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FriendoftheDork
OK, we've heard it all - megacorps have extraterritoriality and UCAS laws don't apply to anyone inside the Aztechnology pyramid or the Renraku Arcology (before deus).

So what laws does apply? Well there's corporate law, probably laws regarding corporations issed from the Corporate Court, but what laws regulate corporate citizens? What rights does UCAS citizens have on Aztech land, or Ares land for that matter?

Ok I realize you can't really know the entire system of law, that would take a lifetime just to invent if not read (most countries legal systems are vastly complex), but to have some general ideas would be nice. For instance both the BBB and various scourcebooks have given me some idea of UCAS law (heavily based off current american laws), and even in 2070 there is something called due process and rights (flouted at times, but still there). (I really use too much paranthesis don't I?)

So what impression have you got of the internal laws of certain megacorps from scourcebooks and fiction (old or new)?

Well from the way certain corps are described their laws could be similar to any despotic state, but some factors in the game world makes this seems unlikely to me. First of all, although megacorps has the power of nations, they don't have the amount of citizens or land a strong nation usually has. Instead, they rely mostly on business with citizens of other nations and corps as well as their own. Since they are dependent on people to buy their stuff, they need to invest heavily in propag... erhh good public relations. Aztechnology, the probably the corp with the worst rep among shadowrunners has legendary "spin doctors" (from man and machine 3rd ed) that probably fools enough people.

So given that the megas actually care what people think about them (the people who can buy their stuff at least), it makes sense for them to have nice sounding internal laws (that still gives their stockholders and exectutives alot of power), and do things like charity etc. Don't corps today already do this? It's not that far shot between a commercial and propagand after all.

But back to the issue.. if any UCAS citizen walking the halls of Aztech's pyramid and buying stuff could be gunned down by any Aztech citizen or even a high-up executive, the public relations with UCAS would drop pretty fast (more than it already has), so it makes sense to give even foreigners some rights. Besides, dead people can't shop smile.gif

What else... i figure corp laws are pretty much similar to the laws in modern societies today - similar but with a few exceptions (important ones). The constitution of Iran today is not that different than the US one (but the practice is), and when you look at western european constitutions their almost identical apart from some being monarchies and some republics. Basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from opression etc. will probably exist in most if not all top 10 corps. Remember, just there being a law doesen't mean a government can't break it and get away with it.

But the fact remains that most corps don't want people to know about inethical research, political murders, and excessive polution - things shadowrunners sometimes are sent to expose (to their employer). Sure, Lone Star or the feds can't start arresting Aztech executives for anything on their land, but the media is bound to hear about it and sales WILL drop when such a scandal ocurrs - besides forces inside the corp itself will probably want action to be taken, if none other than shareholders.

Ok It's 8am and I've been up all night so I might have been repeating myself a bit here, but I think I'm done justifying the fact that corps have laws to, and not just "pay tax and obey your superviser."

So, what do you think? What laws have to read about, or what do you assume is common?How different would Ares law be from UCAS law?
Gelare
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork)
So what laws does apply? Well there's corporate law, probably laws regarding corporations issed from the Corporate Court, but what laws regulate corporate citizens?

Think of whatever rulings the Corporate Court hands down as federal laws, as they apply to all the megacorps (who follow these laws under pain of Omega Order and Thor Shot platforms), and think of internal laws passed by each corporation as state laws (which are enforced by Red Samurai guards or whatever).
QUOTE
What rights does UCAS citizens have on Aztech land, or Ares land for that matter?

I'm thinking it over and I'm not quite sure, but I think the rough answer is, "However much the security forces feel you should have at the time, and however little they feel they can justify to their superiors should things turn out badly."
QUOTE
Well from the way certain corps are described their laws could be similar to any despotic state, but some factors in the game world makes this seems unlikely to me. First of all, although megacorps has the power of nations, they don't have the amount of citizens or land a strong nation usually has. Instead, they rely mostly on business with citizens of other nations and corps as well as their own. Since they are dependent on people to buy their stuff, they need to invest heavily in propag... erhh good public relations. Aztechnology, the probably the corp with the worst rep among shadowrunners has legendary "spin doctors" (from man and machine 3rd ed) that probably fools enough people.

So given that the megas actually care what people think about them (the people who can buy their stuff at least), it makes sense for them to have nice sounding internal laws (that still gives their stockholders and exectutives alot of power), and do things like charity etc. Don't corps today already do this? It's not that far shot between a commercial and propagand after all.

But back to the issue.. if any UCAS citizen walking the halls of Aztech's pyramid and buying stuff could be gunned down by any Aztech citizen or even a high-up executive, the public relations with UCAS would drop pretty fast (more than it already has), so it makes sense to give even foreigners some rights. Besides, dead people can't shop smile.gif

You've basically hit the nail on the head, here. Aztechnology doesn't go around gunning down UCAS citizens on its own territory because there's no reason for them to. If Aztechnology regularly does things to piss off UCAS citizens, you can bet the UCAS government will start making their life very, very miserable. The UCAS might have lost a lot of power over the years, but they've still got teeth, and they're always itching for the chance to prove it. Anyway, it's good for business if Aztechnology is nice to UCAS people, and so they are.
QUOTE
Basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from opression etc. will probably exist in most if not all top 10 corps. Remember, just there being a law doesen't mean a government can't break it and get away with it.

This is one useful lesson I learned from D&D: "Lawful Good" does not mean "Freedom of Speech". Not even close. I'd bet that Ares Macrotech has freedom of speech, and the rest of them straight up don't, with varying degrees of censorship laws. The Japanacorps probably keep a pretty tight lid on things, I'd bet.
QUOTE
But the fact remains that most corps don't want people to know about inethical research, political murders, and excessive polution - things shadowrunners sometimes are sent to expose (to their employer). Sure, Lone Star or the feds can't start arresting Aztech executives for anything on their land, but the media is bound to hear about it and sales WILL drop when such a scandal ocurrs - besides forces inside the corp itself will probably want action to be taken, if none other than shareholders.

Again, totally correct. Sure, legally they can make cyberzombies and practice blood magic. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea for them to be advertising it all over the place.

As a final note, I'm no legal expert, but it helps to think of the megacorps as other countries. If I go drive over to the French Embassy in the U.S. and walk in, what rights do I have? Can I be gunned down by any random French diplomat walking by? If I committed a crime and run into the French embassy to avoid getting caught, do you think I'll be extradited so fast it'll make my head spin? I'm sure there's loads of nuances that comparison doesn't cover, but it's a decent starting point. So, good luck with that.
Cthulhudreams
What I am curious about is how does the banking system work.

Heck, is there even a banking system? How does that work in the context of the big 10? It would seem that it doesn't.

Draconis
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork)
OK, we've heard it all - megacorps have extraterritoriality and UCAS laws don't apply to anyone inside the Aztechnology pyramid or the Renraku Arcology (before deus).

So what laws does apply? Well there's corporate law, probably laws regarding corporations issed from the Corporate Court, but what laws regulate corporate citizens? What rights does UCAS citizens have on Aztech land, or Ares land for that matter?

Ok I realize you can't really know the entire system of law, that would take a lifetime just to invent if not read (most countries legal systems are vastly complex), but to have some general ideas would be nice. For instance both the BBB and various scourcebooks have given me some idea of UCAS law (heavily based off current american laws), and even in 2070 there is something called due process and rights (flouted at times, but still there). (I really use too much paranthesis don't I?)

So what impression have you got of the internal laws of certain megacorps from scourcebooks and fiction (old or new)?

Well from the way certain corps are described their laws could be similar to any despotic state, but some factors in the game world makes this seems unlikely to me. First of all, although megacorps has the power of nations, they don't have the amount of citizens or land a strong nation usually has. Instead, they rely mostly on business with citizens of other nations and corps as well as their own. Since they are dependent on people to buy their stuff, they need to invest heavily in propag... erhh good public relations. Aztechnology, the probably the corp with the worst rep among shadowrunners has legendary "spin doctors" (from man and machine 3rd ed) that probably fools enough people.

So given that the megas actually care what people think about them (the people who can buy their stuff at least), it makes sense for them to have nice sounding internal laws (that still gives their stockholders and exectutives alot of power), and do things like charity etc. Don't corps today already do this? It's not that far shot between a commercial and propagand after all.

But back to the issue.. if any UCAS citizen walking the halls of Aztech's pyramid and buying stuff could be gunned down by any Aztech citizen or even a high-up executive, the public relations with UCAS would drop pretty fast (more than it already has), so it makes sense to give even foreigners some rights. Besides, dead people can't shop smile.gif

What else... i figure corp laws are pretty much similar to the laws in modern societies today - similar but with a few exceptions (important ones). The constitution of Iran today is not that different than the US one (but the practice is), and when you look at western european constitutions their almost identical apart from some being monarchies and some republics. Basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from opression etc. will probably exist in most if not all top 10 corps. Remember, just there being a law doesen't mean a government can't break it and get away with it.

But the fact remains that most corps don't want people to know about inethical research, political murders, and excessive polution - things shadowrunners sometimes are sent to expose (to their employer). Sure, Lone Star or the feds can't start arresting Aztech executives for anything on their land, but the media is bound to hear about it and sales WILL drop when such a scandal ocurrs - besides forces inside the corp itself will probably want action to be taken, if none other than shareholders.

Ok It's 8am and I've been up all night so I might have been repeating myself a bit here, but I think I'm done justifying the fact that corps have laws to, and not just "pay tax and obey your superviser."

So, what do you think? What laws have to read about, or what do you assume is common?How different would Ares law be from UCAS law?

You realize you're talking about entities that are above governments? The only reason they don't run countries is the hassle of day to day operations. So pretty much anything goes. They can come up with any set of sugar coated "laws" on paper for show then go about violating every last one in day to day operations. Got a problem? Oops your ass has been disappeared. There's your due process.

Your "Rights" end at that line of company property demarkation. And if they really want your ass even beyond.

The only laws you should be concerned about is how corporations play nice with each other. Anything else is moot.

PBTHHHHT
Heh, now you're starting to enter my problem where I just toss my hands up and just go with the flow. Though really, one of the best things to do is read up on conflicts of law.

For many of this to work, the corporations with their 'extraterritoriality' would have made treaties with the nations that they are in and you better believe there are provisions in there to cover the bases of scenarios, that or they better get some new lawyers.
Demonseed Elite
Very likely there is a vague body of corporate-national law similar to international law today. It is probably part of the framework of the Business Recognition Accords. On top of that, as was just mentioned, corporations probably have many treaties with individual nations in which they do business.
Backgammon
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
What I am curious about is how does the banking system work.

Heck, is there even a banking system? How does that work in the context of the big 10? It would seem that it doesn't.

Why wouldn't it work?

Banks lend money to whatever corporation, and between themselves. The Zurich-Orbital Bank is the central bank that then lends to to the banks - or the megacorps.
Thomas
QUOTE (Backgammon)
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Sep 2 2007, 02:48 AM)
What I am curious about is how does the banking system work.

Heck, is there even a banking system? How does that work in the context of the big 10? It would seem that it doesn't.

Why wouldn't it work?

Banks lend money to whatever corporation, and between themselves. The Zurich-Orbital Bank is the central bank that then lends to to the banks - or the megacorps.

…and the value of corp scrip is tied to the value of the corp. So if I give you 100 nuyen in Azzie scrip, it might be 50 C.A.S dollars or whatever.

Remember, thirty-five thousand zuleks is about 1.58 nuyen.gif
FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (Gelare)
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork)

Basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from opression etc. will probably exist in most if not all top 10 corps. Remember, just there being a law doesen't mean a government can't break it and get away with it.


This is one useful lesson I learned from D&D: "Lawful Good" does not mean "Freedom of Speech". Not even close. I'd bet that Ares Macrotech has freedom of speech, and the rest of them straight up don't, with varying degrees of censorship laws. The Japanacorps probably keep a pretty tight lid on things, I'd bet.


As a final note, I'm no legal expert, but it helps to think of the megacorps as other countries. If I go drive over to the French Embassy in the U.S. and walk in, what rights do I have? Can I be gunned down by any random French diplomat walking by? If I committed a crime and run into the French embassy to avoid getting caught, do you think I'll be extradited so fast it'll make my head spin? I'm sure there's loads of nuances that comparison doesn't cover, but it's a decent starting point. So, good luck with that.

I wouldn't bring in D&D aligments here, that has no place in a sci-fi RPGS set in such a near future. The world has changed, but not THAT much.

Freedom of speech has been a virtue since the american and french revolutions, and most nations in the world pretend to has it. That doesen't mean you can say whatever you want without any form of cencorship. Even out most democratic nations today doesen't have that, and shouldn't.

However, I would think that a certain degree of freedom would be welcomed by the megacorps, and that it would naturally evolve from the corporation culture today. However, corp loyalty rules would prevent workers and citizens to speak ill of their corp to outsiders, or reveal classified information. They may or may not have rules that allow or even require workers to report rules infractions of their coworkers and even superiors to their higher authorities, I guess this would vary from corp to corp, although most likely the highest authority (board of directors?

Exactly how "free" a japanacorp worker would be can be argued, but I'd imagine even they would have some notion of freedom of speech. If their workers are punished for making legitimate complains on how a work process is done, then it will mean people will shut up about potential failings and the corp will suffer as a result. Of course, loyalty will be valued alot higher, and general discord and rebellion will not be tolerated.

But the "western" corps have grown up in a pretty liberal society, and I can't see how their employees would accept to have all their former rights absolved, or peope wouldn't have left their previous nations in the first place. Despite the notions of "wageslaves" there MUST be some advantage in working for a corp, even Renraku and Aztechnology. And since their laws are likely to be public and made by the Board (who in turn are elected by the shareholders), there would be laws that gave some rights to workers as well as those limited or harshly punishing corruption.

And good point about the embassy, they're likely to have extradition laws as well at least the corps and nations on good footing (and despite everything USA and France are that compared to US and Iran).
FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (Draconis)
You realize you're talking about entities that are above governments? The only reason they don't run countries is the hassle of day to day operations. So pretty much anything goes. They can come up with any set of sugar coated "laws" on paper for show then go about violating every last one in day to day operations. Got a problem? Oops your ass has been disappeared. There's your due process.

Your "Rights" end at that line of company property demarkation. And if they really want your ass even beyond.

The only laws you should be concerned about is how corporations play nice with each other. Anything else is moot.

Above governments? No, I disagree. More powerful than current 2070 governments, yes, but they are like governments unto themselves.

The problem with your model is that it is ultimately a world despotism. Sure, I bet that's what the neoanarchists say, but such a system would be highly ineffective, less profitable, and would result in alot of unrest that can only be put down by brutal force. Sure, that worked for the ancient civilization and most medieval ones as well, but history has tought us that it doesen't work very well in the long run. Not to mention that repressed workers will not be as productive, and alhough people can be forced to work to death that means squandering resources.

Corps thinks of people as resources and does not throw them away needlessly. And although people can be disappeared, if this happens too much people will learn of it and give them more reason to rebell, overtly or invertly.

Not to mention the public relations nightmare of having corporate tanks drive over peaceful protesters, don't you remember what happened in China?

No, corps can't do whatever they want without fear of consequences, they are not all-powerful and ultimately they are humans, not monsters, and alot of these will have some ethics. Although the major stockholders of Aztech can be downright bad people (if they are people), the corp is huge and all the decision making does not rest with one or two people, but thousands.


But the problem is not "what can corps to do shadowrunners that piss them off." Here they can do almost what they want, with the law on their side. The issue is how does internal law work, what can the workers do, and what can foreign nationals do?


And as for the bank question, I don't have a problem with that Zürich Orbital and the Corporate court actually make sense as long as you realize the major corps WANTS it to be this way. Although their power is lessened, it is increased towards the lesser corps - it's actually the smallest companies that benefit the least from it, and even they benefit usually.
Gelare
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork)
QUOTE (Gelare @ Sep 2 2007, 07:21 AM)
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork)

Basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from opression etc. will probably exist in most if not all top 10 corps. Remember, just there being a law doesen't mean a government can't break it and get away with it.


This is one useful lesson I learned from D&D: "Lawful Good" does not mean "Freedom of Speech". Not even close. I'd bet that Ares Macrotech has freedom of speech, and the rest of them straight up don't, with varying degrees of censorship laws. The Japanacorps probably keep a pretty tight lid on things, I'd bet.


As a final note, I'm no legal expert, but it helps to think of the megacorps as other countries. If I go drive over to the French Embassy in the U.S. and walk in, what rights do I have? Can I be gunned down by any random French diplomat walking by? If I committed a crime and run into the French embassy to avoid getting caught, do you think I'll be extradited so fast it'll make my head spin? I'm sure there's loads of nuances that comparison doesn't cover, but it's a decent starting point. So, good luck with that.

I wouldn't bring in D&D aligments here, that has no place in a sci-fi RPGS set in such a near future. The world has changed, but not THAT much.

I don't mean to say that it's a good example, but it is some kind of example. The U.S. has the most liberal free speech laws in the world, but even here there are plenty of things that you straight up can't do: shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, anything having anything to do with terrorism, obscene or vulgar things outside of an FCC-regulated number of hours (won't somebody please think of the children?). If you don't believe me, there was a court case for the first one, they're inventing loads of new crimes to describe the second one, and the third one is the reason Howard Stern escaped to satellite radio.
Anyway, places in Europe have more laws on what can and cannot be said, and most other countries either have explicit laws about what can and can't be said, or they have firing squads that are happy to explain what can and can't be said. Most countries on this Earth would fall under, or would try to fall under, "Lawful Good," and no place has completely free freedom of speech (for good reason, I might add).
QUOTE
Freedom of speech has been a virtue since the american and french revolutions, and most nations in the world pretend to has it. That doesen't mean you can say whatever you want without any form of cencorship. Even out most democratic nations today doesen't have that, and shouldn't.

Yep.
QUOTE
However, I would think that a certain degree of freedom would be welcomed by the megacorps, and that it would naturally evolve from the corporation culture today. However, corp loyalty rules would prevent workers and citizens to speak ill of their corp to outsiders, or reveal classified information. They may or may not have rules that allow or even require workers to report rules infractions of their coworkers and even superiors to their higher authorities, I guess this would vary from corp to corp, although most likely the highest authority (board of directors?

Not being allowed to speak ill of your company/country seems like some pretty harsh censorship, if you ask me. A certain degree of freedom, sure: exactly as much as it takes to keep the wageslaves placated, and no more.
QUOTE
Exactly how "free" a japanacorp worker would be can be argued, but I'd imagine even they would have some notion of freedom of speech. If their workers are punished for making legitimate complains on how a work process is done, then it will mean people will shut up about potential failings and the corp will suffer as a result. Of course, loyalty will be valued alot higher, and general discord and rebellion will not be tolerated.

Yeah, they'd have some notion of freedom of speech, but the corporate culture would also severely look down upon anybody who spoke ill of their great company, more so than it would at, say, Ares.
QUOTE
But the "western" corps have grown up in a pretty liberal society, and I can't see how their employees would accept to have all their former rights absolved, or peope wouldn't have left their previous nations in the first place.

Right. Like I said, Ares probably has more freedoms for its citizens than Mitsuhama. I thought about Saeder-Krupp for a while, and decided that the dragon who runs it probably isn't a big fan of criticism.
QUOTE
Despite the notions of "wageslaves" there MUST be some advantage in working for a corp, even Renraku and Aztechnology.

There is: a nice, safe, comfortable life, with all the warm fuzzies that corporate propaganda can bring. Trust me, I'm new at this game, but the more fluff I read, the more I find that wageslave is an accurate term.
QUOTE
And since their laws are likely to be public and made by the Board (who in turn are elected by the shareholders), there would be laws that gave some rights to workers as well as those limited or harshly punishing corruption.

Corruption? Ahahahahahaha! rotfl.gif Sure, the laws might exist, but they're never, ever enforced on the higher-ups unless the higher-higher-ups want to make an example out of someone. At any rate, I'm not sure how corporate law would be made, but I'm quite sure Damien Knight never got elected to anything by anyone, yet he still calls the shots.
QUOTE
And good point about the embassy, they're likely to have extradition laws as well at least the corps and nations on good footing (and despite everything USA and France are that compared to US and Iran).

They do have extradition laws. I forget where I read it, but they do. It's a common thing, really, with the corps having different levels of cooperation with the authorities. If a criminal with an Aztechnology SIN gives Lone Star the slip and makes it onto Aztechnology territory, Lone Star will file the paperwork and will likely have to wait quite some time to have that person extradited, if Aztechnology will give them up at all. Now, if you're running in a city with cops provided by Knight Errant, and you try to run onto Ares Macrotech property to escape, game over, omae.
knasser
QUOTE (Gelare)
Right.  Like I said, Ares probably has more freedoms for its citizens than Mitsuhama.  I thought about Saeder-Krupp for a while, and decided that the dragon who runs it probably isn't a big fan of criticism.


I don't know where this idea that Ares are good guys is coming from (could it be that they're a local company for many players / developers?), but it was that last part that got my attention. I think of all the megacorps, Saeder-Krupp would have the highest levels of free speech, mainly because Lofwyr is just so supremely confident in his position. I can't see him being worried about being toppled from this big dragony perch and I'd guess that if nothing else, he would be smart enough to appreciate the value of honest feedback from the troops. And given he's secure, I'd think his reptilian intellect would like seeing incompetence brought low without being sheltered by hierarchy and power.

I think the nail was hit when you said that criticism to outside parties would be what got an employee into trouble. A society (or company) where people can criticise or speak freely, is a healthy society relative to one where they can not. And intelligent people have to know that. Lofwyr might be the one that I see being least concerned by open discussion within the corp, but I think all the upper management would accept a fair degree of openness for the sake of the whole.

Free speech has to be clamped down on by those who want power beyond that which people are willing to give freely, either to prevent an awareness growing of the excess power they hold, or to keep opposition from becoming established. Neither of these appear to apply in quite the same way to a megacorp. The power structure is clear to everyone and whilst those at the top have wealth far in excess of the people at the bottom, everyone can see that they are working for it and often have mostly earned their way to it. Progression can also be had by anyone willing to work hard, so the discontented have a legitimate path to fulfilment and don't need to start a popular people's front. Nor in the context of the wider world, could there be a revolution in a megacorp.

The closest that it would come to would be a strike. That would be what the megacorps feared the most from open discussion. But I don't see that happening in the core parts of a megacorp. In subsiduary companies and chains, quite possibly, but I think this brings us back to the issue of inside vs. outside talk. Within a team, open communication is a good and healthy thing and most people know that. But anyone who breaks ranks and starts bad-mouthing his team-mates to the other side, is asking for trouble. And in that regard, I don't think there would need to be many laws in place to deal with it (though there would be) - "justice" would be rendered quickly and efficiently by the traitor's co-workers. The "best" sort of censorship is self-censorship. A government can tell you that America Is Best, but it's not half as effective at keeping your critical mouth shut as being surrounded by a bunch of rabid patriots.

That's my take on it, anyway. It's not to say that there wont be managers that will jump on you for criticising them (loads of them, I'm sure), but institutional censorship would be known to be harmful (particularly to such astute students of primate behaviour as a Great Dragon). But I think what happens in Mitsuhama, stays in Mitsuhama. wink.gif

-K.
Draconis
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork @ Sep 2 2007, 06:16 PM)

The problem with your model is that it is ultimately a world despotism. Sure, I bet that's what the neoanarchists say, but such a system would be highly ineffective, less profitable, and would result in alot of unrest that can only be put down by brutal force. Sure, that worked for the ancient civilization and most medieval ones as well, but history has tought us that it doesen't work very well in the long run. Not to mention that repressed workers will not be as productive, and alhough people can be forced to work to death that means squandering resources.

Corps thinks of people as resources and does not throw them away needlessly. And although people can be disappeared, if this happens too much people will learn of it and give them more reason to rebell, overtly or invertly.

Not to mention the public relations nightmare of having corporate tanks drive over peaceful protesters, don't you remember what happened in China?

No, corps can't do whatever they want without fear of consequences, they are not all-powerful and ultimately they are humans, not monsters, and alot of these will have some ethics. Although the major stockholders of Aztech can be downright bad people (if they are people), the corp is huge and all the decision making does not rest with one or two people, but thousands.


But the problem is not "what can corps to do shadowrunners that piss them off." Here they can do almost what they want, with the law on their side. The issue is how does internal law work, what can the workers do, and what can foreign nationals do?


And as for the bank question, I don't have a problem with that Zürich Orbital and the Corporate court actually make sense as long as you realize the major corps WANTS it to be this way. Although their power is lessened, it is increased towards the lesser corps - it's actually the smallest companies that benefit the least from it, and even they benefit usually.

It is despotism but it's concealed behind the warm fuzzy facade of democratic capitalism.
The best control is when people don't even realize they're controlled.

I think you're picturing some kind of system where there's a large man beating on a drum in the office while another walks the cubicles with a bullwhip keeping people in line.
So when Bob the corporate drone points out to his immediate supervisor that the new multibillion nuyen project he's working on will kill hundreds of puppies and kids and he's got a problem with that he's going to be dragged off in manacles to the dungeon.

No what's more likely is on monday when everyone comes back to work the immediate supervisor will inform the staff that Bob has been working really hard lately and the stress of the job has gotten to him so he requested a transfer to the remote china division. While in actuality Bob is now a wonderful new part of the New Jersey landfill.

See you can do whatever you like as long as you're not caught and when you are caught you throw some money around do a little wetwork and magically the problem goes away.

I recommend the movies Brazil (1985) and Robocop that wonderfully illustrate this better then I have the time or space to.

Oh yes I remember what happened in China, don't run over students with tanks in the streets while on camera. Drag them off at night while they're sleeping and put a bullet in them then. Things are so much more tidy that way.

Decision making doesn't rest with one or two people? Hmm I'm sure Lofwyr would beg to differ. Also ethics tend to take a back seat to corporate policies and values. Profit is your new god bitch so on your knees. smile.gif
hyzmarca
The megacorp system is a neo-feudal system that represents a return to age-old legal principals that had been abandoned.

The most important principal of the Sixth World economy is bonded labor, also known as indentured servitude. Under this system, an individual agrees to work for a set period of time, usually in exchange for something of value. While the bonded worker is required to do the bond-owners bidding, within reason, he benefits from guaranteed room and board, as well as a measure of security.

In the United States, bonded labor was outlawed by the 13th Amendment, which also outlawed chattel slavery.

However, bonded labor is not equivalent to chattel slavery. It is a system of absolute trust and dependency between employer and employee which cannot be revoked without the mutual consent of both.

Most businesses in the Sixth World use bonded labor. The Business Recognition Accords make employment contracts completely enforceable, within reason, and specific performance is the most common remedy for contract violations. Individuals fleeing megacorp territory to escape the terms of an employment contract will be arrested, extradited, and tried in a Contract Court.

But, of course, the bonded laborer receives physical and financial security from the megacorp. All of his needs are met. More importantly, they are met in style. As long as employees honor their contracts, they will receive free high-quality housing, free food, competitive pay, entertainment, everything a person might need. At the very least, they'll have middle lifestyles. This is far better than SINless street people.

FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (Gelare)
I don't mean to say that it's a good example, but it is some kind of example. The U.S. has the most liberal free speech laws in the world, but even here there are plenty of things that you straight up can't do: shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, anything having anything to do with terrorism, obscene or vulgar things outside of an FCC-regulated number of hours (won't somebody please think of the children?). If you don't believe me, there was a court case for the first one, they're inventing loads of new crimes to describe the second one, and the third one is the reason Howard Stern escaped to satellite radio.
Anyway, places in Europe have more laws on what can and cannot be said, and most other countries either have explicit laws about what can and can't be said, or they have firing squads that are happy to explain what can and can't be said. Most countries on this Earth would fall under, or would try to fall under, "Lawful Good," and no place has completely free freedom of speech (for good reason, I might add).
QUOTE
Freedom of speech has been a virtue since the american and french revolutions, and most nations in the world pretend to has it. That doesen't mean you can say whatever you want without any form of cencorship. Even out most democratic nations today doesen't have that, and shouldn't.

Yep.
QUOTE
However, I would think that a certain degree of freedom would be welcomed by the megacorps, and that it would naturally evolve from the corporation culture today. However, corp loyalty rules would prevent workers and citizens to speak ill of their corp to outsiders, or reveal classified information. They may or may not have rules that allow or even require workers to report rules infractions of their coworkers and even superiors to their higher authorities, I guess this would vary from corp to corp, although most likely the highest authority (board of directors?

Not being allowed to speak ill of your company/country seems like some pretty harsh censorship, if you ask me. A certain degree of freedom, sure: exactly as much as it takes to keep the wageslaves placated, and no more.
QUOTE
Exactly how "free" a japanacorp worker would be can be argued, but I'd imagine even they would have some notion of freedom of speech. If their workers are punished for making legitimate complains on how a work process is done, then it will mean people will shut up about potential failings and the corp will suffer as a result. Of course, loyalty will be valued alot higher, and general discord and rebellion will not be tolerated.

Yeah, they'd have some notion of freedom of speech, but the corporate culture would also severely look down upon anybody who spoke ill of their great company, more so than it would at, say, Ares.
QUOTE
But the "western" corps have grown up in a pretty liberal society, and I can't see how their employees would accept to have all their former rights absolved, or peope wouldn't have left their previous nations in the first place.

Right. Like I said, Ares probably has more freedoms for its citizens than Mitsuhama. I thought about Saeder-Krupp for a while, and decided that the dragon who runs it probably isn't a big fan of criticism.
QUOTE
Despite the notions of "wageslaves" there MUST be some advantage in working for a corp, even Renraku and Aztechnology.

There is: a nice, safe, comfortable life, with all the warm fuzzies that corporate propaganda can bring. Trust me, I'm new at this game, but the more fluff I read, the more I find that wageslave is an accurate term.
QUOTE
And since their laws are likely to be public and made by the Board (who in turn are elected by the shareholders), there would be laws that gave some rights to workers as well as those limited or harshly punishing corruption.

Corruption? Ahahahahahaha! rotfl.gif Sure, the laws might exist, but they're never, ever enforced on the higher-ups unless the higher-higher-ups want to make an example out of someone. At any rate, I'm not sure how corporate law would be made, but I'm quite sure Damien Knight never got elected to anything by anyone, yet he still calls the shots.
QUOTE
And good point about the embassy, they're likely to have extradition laws as well at least the corps and nations on good footing (and despite everything USA and France are that compared to US and Iran).

They do have extradition laws. I forget where I read it, but they do. It's a common thing, really, with the corps having different levels of cooperation with the authorities. If a criminal with an Aztechnology SIN gives Lone Star the slip and makes it onto Aztechnology territory, Lone Star will file the paperwork and will likely have to wait quite some time to have that person extradited, if Aztechnology will give them up at all. Now, if you're running in a city with cops provided by Knight Errant, and you try to run onto Ares Macrotech property to escape, game over, omae.

Well I may disagree about US having the most liberal free speech laws, at least in practice. For instance, nudity and profanity seems alot more heavily cencored in US media than in Norwegian one. Here you can swear on national TV in prime time with no problem. Violence is more heavily cencored though I think.

But anyway let's not digress: I think we agree on several things, but I might not have made myself clear when I said "not speak Ill of their company to outsiders." Knasser you read my intent perferctly, and you said what I meant quite eloquently.

As for cencorship laws, those would mainly apply to executives, supervisors and managers, not CEOs or board members. They less money lost on the way means the more their stocks will be worth and the better official pay can the CEO and COO get. Corruption won't pay when you get that high up, except perhaps defrauding the corporate court (and that's risky business!).

Damien night WAS elected, but and he voted for himself alot being the major shareholder. Sure it took some pretty smart moves to get him were he is now, but he doesen't need to break any laws or secretly siphon off more money to himself - he's rich bitch!

I think the term Wageslave has been coined by Shadowrunners, and that this is their viewpoint and nothing more. I doubt the workers themselves think of themselves as that. Although many have contracts that cannot be legally terminated and may not be allowed to leave their corp territory or work for other corps/nations, they still demand and get their share. A paid worker is not a slave, even though he's not free either. And why would he want to be? And as Knasser pointed out, he CAN work himself up and not be downtrodden and opressed all his life. And of course if the corps spend alot of money on provided a potential worker with education and a safety net, they don't want him leaving and using their investment another place do they? So he'll have contracts to avoid that. Sure - forever working for a corp or being SINless on the streets doesen't seem like apealing options to us, but when the former can be a comfortable, interesting and safe life, it may not seem so bad. After all, people want bread and circus and safety, not freedom.



Oh and Knasser: Good point about Lofwyr and the impossibility of old-style revolution. Hostile takeovers seems more likely, and you don't need the common worker to pull that off.

In the end it's up to the GM to present his world and interpret the little information we have. My world may be a bit less dystopian, as that makes more sense to me, but it's surely no utopia and is as fucked up as out own world, if not more. Still the more I read the more similar it seems.
FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (Draconis)
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork @ Sep 2 2007, 06:16 PM)

The problem with your model is that it is ultimately a world despotism. Sure, I bet that's what the neoanarchists say, but such a system would be highly ineffective, less profitable, and would result in alot of unrest that can only be put down by brutal force. Sure, that worked for the ancient civilization and most medieval ones as well, but history has tought us that it doesen't work very well in the long run. Not to mention that repressed workers will not be as productive, and alhough people can be forced to work to death that means squandering resources.

Corps thinks of people as resources and does not throw them away needlessly. And although people can be disappeared, if this happens too much people will learn of it and give them more reason to rebell, overtly or invertly.

Not to mention the public relations nightmare of having corporate tanks drive over peaceful protesters, don't you remember what happened in China?

No, corps can't do whatever they want without fear of consequences, they are not all-powerful and ultimately they are humans, not monsters, and alot of these will have some ethics. Although the major stockholders of Aztech can be downright bad people (if they are people), the corp is huge and all the decision making does not rest with one or two people, but thousands.


But the problem is not "what can corps to do shadowrunners that piss them off." Here they can do almost what they want, with the law on their side. The issue is how does internal law work, what can the workers do, and what can foreign nationals do?


And as for the bank question, I don't have a problem with that Zürich Orbital and the Corporate court actually make sense as long as you realize the major corps WANTS it to be this way. Although their power is lessened, it is increased towards the lesser corps - it's actually the smallest companies that benefit the least from it, and even they benefit usually.

It is despotism but it's concealed behind the warm fuzzy facade of democratic capitalism.
The best control is when people don't even realize they're controlled.

I think you're picturing some kind of system where there's a large man beating on a drum in the office while another walks the cubicles with a bullwhip keeping people in line.
So when Bob the corporate drone points out to his immediate supervisor that the new multibillion nuyen project he's working on will kill hundreds of puppies and kids and he's got a problem with that he's going to be dragged off in manacles to the dungeon.

No what's more likely is on monday when everyone comes back to work the immediate supervisor will inform the staff that Bob has been working really hard lately and the stress of the job has gotten to him so he requested a transfer to the remote china division. While in actuality Bob is now a wonderful new part of the New Jersey landfill.

See you can do whatever you like as long as you're not caught and when you are caught you throw some money around do a little wetwork and magically the problem goes away.

I recommend the movies Brazil (1985) and Robocop that wonderfully illustrate this better then I have the time or space to.

Oh yes I remember what happened in China, don't run over students with tanks in the streets while on camera. Drag them off at night while they're sleeping and put a bullet in them then. Things are so much more tidy that way.

Decision making doesn't rest with one or two people? Hmm I'm sure Lofwyr would beg to differ. Also ethics tend to take a back seat to corporate policies and values. Profit is your new god bitch so on your knees. smile.gif

If it's concealed enough it's no longer despotism. And Oligarchy would probably be a better term anyway.

Do the people rule? No. They don't today either! It's as you said, concealed behind the warm fuzzy facade of democratic capitalism.

As for your example, that seems overly wasteful. Sure, if the project was important and secret enough, and Bob has shown that he might go public with it or even worse, defect then yes he's probably going to be removed somehow. However, if every day some college suffers a horrible accent or is mysteriously transferred and stop responding on their myspace account (or whatever), people are going to wonder. They might not speak it aloud, but sooner or later everyone will know it if this is the norm. Which means they're more likely not to speak their mind but rather shut up, smile and say "yes sir!" while secretly leaking info to a competitor in exchange for extraction. And this is where the Shadowrunners come into play.

While such a situation happens, it's fairly rare and not something the higher up want to encourage in their ranks. And most supervisors don't have access to hit squads, but they do have access to filing complaints that results in Bob getting less pay, less priveleges. Its' far easier to bribe bob than to kill him, and alot less messy. After all, after getting his new car for being part of the project, he might realize that there are enough puppies in the world, and that children die every day - this way it'll be for a good cause.

But most workers don't work on shadow projects that are likely to get you killed, and I suspect workers will be put through a few loyalty tests before even being allowed on that team. Most workers will probably not do anything worse than help create products that are unhealthy, are documented to cause cancer, or outright WMDs. And do you really think many workers for Macdonalds, Marlboro or Lockheed-Martin have any problems with this?

Basicaly, having to disappear anyone will be extremely rare, but exceptions occurrs.

You can do what you want as long as you're not caught, but I expect Damien Knight wouldn't be too pleased if some supervisor in his company starting hiring hitmen to take out his employers for asking questions. He'll expect them to bullshit the employee into believing what he's doing is right after all. And dead bodies tend to cause more problems than they're worth.

I haven't seen Brazil, but Robocop was a fun cyberpunk movie, but hardly realistic. Also, I liked 1984 but I don't want to play in that world as it's really over the top. The real world is scary enough for me.

Lofwyr can do alot more than a human, true, but he needs a hierarchy as well, and those people make decisions not important enough that Lofwyr needs to hear about it. I'll expect he even has Ethics officers like some corps have today, all in good show. Profit has always been god, and good public relations provide better profits.
hyzmarca
A megacorporation is a democratic republic, but suffrage is determined by ownership. Those who own stocks can vote. The vast majority of megacorps would give their employees stock options, as do many modern businesses, because it is easy, cheap, and it gives the employee a financial incentive to ensure that the corporation does well.
I would imagine that most corporate citizens have voting rights for this reason. However, instead of the antiquated one-vote-per-person system, a one-vote-per-stock system is used, so the votes of major investors hold far more weight than those of the average employee.
kzt
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
However, instead of the antiquated one-vote-per-person system, a one-vote-per-stock system is used, so the votes of major investors hold far more weight than those of the average employee.

The reality, ignored like so much else by SR, is that the major shareholders in most corps are financial companies who buy it for their investors/clients. To take a random example, 79% of General Dynamics stock is held by "Institutional & Mutual Fund Owners", with 709 different institutions holding shares.
Draconis
Ooo let's argue semantics. Use whatever term you feel comfortable with, I don't feel the need to append representative to democracy.

Yes yes wasteful blah blah. It's an extreme example to illustrate a point. Does it happen every day? Nah, you'd run out of employees. Does it happen when necessary? Hell yes. And I'm not just talking killing the problem. You really could just transfer his ass to the siberian division if said employee has no proof. You're missing the point, as soon as any Bob the employee becomes more of a liability than a resource they will HANDLE you.

How do I know? I'm talking from experience. This happens fucking today, right this minute, right now. They won't kill your ass as that's still illegal, at the moment. But there are other options.
I've watched it happen. Hell I even instigated it once.
Corporate culture, especially AAA territory is no picnic.

I have no idea what touchy feely corporations you've been privy to, but are they hiring? nyahnyah.gif
FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
A megacorporation is a democratic republic, but suffrage is determined by ownership. Those who own stocks can vote. The vast majority of megacorps would give their employees stock options, as do many modern businesses, because it is easy, cheap, and it gives the employee a financial incentive to ensure that the corporation does well.
I would imagine that most corporate citizens have voting rights for this reason. However, instead of the antiquated one-vote-per-person system, a one-vote-per-stock system is used, so the votes of major investors hold far more weight than those of the average employee.

Yup this is my impression also.

Kzt: Are you saying you want SR world to be like the real one? Although you're probably right about RL, it's not mind boggling that a few individuals can have a majority in shares in a 2070 megacorp. Note, they probably wouldn't have more than 50% (More likely no more than 20%), but they would still have alot more to say than those owning only a few shares.
FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (Draconis)
Ooo let's argue semantics. Use whatever term you feel comfortable with, I don't feel the need to append representative to democracy.

Yes yes wasteful blah blah. It's an extreme example to illustrate a point. Does it happen every day? Nah, you'd run out of employees. Does it happen when necessary? Hell yes. And I'm not just talking killing the problem. You really could just transfer his ass to the siberian division if said employee has no proof. You're missing the point, as soon as any Bob the employee becomes more of a liability than a resource they will HANDLE you.

How do I know? I'm talking from experience. This happens fucking today, right this minute, right now. They won't kill your ass as that's still illegal, at the moment. But there are other options.
I've watched it happen. Hell I even instigated it once.
Corporate culture, especially AAA territory is no picnic.

I have no idea what touchy feely corporations you've been privy to, but are they hiring? nyahnyah.gif

Look let's keep this civil alright?

Sure, the various powerful people in the corp has ways to fuck you over if you become a liability somehow. Was that you're point?

My point was that these corps will have rules that prevent a corp citizen to kill another. Ok they might have the death penalty, but people aren't taken aside to be shot if someone feels like it. Call it "touchy feely" if you want, but I call it realistic.

What they can do is black operations. The corps are bound to have assassins and goon squad at the higher levels. And if they don't have that, they have Mr. Johnsons that provide it. Still, by doing this they are breaking the corp law IMO, so therefore they do it covertly.

That it's illegal to kill your ass doesen't mean they can't do it, only that they won't do it openly.
kzt
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork)
Note, they probably wouldn't have more than 50% (More likely no more than 20%), but they would still have alot more to say than those owning only a few shares.

It's pretty unusual for an individual to hold a significant percentage of shares in a publically held fortune 500 corp unless he actually created it from nothing. For example, there is no individual who owns 5% or more of Google, despite it being clearly founded by a small team who were made extremely rich by it. 80% is held institutional and mutual funds, the two largest individual holders hold a total of 0.001% of the total shares, (This was an essentially a corp I grabbed at semi-random, and I expected more to be held by individuals.)

If someone really wants to maintain personal control they normally will remain or go private.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Backgammon)
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Sep 2 2007, 02:48 AM)
What I am curious about is how does the banking system work.

Heck, is there even a banking system? How does that work in the context of the big 10? It would seem that it doesn't.

Why wouldn't it work?

Banks lend money to whatever corporation, and between themselves. The Zurich-Orbital Bank is the central bank that then lends to to the banks - or the megacorps.

But where are *banks* on the list of AAA corps? As another poster has pointed out, banks and investment instruments own most of everything. these are in turn owned by private citizens.

check out the list of top 10 firms in the world

CODE

1  Citigroup  USA  Banking  146.56  21.54  1,884.32  247.42
2  Bank of America  USA  Banking  116.57  21.13  1,459.74  226.61
3  HSBC  UK  Banking  121.51  16.63  1,860.76  202.29
4  General Electric  USA  Conglomerate  163.39  20.83  697.24  358.98
5  JPMorgan Chase & Co.  USA  Banking  99.30  14.44  1,351.52  170.97
6  American International Group  USA  Insurance  113.19  14.01  979.41  174.47
7  ExxonMobil  USA  Oil and gas  335.09  39.50  223.95  410.65
8  Royal Dutch Shell  Netherlands  Oil and gas  318.85  25.44  232.31  208.25
9  UBS  Switzerland  Diversified Financials  105.59  9.78  1,776.89  116.84
10  ING Group  Netherlands  Insurance  153.44  9.65  1,615.05  93.99


Note the trend? we have 2 resources companies, GE, and 7 financial firms..

So.. where are the banks in shadowrun? Citigroup is the worlds current largest corporation - but none of the AAA are banks?!?!

With none of the big corporations as banks, how do companies raise debt? If the vast majority of private citizens are indentured workers, and the rest are criminals, and the institutional lenders don't exist, where is debt coming form? Even if the institutional lenders do exist, who is buying their debt?

Moving past that basic problem - now we've accepted that banks are not AAA corps (none are listed) how do banks actually conduct a repossession? How does a CAS bank lend money to a Azzie citizen. Once it does, how does it repo? Can it even repo? How does this work for larger organizations?

Banks don't really do business across international lines atm, they set up a local subsidiary and that does the work.

Also - how do govenments raise money? Corp workers are corp citizens which live in extraterritorial areas. Thus cannot be taxed. The corps themselves are tax havens too. But something pays for lone star? what? Do the local governments just charge corps absurd rents for extraterritorial areas?

Also, how does something like the UCAS dollar even hold value? This stuff has historically been secured on the premise that government will stick around and tax citizens forever. But it doens;t have any citizens (because they all left to work for corps) and it doesn't have any stability (how many new countries have their been in north america in the 1900-2000. Now 2000-2070?)

The mega corp scrip is not of equal value either, because hell they go tits up too.

It looks to me like the entire foundation of the modern financial services environment has to have changed at some point. Debt, government bonds, even *money* doesn't seem to really work in the SRverse.
darthmord
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
The most important principal of the Sixth World economy is bonded labor, also known as indentured servitude. Under this system, an individual agrees to work for a set period of time, usually in exchange for something of value. While the bonded worker is required to do the bond-owners bidding, within reason, he benefits from guaranteed room and board, as well as a measure of security.

In the United States, bonded labor was outlawed by the 13th Amendment, which also outlawed chattel slavery.

But, of course, the bonded laborer receives physical and financial security from the megacorp. All of his needs are met. More importantly, they are met in style. As long as employees honor their contracts, they will receive free high-quality housing, free food, competitive pay, entertainment, everything a person might need. At the very least, they'll have middle lifestyles. This is far better than SINless street people.

The two parts I left in the quoted message are very pertinent. Just so you know, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution does NOT make illegal indentured servitude.

Here's a C&P of the 13th...

CODE

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


It only makes illegal slavery and INVOLUNTARY servitude. Voluntary servitude (entering into a contract) is still plenty legal.

Look at the modern day (2007) military. You sign a contract guaranteeing you certain rights, benefits, and privileges. In return, you agree to do the military's bidding (within reason of law).

Indentured servitude is alive and well. In fact, the parts I quoted are almost identical to what the modern day military service member gets.
darthmord
I seem to recall some fluff in the last few SR books I've read mentioning that Bank of America was owned by one of the AAA corps.

I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to find out all the banks are owned by the mega corps.
FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
QUOTE (Backgammon @ Sep 2 2007, 09:31 AM)
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Sep 2 2007, 02:48 AM)
What I am curious about is how does the banking system work.

Heck, is there even a banking system? How does that work in the context of the big 10? It would seem that it doesn't.

Why wouldn't it work?

Banks lend money to whatever corporation, and between themselves. The Zurich-Orbital Bank is the central bank that then lends to to the banks - or the megacorps.

But where are *banks* on the list of AAA corps? As another poster has pointed out, banks and investment instruments own most of everything. these are in turn owned by private citizens.

check out the list of top 10 firms in the world

CODE

1  Citigroup  USA  Banking  146.56  21.54  1,884.32  247.42
2  Bank of America  USA  Banking  116.57  21.13  1,459.74  226.61
3  HSBC  UK  Banking  121.51  16.63  1,860.76  202.29
4  General Electric  USA  Conglomerate  163.39  20.83  697.24  358.98
5  JPMorgan Chase & Co.  USA  Banking  99.30  14.44  1,351.52  170.97
6  American International Group  USA  Insurance  113.19  14.01  979.41  174.47
7  ExxonMobil  USA  Oil and gas  335.09  39.50  223.95  410.65
8  Royal Dutch Shell  Netherlands  Oil and gas  318.85  25.44  232.31  208.25
9  UBS  Switzerland  Diversified Financials  105.59  9.78  1,776.89  116.84
10  ING Group  Netherlands  Insurance  153.44  9.65  1,615.05  93.99


Note the trend? we have 2 resources companies, GE, and 7 financial firms..

So.. where are the banks in shadowrun? Citigroup is the worlds current largest corporation - but none of the AAA are banks?!?!

With none of the big corporations as banks, how do companies raise debt? If the vast majority of private citizens are indentured workers, and the rest are criminals, and the institutional lenders don't exist, where is debt coming form? Even if the institutional lenders do exist, who is buying their debt?

Moving past that basic problem - now we've accepted that banks are not AAA corps (none are listed) how do banks actually conduct a repossession? How does a CAS bank lend money to a Azzie citizen. Once it does, how does it repo? Can it even repo? How does this work for larger organizations?

Banks don't really do business across international lines atm, they set up a local subsidiary and that does the work.

Also - how do govenments raise money? Corp workers are corp citizens which live in extraterritorial areas. Thus cannot be taxed. The corps themselves are tax havens too. But something pays for lone star? what? Do the local governments just charge corps absurd rents for extraterritorial areas?

Also, how does something like the UCAS dollar even hold value? This stuff has historically been secured on the premise that government will stick around and tax citizens forever. But it doens;t have any citizens (because they all left to work for corps) and it doesn't have any stability (how many new countries have their been in north america in the 1900-2000. Now 2000-2070?)

The mega corp scrip is not of equal value either, because hell they go tits up too.

It looks to me like the entire foundation of the modern financial services environment has to have changed at some point. Debt, government bonds, even *money* doesn't seem to really work in the SRverse.

I've always imagined the AAAs being banks as well as whatever else they do. Where do you get the impression that citizens of nations does not exist anymore? There are fewer of them, sure, but UCAS still have a population, alot of whom are tax-paying citizens. There is still politics, and there are still voters and a pitiful attempt at democracy. I expect that the extraterritory is rented as well, and is a major scource of income for the government. UCAS is a fairly new nation, and I expect the only reason they merged with canada was because otherwise USA would as you say collapse as people stopped beliving in them and their money.

As of now they do have an army that can threaten it's neighbours and any corps doing business in UCAS. As do the Indian nations and Aztlan. Remember, there are extremely small nations in the world today that still has a currency, so there are room for many nations inside the american continent and UCAS has enough citizens to support it. It's been pretty much stable for 30 years now hasn't it? Still the US dollar isn't worth much and the nuyen is most accepted currency.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (darthmord @ Sep 2 2007, 09:08 PM)
I seem to recall some fluff in the last few SR books I've read mentioning that Bank of America was owned by one of the AAA corps.

I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to find out all the banks are owned by the mega corps.

Well, the other cornerstone of the banking system is trust, which is why banks are heavily regulated.

I doubt anyone is picking through the books for an AAA corps - who the heck is an auditor anyway?

How can an independent auditor function in a world which is seriously funding illegal black operations? Maybe it's a line item 'Operations against ares: 2.4 million dollars'

All my questions about debt still stands - maybe people just work without it - or corp scrip is just outstanding junk bonds issued by the corp?

As for the citizen question. If workers are indetured servants (as outlined here) and you can actually be an ares citizen (which you can) why are any employees of ares not ares citizens.

Once you accept that, who the heck is actually an UCAS citizen? Even the public service has been outsourced and are likely to be corp citizens.
Demonseed Elite
There are no banks?

Two of the AAAs are major banking powers. Second only to the ZOG Bank, Saeder-Krupp owns Dresdner Bank, the Commerzbank, the Swiss Bank Corporation, Lothian-Vaea PLC, and Nippon Credit and Trust. Wuxing is S-K's Asian counterpart, owning Wuxing Financial Services, the Prosperity Development Corporation, Albion Mutual Funds, Fidelity, the Banks of Vienna and Hong Kong, and the Malaysian Independent Bank.

Ares is known to own Bank of America as well as other unnamed banking institutions. Aztechnology owns BANCOMEXT, a major financial player in South America. Renraku owns the Champion Financial Group, which includes GloBank and Temperance Investments. MCT and Evo both have considerable financial assets which have not been formally named, but are probably located in Japan and Russia.

In Europe, Hildebrandt-Kleinfort-Bernal and Frankfurter Bankverein round out the three major European banking powers with Saeder-Krupp. But there are other independents, like the PanEuropa Bank.

The Pacific Rim Bank is the major clearinghouse for the Japanacorps and the most powerful banking institute in the Japanese Imperial State.

Citibank still exists as an independent banking institution based in Manhattan.

It's very likely the ZOG Bank, through its close partnership with the Corporate Court, regulates the banks. It's also very likely that the megacorps keep their banking divisions at arm's length so they don't get tangled up in the corporations' other operations.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (darthmord)
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Sep 2 2007, 05:07 PM)
The most important principal of the Sixth World economy is bonded labor, also known as indentured servitude. Under this system, an individual agrees to work for a set period of time, usually in exchange for something of value. While the bonded worker is required to do the bond-owners bidding, within reason, he benefits from guaranteed room and board, as well as a measure of security.

In the United States, bonded labor was outlawed by the 13th Amendment, which also outlawed chattel slavery.

But, of course, the bonded laborer receives physical and financial security from the megacorp. All of his needs are met. More importantly, they are met in style.  As long as employees honor their contracts, they will receive free high-quality housing, free food, competitive pay, entertainment, everything a person might need.  At the very least, they'll have middle lifestyles.  This is far better than SINless street people.

The two parts I left in the quoted message are very pertinent. Just so you know, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution does NOT make illegal indentured servitude.

Here's a C&P of the 13th...

CODE

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


It only makes illegal slavery and INVOLUNTARY servitude. Voluntary servitude (entering into a contract) is still plenty legal.

Look at the modern day (2007) military. You sign a contract guaranteeing you certain rights, benefits, and privileges. In return, you agree to do the military's bidding (within reason of law).

Indentured servitude is alive and well. In fact, the parts I quoted are almost identical to what the modern day military service member gets.

Actually, no. In order for labor to be considered voluntary then it must be voluntary at the time it is preformed. Even if an employee voluntarily enters into an employment contract, the employee has the right to refuse to perform any labor. Specific performance is not a valid remedy for refusal to perform labor. This is why many labor contracts contain financial penalties for their violation.
No American court can force a person to perform any work in accordance with a contract.

However, the Thirteenth Amendment contains several implicit exceptions. You have to do some intellectual gymnastics to see them, because they aren't actually implied by the text but are, instead, implied by facts and circumstances completely unrelated to the Amendment. Needless to say, these exceptions are implied and do exist.

The implicit exceptions to the Thirteenth Amendment that have been confirmed and verified by the Supreme Court all involve traditional compulsory public service.

The first exception is the most obvious, jury duty. If the Thirteenth Amendment applied to compulsory jury duty then the constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial by a jury of one's peers would be negated in fact. Either there would be a huge shortage of jurors or there would become a class of professional jurors who made a living deciding trials. Both possibilities are unacceptable under the Constitution and since we can assume that the framers of the Thirteenth Amendment did not intend to produce to impair the function of the judicial system or nullify unrelated provisions of the Constitution, this exception must be implied.

The second exception is military service. If the Thirteenth Amendment were applied to military service then the military chain of command cannot stand. Not only would desertion be permissible, but all lawful orders would be unenforceable. This could easily lead to a complete breakdown of military discipline.
Under such circumstance it would be impossible for a military to function. Since we must assume that the framers of the Thirteenth Amendment did not intend to completely neutralize the the military we can an exception is implied.
The same reasoning follows in the case of forcible military conscription.
The contract signed by military personnel has nothing to do with this. The contract is, in fact, meaningless.


The third exception is road construction. Traditionally, the construction and maintenance of local public roads has been carried out by local conscripts. Individuals would get a notice that they were required to appear for road work, similar to a jury duty notice, and they'd go off and build a road. This traditional civic duty is also an exception to the Thirteenth Amendment, though it is rarely used today.

Of course, these exceptions only apply to traditional civic duties, not to private employment.
Adarael
I agree with DE's take on it. A similar chart of top 10 firms in the world would probably give a similar read to the ones above, and wouldn't list AAAs directly. It'd list their banks, because that's where they keep their money and other assets. It just depends on how you define 'top 10' is all. If you define top 10 as "Sits on the Corporate Court," you'd get a very different picture. Never forget, just because right now not all huge corporations own banks doesn't mean that they won't in 2070.

And, check out Japanese economic history sometime for an interesting lesson in Zaibatsu, bank ownership, and how you can mask finances and company ownership.

Also, Hyz... Check out pretty much all prison labor activities. It's a lot more than road work these days, but the idea is the same. In prison = slave labor is allowed.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite @ Sep 2 2007, 10:17 PM)
There are no banks?

Two of the AAAs are major banking powers. Second only to the ZOG Bank, Saeder-Krupp owns Dresdner Bank, the Commerzbank, the Swiss Bank Corporation, Lothian-Vaea PLC, and Nippon Credit and Trust. Wuxing is S-K's Asian counterpart, owning Wuxing Financial Services, the Prosperity Development Corporation, Albion Mutual Funds, Fidelity, the Banks of Vienna and Hong Kong, and the Malaysian Independent Bank.

Ares is known to own Bank of America as well as other unnamed banking institutions. Aztechnology owns BANCOMEXT, a major financial player in South America. Renraku owns the Champion Financial Group, which includes GloBank and Temperance Investments. MCT and Evo both have considerable financial assets which have not been formally named, but are probably located in Japan and Russia.

In Europe, Hildebrandt-Kleinfort-Bernal and Frankfurter Bankverein round out the three major European banking powers with Saeder-Krupp. But there are other independents, like the PanEuropa Bank.

The Pacific Rim Bank is the major clearinghouse for the Japanacorps and the most powerful banking institute in the Japanese Imperial State.

Citibank still exists as an independent banking institution based in Manhattan.

It's very likely the ZOG Bank, through its close partnership with the Corporate Court, regulates the banks. It's also very likely that the megacorps keep their banking divisions at arm's length so they don't get tangled up in the corporations' other operations.

So how is debt issued? And if a *corp* goes under are the banks assets liable?

If all the corps own the banks, who do they borrow money off? Why do they borrow? Who buys the debt?

Secondly, banks, mutual funds, etc typically invest in other players. as the AAA mega corps are the closest thing to 'blue chip' does this mean that the corps all own each other?

It seems absurd, because that means that SK is lending money to itself and then re-buying the debt.. of itself.

or do the corps all own each other?

Edit: The AAA corps in the book are clearly described as massive conglomerates with diversified business interests - which means that they are all General Electrics. so they are clearly going to be the companies listed on any top 10 chart. Their subsiduaries (the banks) won't make the list.. because they are subsidaries.

Anyway, the net question is, who is auditing the black ops expense account? Anyone? Does ZO just have a bunch of audit ninjas who approve accounts of everyone on the stock exchange?

Edit: I am by no means a financial services expert, just a curious bystander.
Adarael
Let me see if I can answer your question without delving into SR specifics, Cthulhu. This goes back to my crack about Japanese economic history above. It's also another big reason that the AAAs haven't totally absconded with national control as yet. I'll try not to get too deep into the details, as much as I have a love of doing so.

1) Conglomerates like that invest in subsidiaries and the subsidiaries borrow money from the parent company. This is funded not by corporate ownership but by private shareholders, often employees of the conglomerate.
2) Debt is accrued by different branches and shuffled about from point to point, but in the end is paid for by the private/employee shareholders.
3) Back in the heyday of the zaibatsu, they would provide certain services to the government for free, in exchange for use of government funds. Kinda like a very loose government bid system.
4) The zaibatsu avoided totally shafting eachother by meeting on neutral ground with certain gov't officials arbitrating, not unlike ZOG. When a zaibatsu needed funds or investment it couldn't satisfy itself, it asked for government loans. At least once, a zaibatsu (Mitsui) sold bonds to the government. This isn't unlike the vast cash block ZOG holds for the purposes of arbitration.
5) Never forget that A and AA corps are also capable of subsidizing AAAs, thus getting themselves in the good light to be bought up or contracts written for their goods/services.

Where's the Chromed Accountant when we need him?
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Adarael @ Sep 2 2007, 10:39 PM)

2) Debt is accrued by different branches and shuffled about from point to point, but in the end is paid for by the private/employee shareholders.

This is what bugs me though. I accept that private citizens buying debt is an entirely acceptable resolution to the situation. I just don't see how they can pay in the SR environment, because they don't have any money.

There are two classes of people, sinless, who cannot pay for anything because they have no identification etc etc. Substantial minority. (Someone with a *really good* fake ID who can participate in society effectively has a SIN, so lets roll on to category two)

People with SINs! (Yay, real people here)

This call into three classes

A) Corporate employees (up to middle management)

B) Senior Management

C) Organised crime etc.

Category A - which is the vast majority of the population and a significant proportion of the wealth, don't have any money because they are indentured workers who cannot exist outside of the corps? Or are these people actually free and empowered workers who own significant proportions of corporations and have significant freedom and wealth?

The litreture portrays them as being firmly in A, overworked and underpaid. How can they possibly soak up a bonds issuance

B) Can buy debt I agree, but in at least one of the books it becomes a significant problem when a senior manager in one company gets significant ownership of another. (Security manager in one corp got given a huge chunk off another corp by the Big D?)

C) Err.. I suppose these people can buy debt. How many of them are there again?

I have the same problem with governments as well. Unless the corps are propping them up in a big way no-one can pay any tax, because all the people with SINs are

A) Corp citizens

B) Corp citizens

C) Don't have a declared income because they are seriously criminals.

So does that mean the entire government of the UCAS is paid for by Ares and co? in which case there is no govenment - Because it clearly looks to me like they are, which rules out the getting money off the govenment, because it seriously doesn't have any either.

So there is a few meaningless people in the judiciary and legislature, but the entire executive is outsourced. And the legsliature cannot do anything because it doesn't have any money aside from what the executive decides to give it.
Demonseed Elite
When you get into the banking game, you quickly find that the corporations are a tangled web of ownership and money-lending. The ZOG Bank is the primary lender to AAA corporations, but the ZOG Bank is owned by the AAA corporations. The ZOG Bank is kept separate from the corps that own it. If any AAA is found to be manipulating the ZOG Bank, punishment can include an Omega Order. The punishment for corruption among ZOG bank directors is death (p. 106, Corporate Shadowfiles). The megacorps are deadly serious about the ZOG Bank being independent, because they and the world economy depends on it.

The AAAs also borrow from each other's banking institutions as well as AA and A banks. As and AAs do the same, especially since they rarely have the clout to borrow from the ZOG directly. Cross, when it was still a AAA, borrowed money from a number of small banks to try to shore up losses, until Bank of America (Ares) bought out the loans and called in favors at Frankfurter Bankverein to crush Cross.

I imagine the black ops money is concealed, which the corporations have gotten very good at. It doesn't even have to be concealed that well, since all of these corporations have large security forces that they need to pay for and some of them have standing armies and intelligence services.
kzt
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)

So.. where are the banks in shadowrun? Citigroup is the worlds current largest corporation - but none of the AAA are banks?!?!


There are some unstated assumptions that seem to exist in SRworld. One is that Megacorp=Keiretsu/zaibatsu. "The major keiretsu were each centred around one bank, which lent money to the keiretsu's member companies and held equity positions in the companies. Each central bank had great control over the companies in the keiretsu and acted as a monitoring entity and as an emergency bail-out entity." (From Wikipedia)

This is because Cyberpunk was all "Oooh, the japanese will rule us all" sillyness, as was more than a few of the alarmist articles I remember from Time magazine, etc. This was before the recession in the 90's, and the series of bank mergers caused by bad loans, demonstrated to the Japanese business community that there were other business models that produced better results.

Anyhow, the banks would therefore form the core of the megacorps. The issue with this in SRworld is that one of the objectives of the Keiretsu system was that you can't do a hostile takeover due to the banks vast assets and power, which isn't what the game 'history' shows.

In addition, bankers, and the accountants who run them, really like to know who the hell their customers are and prevent them from engaging in fraud, particularly fraud against the bank. So anonymous non-transparent instruments that strongly encourage fraud (read "certified credstick") are something that they would be extremely unhappy about. Because fraud is taking money from the bank, which has effective veto power on the rest of the megacorp.
Demonseed Elite
Also, the state of corporate indentured servitude is exaggerated on this thread. Corporate citizens absolutely make money and it does not even have to be in corp scrip (though corp scrip will "appear" to have more value where they live and work).
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)
When you get into the banking game, you quickly find that the corporations are a tangled web of ownership and money-lending. The ZOG Bank is the primary lender to AAA corporations, but the ZOG Bank is owned by the AAA corporations. The ZOG Bank is kept separate from the corps that own it. If any AAA is found to be manipulating the ZOG Bank, punishment can include an Omega Order. The punishment for corruption among ZOG bank directors is death (p. 106, Corporate Shadowfiles). The megacorps are deadly serious about the ZOG Bank being independent, because they and the world economy depends on it.

The AAAs also borrow from each other's banking institutions as well as AA and A banks. As and AAs do the same, especially since they rarely have the clout to borrow from the ZOG directly. Cross, when it was still a AAA, borrowed money from a number of small banks to try to shore up losses, until Bank of America (Ares) bought out the loans and called in favors at Frankfurter Bankverein to crush Cross.

I imagine the black ops money is concealed, which the corporations have gotten very good at. It doesn't even have to be concealed that well, since all of these corporations have large security forces that they need to pay for and some of them have standing armies and intelligence services.

So as a shareholder you are expected to invest in a corporation for which there is no accountability and any profit and loss statement doesn't have to have any relationship with reality.

At all.

I suppose that says where senior management is getting the money to buy debt issuances from - by defrauding the companies! wink.gif

It doens;t really make sense for the blackops money to be concealed, corps are spending huge amounts on it. If they can conceal that, they can conceal,say, enron, and then their accounts statement isn;t worth the paper it is written on and anyone might explode at any moment - so no-one is going to lend anyone any money (look at the current credit crunch which is predicated on the fact that the banks are scared to lend each other money because they might have unrevealed exposure to risk. Gigangitic undeclared blacks op spending is risk)

Or is ZO auditing everyone's account statements including the bit they don't want to talk about and hiding it under their hat (which is actually a fairly believable assumption) and then they just endorse the bottom line?

I suppose that makes sort of sense.

Anyway, on to the next problem - if the banks all seriously own each other, and the corps own the banks.. this is really really weird and I have to think about it.
Demonseed Elite
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
Or is ZO auditing everyone's account statements including the bit they don't want to talk about and hiding it under their hat (which is actually a fairly believable assumption) and then they just endorse the bottom line?

I think it's fair to assume the ZOG Bank knows a great many things that the public doesn't know about the operations of the corporations. This is another reason why the megacorps are so very, very insistent that the ZOG staffers remain independent from the corporations they originate from.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite @ Sep 2 2007, 10:55 PM)
Also, the state of corporate indentured servitude is exaggerated on this thread. Corporate citizens absolutely make money and it does not even have to be in corp scrip (though corp scrip will "appear" to have more value where they live and work).

First up:

I have to say thanks everyone for clearing some of these issues up. I'm still not entirely clear how things are supposed to work, but I have a better handle on it now! biggrin.gif

Money: Is there generally less trust in the world for government and corp scrips? It seems to me that there would be, because of the general extreme geopolitical instability, which may render corp or govenment scrip completely worthless.

This is a problem because e-currency is widely described as 'the go' - do people have a gold trade or something instead to work with?

Workers:

Okay, how easy is it for me to quit a job and take another one with a different AAA megacorp? Are you likely to get situations like today when people can have worked for 7-9 different A -> AAA corps?

Edit: ZO being the big audit house actually works pretty well. Especially if they don;t engage in black ops, so they can publish accounts or whatever. Have to be a trusted source.
hyzmarca
One also shouldn't forget that that vast majority of businesses is the world are family-owned small businesses. This has not changed in the Sixth World and this, along with smaller corps that do not have extraterritoriality, is the tax base that keeps governments afloat.

While it is difficult for small businesses to compete with megas in fields such as manufacturing and low-low prices, there are some fields where the small business are superior to megas, such as talismongering, traditional handcrafts, and pubs where everyone knows your name. Of course, family-owned businesses tend to go belly-up very quickly, but there are always more of them and some do fairly well.

Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
One also shouldn't forget that that vast majority of businesses is the world are family-owned small businesses. This has not changed in the Sixth World and this, along with smaller corps that do not have extraterritoriality, is the tax base that keeps governments afloat.

While it is difficult for small businesses to compete with megas in fields such as manufacturing and low-low prices, there are some fields where the small business are superior to megas, such as talismongering, traditional handcrafts, and pubs where everyone knows your name. Of course, family-owned businesses tend to go belly-up very quickly, but there are always more of them and some do fairly well.

Lots of these will be serving SINless people though and therefore they are going to be pretty much organised crime. Just pretty low grade crime (taxation fraud)

I take your point though.
Adarael
I dunno if I'd go THAT far. I don't think there are enough SINless to support that theory.
Demonseed Elite
QUOTE
I have to say thanks everyone for clearing some of these issues up. I'm still not entirely clear how things are supposed to work, but I have a better handle on it now!


I would love to write a Fourth Edition version of Corporate Shadowfiles, though there was a lot of criticism that CS read too much like an economics book. Strangely, it's one of my favorite Shadowrun sourcebooks. nyahnyah.gif

There will eventually be a Fourth Edition corp book and I'll see what will fit in there. What doesn't fit will probably end up on Holostreets.

QUOTE
Money: Is there generally less trust in the world for government and corp scrips? It seems to me that there would be, because of the general extreme geopolitical instability, which may render corp or govenment scrip completely worthless.


Corp scrip is worse off that government currency. Government currency is at least exchanged on the global market. Corp scrip can only be exchanged by the issuing corporation or by the ZOG Bank, and the ZOG Bank only deals in exchanges in the millions of nuyen of value, and only to corporate customers.

QUOTE
This is a problem because e-currency is widely described as 'the go' - do people have a gold trade or something instead to work with?


They have the nuyen, which is the world reserve currency and is backed by the ZOG Bank. I've had a few freelancer discussions about whether the nuyen is a fiat currency or a standard-backed currency, but there's been no official details on that one way or the other.

A corporate citizen can exchange their corp scrip for nuyen at one of their corporation's banks. It's just that many deal at least partially in corp scrip because it has the illusion of having more value, because the corp offers its own goods at a discount if the citizen buys the goods with corp scrip. Since a megacorporation's goods can cover the whole spectrum from housing to food to clothing to luxury items, many corporate citizens fall into the trap of using too much corp scrip and having very little in the way of assets that isn't tied to their employer. Still, nearly all corporate citizens deal in at least some nuyen, unless they are of the lowest classes of corporate citizen. Those are the folks who are truly the indentured servants. They take their pay in corp scrip which they use to buy goods from their parent corp and they have no real assets or investments.

QUOTE
Okay, how easy is it for me to quit a job and take another one with a different AAA megacorp? Are you likely to get situations like today when people can have worked for 7-9 different A -> AAA corps?


It really depends on where you are on the corporate citizen totem pole. For those poor schmucks who are the bottom, it's very difficult. Your entire life is tied to your corp. Any corp scrip you have saved up you'd have to exchange for nuyen and it's going to be appear to be much less money. For those who don't have much to begin with, good luck starting your new life with another company.

For those at the top, it's probably just as difficult, but for different reasons. You are valued talent and you've likely been retained with such nice golden handcuffs that it'd be hard to leave that behind. Your stock options haven't all vested, so you'd be losing lots of money if you left. Not to mention all those perks that the corporation has thrown your way to retain you. On top of that, the corporations are not above using dirty tricks to retain their most valuable employees. Blackmail, kidnapping family members, you name it. This is why the market for extractions is so good. Some corporations would rather kill their top talent than let the competitor have them.

I think company-hopping is far less common in 2070 than today, but I'm sure it still happens. Usually in an upward direction, with people moving from A corps to AA corps to AAA corps. The bigger corporations can offer more incentives, which makes the transition less painful for the employee. They can also pay for shadowrunners for extractions easier, if that sort of thing is necessary.

QUOTE
ZO being the big audit house actually works pretty well. Especially if they don;t engage in black ops, so they can publish accounts or whatever. Have to be a trusted source.


I would say that the ZOG Bank likely doesn't do shadowruns. They've never been mentioned in the game as backing shadowrunners and it's too likely if they did that it would be for the benefit of one particular corporation or another, which is totally against the rules.
Demonseed Elite
Also, with all the concern about banks, keep in mind that today banking and financial services is the most fragmented market on the globe and that likely hasn't changed in Shadowrun. Citigroup may be the biggest company in the world, but it only controlled 2% of the private banking market in 2003 (from their own financial releases, slide number 11). Compare this with Starbucks, which controls 73% of the coffeehouse sales market in the United States. You can see why when megacorporate ownership is discussed, it's usually in goods and not as much in financial outfits.

Of course, this is also good for the corporations, because the more diverse the market is, the more sources there are to borrow money from without it becoming too tangled. It also protects the global economy in cases where corporations fail, which has even happened to AAAs.
kzt
Handling the money of really rich people, which is what "Private Banking" does, is extremely fragmented because really rich people have a lot of options and often strong opinions about who can take care of their money. And just like Lamborghini and General Motors, servicing the really rich isn't something that a company that wants to be the world's largest anything tends to do well, while companies that cater to the really rich have a hard time succeeding in the mass market.
FriendoftheDork
Guys, I just want so say thank you for your posts, these have helped me get a clearer picture of the world.


The weird thing is that the more I write about a subject I wonder about the more I understand about it.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)
I would say that the ZOG Bank likely doesn't do shadowruns. They've never been mentioned in the game as backing shadowrunners and it's too likely if they did that it would be for the benefit of one particular corporation or another, which is totally against the rules.

ZOG doesn't need Shadowrunners; it has Thor shots.
kzt
As long as Aries want it to. . . . And ZOG is a really unfortunate choice of acronym.
knasser
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)
I would love to write a Fourth Edition version of Corporate Shadowfiles, though there was a lot of criticism that CS read too much like an economics book. Strangely, it's one of my favorite Shadowrun sourcebooks. nyahnyah.gif


Oh, please, please, do whatever you can to get Catalyst to let you do a revised Corporate Shadowfiles. It was one of the very best Shadowrun supplements ever produced. I loved it when I was a kid. That probably means I was an odd kid, but that book was great.

Ahh, the Chromed Accountant - still my favourite shadowposter (well, maybe Bung as well).

-K.
Gelare
QUOTE (knasser)
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite @ Sep 3 2007, 04:34 AM)
I would love to write a Fourth Edition version of Corporate Shadowfiles, though there was a lot of criticism that CS read too much like an economics book. Strangely, it's one of my favorite Shadowrun sourcebooks. nyahnyah.gif


Oh, please, please, do whatever you can to get Catalyst to let you do a revised Corporate Shadowfiles. It was one of the very best Shadowrun supplements ever produced. I loved it when I was a kid. That probably means I was an odd kid, but that book was great.

Ahh, the Chromed Accountant - still my favourite shadowposter (well, maybe Bung as well).

-K.

I'm gonna go ahead and second this sentiment. I never read Corporate Shadowfiles myself, but I sure as heck am going to now. If that's where you've been getting all your information from, Demonseed, then it sounds awesome. Let's get a 2070 version up and running!
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