a megafortune is improbably fast, sure. personally, i see this as a combination of two things.
first, he's playing so many odds that he can't lose. he's got enough money that he can afford to drop 5-10k on every long-odds stock he can find. when some of those pay off big, as they certainly will, he recoups his losses ten times over. this is a dangerous tactic if used in the long term, but art isn't thinking long term. second, he's using every dirty trick in the book. if the odds are long, he makes them short. if everybody's buying up a certain stock, he kills whoever he has to in order to make that stock look bad so he can buy it--and then resell it as soon as the bad press goes away. other corprorations do this too, but they restrain themselves because, again, they have to look at the long term--don't crap in your own backyard. art, on the other hand, craps in everybody's backyard because he's not looking for a better backyard. he's looking to burn down the neighborhood. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:15 PM
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#6
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Traumatizing players since 1992 Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,282 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Las Vegas, NV Member No.: 220 |
Destroying the plausibility of an event is never worth the story. This is SR, not Toon or Tales from the Floating Vagabond.
The whole Art thing was IMHO one of the worst storylines ever, and least plausible. It smacks of "look how cool a character I made" twinkiedom. No offense to whoever wrote it... :( |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:22 PM
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#7
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
Oh, that's lame. It's like saying "God moves in mysterious ways". you can get clever on one or two investment every once in a while and it increases your average. But you can't beat the market consistently by more than a few point if you are investing a lot of money. Empiric studies have shown this. You don't invest into thin air (unless you live on Mars, then investing in air is smart). You essentially invest in companies by buying their debt or their equity. And companies won't start yielding 92% a month just because you purchased their stock on a cyberdeck instead of on the floor of an old fashioned market. It might be e-money but it's tied to real assets. Real big bucks on the market usually involves insider information, which can account for one big deal but can't be done discreetly (as Art is supposed to have done) and repeatedly. Also remember, everyone has access to the Matrix. How the hell wouldn't Shiawese be doing the same kind of money by playing the market thanks to MIFD? What about the banks and insurance companies? I'll tell you why not : it can't be done. If it could, Art Dankwalther and a few mavericks wouldn't be the first to pull it off. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:26 PM
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#8
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
see my reasoning above. making money the way art is doing it would wreck the world economy if everybody else did it.
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Feb 26 2005, 07:36 PM
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#9
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
My, post are coming fast. Look, I get that Art is ruthless. And I undertstand diversification. He can't bet the house on one hand or else he's broke whenever he loses once. Beside, a non-diversified portfolio makes you support additional risk for which you are not rewarded. It's basics. But even being ruthless and brillant can't account for more than a few points over the market if you have a diversified portfolio. If the market is pulling 15% a year, Art with his 20 billion could be doing 25%. Hell, he could be doing 30 or 35% if you want to make him a mad genius. He can't be doing over 6 000 000%. He just can't. If there were such opportunities on the market, other ruthless and brillant players would have snagged it up. That story makes no sense. No one turns 20 billion into a few trillions in less than 6 month, discreetly or not. It's the financial equivalent of turning a geek into the uncontested Heavy Weight boxing champ into 5 month. hum, not quite. The geek has a better shot at becoming boxing champ, IMO. The idea that Art could be so far behind the scene while owning trillions is also ludicrous. Rhonabwy leaves more trace than that and he didn't have to explode the market to get his fortune. --- You know, with 20 billions in liquidity you can already be a major pain in the ass. I don't get why the author felt the need to do that trillions bit of non sense. It just means Art has to be a lot more careful and discreet and think long term instead of atomic war to nuke his target. --- You know that old joke about a finance teacher and his student : A student notice a 20$ bill on the floor and bend to pick it up. The teacher stop him ; don't bother. If there really was a 20$ bill on the floor, someone would have already picked it up. The moral ; Art's can't have found that kind of investment opportunity. If they existed, there are dozens of other sharks in the pond who would have pounced on it and fought over it until the amazing opportunity becomes merely another good investment. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:46 PM
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#10
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,032 Joined: 6-August 04 Member No.: 6,543 |
Here is the biggest problem. You can have one really good trick and you maybe able to do it a few times. But the catch is when you do it over and over. No one is living in a vacuum, and trillions of nuyen would raise flags around the world.
When Knight did his NSB, the whole world was laid out on their asses. I do not think that he could pull the same trick twice. I mean, if he could why hasn't he done the same thing to say Cross,or any of the other AAA,or some of the AA's even? Because people learn, and things changed, so what was a good trick, is not old hat. Art is basically doing crazy shit and doing things that are threats to all the megas. But hey, only Nova tech is getting hit now..So the others wait. Oh by the way Art is so smart that he can out smart all of novatech. He has so much resources that he can out spend one the largest megas on earth. It happens to be the smallest AAA, but that is like saying Masure is the weakest great dragon. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:47 PM
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#11
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i'll bow to your superior money-fu on the details. the rest... i don't see what's so implausible. i mean, richard villiers destroyed fuchi pretty much all by himself--the events leading up to that set the stage and helped shape his course, but the actual destruction of the corp itself was completely villiers' doing. he bought a third of the corporation with his own money and then ripped that third out when the time was right; none of miles lanier's corp-hopping did anything to help him with that move.
art can't outsmart or outspend novatech. if novatech dedicated all its resources to destroying art, he'd be dead inside a week--but novatech would probably collapse. art's advantage is that he's focusing all his financial energy on a single goal. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:48 PM
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#12
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
Well, there is a difference between having Billions in cash and Trillions in assets. I'm sure they are buying out companies, taking them apart for spare parts, and liquidating them, or keeping certain corporations to use as "ammunition" in Art's little grudge. Also, speculative investment can be a lot different, I'd imagine, if you were no longer speculating... if you had enough money to manipulate the events and people that control object of investment, it would be like rigging a sports event or the whole frozen orange juice thing in "Trading Places". I'm not saying that 20 Billion -> 1 Trillion is feasible in 6 months. Maybe Art has made a deal with a devil (other than Dunkelzahn, that is) and is now working with another Mega. There are elements of Renraku and Shiawase that would like to see Novatech dead (i.e. the former Fuchi elements).
I like the Art Dankwalther threat, because it's a totally mundane Threat. My main beef with most of the Threats is that they involve some sort of bizarre magical conspiracy. It's useful if you want to throw a bit of Illuminati into the mix, but there's only so much you can throw into your campaign before it loses cohesion or everyone starts playing a mage. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:48 PM
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#13
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Prime Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,577 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gwynedd Valley PA Member No.: 1,221 |
Charon, just wait to you get a securities licence or two, the corp finance stuff really gets into the fiction part of sci-fi, but i do enjoy that particular threat. A man with billions to burn and a serious grudge, if a little psycho.
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Feb 26 2005, 07:49 PM
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#14
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,756 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
(nothing)
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Feb 26 2005, 07:53 PM
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#15
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Financial Adept Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 76 Joined: 4-October 03 From: Western NY Member No.: 5,682 |
Its possible, just not probable.
Maybe art has a really large karma pool and is an adept with financial centering and can toss 40 dice at investment odds from spending 20 power points in "increased business sense!" I don't find the story that unbelieveable when you consider some people just get lucky. Art is obviously a lucky person(the original will allotment), and skilled, luck and skill can go along way...*shrug*. |
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Feb 26 2005, 07:57 PM
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#16
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
it comes down to what you know, i guess. there are some people who are completely okay with the Matrix rules. there are others who think it's a great idea to allow any firearms to come in cased and caseless versions. *shrug*
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Feb 26 2005, 07:58 PM
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#17
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,032 Joined: 6-August 04 Member No.: 6,543 |
He had years of planing and years of investment from his life as a corporate raider. He was damned rich before buying the third of Fuchi and he brought a lot to the table. He then spent years buying out parts of fuchi and other corps for his own. By the time he went to build nova tech he had trillions in assets. He also had many years of living threw one the biggest corporate power struggles in shadowrun. The only other two corps to have even close to this scale of a power struggle being Ares,and SK. |
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Feb 26 2005, 08:01 PM
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#18
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
I know. You can do the math Nath. I used excel and used -20 as present value and 1000 or 2000 as future value for my calculation. If you take -20 (billlion) as present, use 5 (month) as the period and 2000 as the Future value, you do get 151% per month which is 6 309 473% a year. Or 91% a month for 1000 billion in 6 month. What you calculated was the gain, not the growth. And it is over 6 month, not a yearly rate. Use Excel and the finance functions, you'll see. It's would say it is almost impossible to find one investment opportunity that yields 151% a month for 5 month straight. Considering that Art needed hundreds of such investment... What's the result of (Almost no chance in hell)^200? --- Guys, I'm not saying Art is not a fun threat. I'm just saying I won't try to have my players swallow he is now a trillionaire. Isn't a man worth 20 billions hellbent on revenge scary enough? |
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Feb 26 2005, 08:10 PM
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#19
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
Here's a simplification showing Art's fortune over 6 month if we assume he went from 20 billion to 1000 billion in 6 month (which is more conservative than what the author wrote)
92% increase a month Debut : 20 1 month : 38 2 month : 74 3 month : 142 4 month : 271 5 month : 522 6 month : 1002 It has to almost double every month. By years end he would have 5 trillions at this rate. Things are much uglier with the 5 month, 2 trillions figure. 151% a month do yield 2 trillion in 5 month... and 1 261 914.69 trillions in a year. That would be enough to buy the planet, I'd say. Do you understand why I say it is completely absurd? |
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Feb 26 2005, 08:12 PM
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#20
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,756 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
I stood corrected. This being said, the calculation over a full year might not be relevant because any growth achieved over a six months period might not be sustained over the rest of the year. Opportunities would dry up with volume increase and money got sucked away from the other players.
As a side note, you can achieve something like a 100'000% gain in... drug trafficking, That's more or less the difference between of price between opium bought to warlords in Southeast Asia or Afghanistan, and the price of heroin and crack in US and European streets. I don't know what the ratio would be with cocain. But you could only do that for a few millions of dollar at best in six months, the market volume is not much larger. Of course by 2060, you'd better sell BTL, and considering the difference in price between blank chips and BTL, you could rack some money in. |
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Feb 26 2005, 08:16 PM
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#21
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
Frankly, my point is that it can't even be sustained over 6 month. Heck, it can't even be achieved over a month if we are talking about a 20 billions investment. It's easy to double one thousand bucks but virtually impossible to double 20 billions in a month. Ever heard of it being done? There is the occasional small outfit that hit it big and double in size in a month, but nothing worth 20 billions doubles overnight. furthermore it is impossible to identify, track down and invest one million in 20 000 companies that will each double in value over the coming month.
Many intermediaries taking their cut in that process and costs lowering profit. Once all is said and done, that still leave us with Drug lords and traffickers who have fortunes in the hundreds of millions over a decade, but not in the trillions after 5 month of exploitation... EDIT : The only opportunity to double a very large sum of money in a short time that I know of (just thought of it) would be monetary market. If you caorrectly anticipate that a currency will crumble or sharply rise, you can make a fortune and the market could theoretically absorb, hum, billions? Depends on the size of the economy of the country. Some fortunes were made with the rubble crisis a few year back for example. But first of all, everyone who made it big in these crisis are well known in the cambists (translation?) circles and that kind of opportunity comes around every few years, not every month. Hum, my Art Dankwalther will never be a trillionaire but I see the potential for a nice run mixing high financial stakes, monetary crisis and a small country in turmoil somewhere exotic. I'll think about it. |
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Feb 26 2005, 09:31 PM
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#22
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Target Group: Members Posts: 28 Joined: 24-February 04 Member No.: 6,102 |
What one also must remember is that Art had help and in an era of nanosecond buyouts stock can be traded at a much faster rate. Although his growth rate is unprecedented to say the least it has the potential for plausibility. By using teams of analysists on a round the clock multiple exchange trading, updated to each matrix initiative pass you could theoretically make a ridiculous number of trades in a 6 month period. Since we all know that the more often we check up on an manipulate our portfolio the greater control and flexibility we have i our investments. If one were to posses plenty of capital , l33t decking and financial skills, and a nasty combination of divination and info sortilege an investor might just actually be able to ground floor every good investment in a single 6 month period. However since this is a solid idea and every single megacorp has access to each of these ingredients you might ask why they wouldn't notice and stop the perpetrator. The answer is that their resources are distributed to fight the financial corp war against the threats they know of not some bizarre dark horse no one has ever heard of. This facet of all human thinking is why the nanosecond buy out worked once and only once and this trick can only work if the parameters are set in such a way as not to attract attention untill after the compleetion of the objective. It was only a 6 month run after all and what kind of megacorp really thinks that small.
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Feb 26 2005, 10:56 PM
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#23
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
Woodchuck, it's not about how many transactions you can make, it's about making the right ones. The value of the stock you bought isn't gonna rise faster or higher because it took you a nano-second to buy the stock. You're only gaining some value by beeing able to buy and sell closer to the low and high of a title, but it still takes months for most title to increase significantly in value. Finnally, everybody does it. Even topay, everybody does it. How long do you think it takes to make a transaction today? How many analyst you think banks, insurance companies and pension fund have? How many agressive investment companies? And yet do you see uber-shark in the market turning billions into trillions overnight? Heck no. The famous Nano-Second buyout wasn't Damien Knight making billions in mere moments. It was Damien Knight acquiring billions worth of Ares stock in mere moment. So fast that Aurelius couldn't mount a defense. It was lighnting fast Hostile Takeover, not a drastic increase in value sustained during 6 months. But he already had the money. A deal with Dunkelzhann as we now know. If anything, Damien Knight might have lost a bit of value in the very short term during the buy out. Prices tend to raise above their 'real' value during a takeover. Obviously, in the case of the nano-second buyout, price surely didn't have time to rise much which would be another of the main advantages of the lightning fast approach used by Knight. But still, the nano-second buyout didn't create value, it reduced the cost of, well, the buy-out. |
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Feb 26 2005, 11:01 PM
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#24
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Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
Could Art have taken loans using the 20 billion as collateral - taken them without (or preventing) informing other banks that he's done so? And thus borrow 20 billion five or six times and use that to buy controlling stock in asset heavy corps? Gut those corps and do it all over again? And thus have trillions of dollars in available assets, but not actually own it (just control).
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Feb 26 2005, 11:04 PM
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#25
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Free Spirit Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,944 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Bloomington, IN UCAS Member No.: 1,920 |
His simplest way to get huge returns was investing in enchanting shops and making gold radicals. He would wind up with more than a few trillions in 5 months.
Ok, so you say that would flood the market. He could also buy and sell (create) stock options, fund shadowruns to cause a sensation and cause a movement in the market. Think of that little chemical leak disaster in India in 1984. It caused Union Carbide's stock to plummet. Some options worth a few pennies could have increased in worth to tens of dollars, basically in a days time. That could be a 100,000% return in a day. So in between engineering these huge payoffs he sticks it in the low yield enchanting shops. ;) Possible, yes. Probable, not really. |
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