Fix-it
Feb 20 2006, 08:47 PM
The End of Dollar Hemogeny* Warning: Site is a haven of liberal ideas and anti war propaganda. Do not click if you've got a closed mind.
Anyway, I found the predictions of hyperinflation and the doom of half the world's economy, at least those that are using US dollars without being backed by something more physical. Snow Crash and
, anyone?
The idea that we invaded iraq (and possibly soon Iran) to maintain our economic dominance is certainly an interesting notion. but that really isn't the important nor shadowrun related part of this article.
My question is: what backs the Nuyen?? is it determined by oil, or orichalcum, or what?
Aku
Feb 20 2006, 09:03 PM
just as a note, the link atleast in firefox, leads to a white page, not a 404 error, but a plain, white page. Maybe it doesnt like .info domain names?
I've never honestly seen one, so i'm not sure.
Adam
Feb 20 2006, 09:07 PM
Worked fine in both Safari and Firefox for me.
Aku
Feb 20 2006, 09:14 PM
Worked on the third refresh.... will add comments after reading.
EDIT: Hmm, i'm actually not sure what to say, as i'm not an economist. but it SEEMS, if i'm understanding it correctly, that ew're not truely the primary ones in trouble here. As it sounds like other countries arebacking their money, on our money, which they assume we have the gold and or oil to cover, without having their own gold/oil/widgets to cover their own money.
Glyph
Feb 20 2006, 09:29 PM
I would say that the Nuyen is backed by consensus among the megacorporations, which, with the fall of nationalism, are the new 900-pound gorilla on the world stage. I seriously doubt that the Nuyen needs to be backed by gold or anything else. Even today, the "gold standard" is more myth than reality. In a way, the Nuyen would be more stable than the dollar, since it wouldn't be dependent on the economic health of a single nation.
I am dubious about the conclusions (and some of the arguments) of the article, myself, but some of the ideas presented would make good campaign hooks. You could run a campaign of the runners going against shady corporate operatives trying to destabilize governments that want to move to a different currency than the Nuyen - or even starting out working for them at first, and only figuring out the big picture later.
stevebugge
Feb 20 2006, 09:32 PM
The info on the decline of the dollar is not new. For a much less politically charged point of view try
http://www.everbank.com and look for the Daily Pfenig newsletter. Chuck Butler has been writing about how the current account deficit and the trade deficit have been, or should have been reducing the value of the dollar for years.
As for the NuYen, it probably isn't backed by anything but belief by the Forex market that it has value (just like the dollar). In the case of the NuYen in Shadowrun it has value simply because the Big 10 do business in NuYen, a decision that probably was based in part on Shiawase being the first extraterritorial corp.
SL James
Feb 21 2006, 12:04 AM
| QUOTE (Glyph) |
Even today, the "gold standard" is more myth than reality.
|
Especially since the U.S. went off the gold standard and effectively killed Bretton Woods for good back in 1972/73.
FlakJacket
Feb 21 2006, 12:22 AM
| QUOTE (Fix-it) |
| * Warning: Site is a haven of liberal ideas and anti war propaganda. Do not click if you've got a closed mind. |
Excuse me whilst I laugh my bollocks off.
hyzmarca
Feb 21 2006, 12:44 PM
| QUOTE |
| The economic law that honest exchange demands only things of real value as currency cannot be repealed. |
Then economic law demands the impossible for things of real value do not exist. Something is worth only what an individual is willing to pay for it, no more and no less.
Gold became the defacto standard because someone many thousands of years ago went "ooh, shiny" and the con artist who sold it to him was able to convince others to follow his lead. The same is true for any product or service. Markets are built on faith, desire, and envy.
-Because sometimes a roll of toilet paper is worth all the gold in the world.
Adarael
Feb 21 2006, 10:32 PM
Hyzmarca is right.
The value of any item is only proportional to how much it's wanted by those around you. Witness the prices of forged art (such as that famous Van Gogh from the 80s) before and after it's discovered to be a forgery. Similarly, if you're stranded on a desert island, and you have all the food... will you sell that food if you have no reliable way to get more? Conversely, would you give some of your food away for a weapon with which to protect your remaining food?
Value is a consensual fiction dictated by circumstance.
stevebugge
Feb 21 2006, 11:09 PM
| QUOTE (Adarael) |
Hyzmarca is right.
The value of any item is only proportional to how much it's wanted by those around you. Witness the prices of forged art (such as that famous Van Gogh from the 80s) before and after it's discovered to be a forgery. Similarly, if you're stranded on a desert island, and you have all the food... will you sell that food if you have no reliable way to get more? Conversely, would you give some of your food away for a weapon with which to protect your remaining food?
Value is a consensual fiction dictated by circumstance. |
This is pretty much the entire basis of a smuggler campaign. Find items in abundance in one market and move them to a market where the scarcity and demand make the price of the trip worth it. Additionally the fractured nature of the SR world map, the various disasters through history, and the colorful goverments allow for the creation of all sorts of economies. Additionally good marketing or publicity or even the right person endorsing a product can create or stifle demand. Laws or Monopolies can tighten supplies, or a good knockoff could flood the market. When you start discussing things with less immediate use like Currency or Stock (or even worse bonds and bank notes, yes there is a huge market for buying and selling other peoples debt) the assignment of "value" gets tricky.
Take Google Stock for example. It closed today at $366.59, down $2.16 from yesterday's close. That means that was the settling price of the last recorded transaction of traders on the floor at the NYSE involving Google Stock. Beyond price there are a few other factors to look at are Earnings Per Share, a little over $5. And Price to Earnings Ratio is 73.01. So the question of why would anyone pay $366 to Earn $5? But today nearly 8.7 million shares traded hands, go figure.
Also it's worth noting that a couple of recent Nobel Prizes for Economics have gone to Psychologists.
Backgammon
Feb 22 2006, 12:07 AM
As for the nuyen, look at it this way. The article linked describes how one nations pretty much "tricks" the others into thinking it's unbacked paper is worth their produced good. The risk exposed by the article is that eventually people will start to think your paper isn't worth their goods.
In Shadowrun, the Corporate Court (via Z-O bank) controls the almighty nuyen. The worlds wealth is now in the hands of megacorporations, not governements. And all of the megacorporations want the use of the nuyen as much as their daddy, the CC.
So really, there's no one to disagree that the nuyen is worth what the CC says it's worth. For a governement to say "i do not recognise the value of your nuyen" is pretty much the same as joe citizen saying "I don't recognise the value of the USD": economic suicide brought on by insanity.
You don't NEED to back the nuyen up.
Kagetenshi
Feb 22 2006, 06:40 AM
Sure you do. It is backed up by the raw production power of the Big Ten, accounting for well over 50% of the economic production of the world.
~J
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