Did you order through Battleshop? I might have to call my apartment office and make sure the postman doesn't do something squirrely with mine.

Horse... Or Unicorn?





Slightly more on topic, I noticed Frank's latest posts over on The Gaming Den. I wasn't familiar with the site, but ironically Bull's sig directed me to it. I've got to say, that Frank remains a source of fascinating information and delightful prose. I particularly liked his summation of the original plan with Runner Havens as being "to continue to do books in that style until they ran out of places that weren't Milwauke".

Sad though, that it looks like one of the books that will vanish if CGL burns is a source book on Tir Taingire. 6WA is the prize I think everyone was waiting for, but I'd have been really interested to see what's going on in TT. Well, depending on who had written it, but I'm assuming AH at least had done parts of it, because, well, he's done parts of everything in 4th, I think.

K.

Yes but as others have pointed out and I will chime in as well, it is not unusual for books, movies, CD's, games (I'm really enjoying Duke Nukem forever arn't you?) etc etc to take time to go through the devleopment cycle for a variety of reasons, whether they can sustain that is questionable but it's not itself unusual. My point with the industry comment poorly articulated that it was is evne form my outsiders view of the industry I know sometimes books take a long time to make it down the pipe.


No i'm making the argument that IF IMR/CGL retains the license then we should jusdge them on the quality of their work. Wait and see.

A couple of things 1) Those in a morally weak position never want morals to come into it although i will admit morality is subjective 2) I would conjecture or speculate if you will that the folks withholding copyrights had more to do with payments being issued then anything. 3) If i see a crime I report it, to whatever authority seems most appropriate, I don't blog it, this sums up my feelings on that score pretty succinctly. One is a responsible action the other is the act of an attention whore with an axe to grind. By your own post you hold that no one gets a pass for bad behavior but evidently leaking is A-OK.



I'm "positive" about CGL at least because they've released good stuff in the past, I'm pragmatic about them because I see them loosing the license as disruptive in the near term and a blind shoot in the long term. I tend to blame Fanpro for a lot of the YOTC and Do6W garbage I hate so much although I've been told after the fact that much of that was in the works before the hand over. I like the storyline direction things have gone under CGL and would like to see the trend of street and corporate/international espionage over immortal elves continue.

Then you think it's realistic? I don't. I don't want to wait for years for the next Shadowrun book, and I'll bet based on past experience that another company could do it faster if they didn't have an anchor like Loren Coleman on their chest.

And I'm making the argument that I'm seeing things right now and I don't like them. I would love to judge IMR on the material they release as well as their business practices, but, well...

I think bad behavior is a subjective thing, but I wonder if you understand morals. An owner confirms that the spreadsheets are the ones he made, they detail the extent of what was taken out of the company. That figure corresponds largely with a home purchased by the person who was making the draws while coinciding with a period where the company was unable to meet it's fiduciary responsibilities. And you point fingers at the people who brought that information to light and accuse them of bad behavior?

But the people who had a strong hand in that direction you like are gone. IMR is effectively a different company now.

Given how they raped, mauled and defaced the place already, I am unsure whether that's a bad thing, even though I always liked the setting (before Runner Havens and CE, at least).

A money making scheme.

Interesting phrase, that. To a lad growing up in the US, the connotation is there is nefarious activity going on. But visiting India, I saw a bunch of signs advertising investment opportunities using the exact phrase "scheme". Apparently the idioms of the New Delhi region are rather different, one wonders what other confusion might be arising from posters' choice of text.

So to you guys the connotation is purely Madoff style business? Okay, then my use of the word was a bit ... clumsy. I know it in a more ambiguous role, though with a certain negative slant.

Anybody ever linked you to Binky yet? O.o

Which isn't exactly true. But since I can't even register on that lousy forum, I can't really refute it there. He's also inaccurate about Ghost Cartels being an attempt to use SoLA material without paying the SoLA writers.

I don't think the situation your company has compared to IMR is all that applicable. You were formed by an tax-exempt business that receives preferential treatment that most likely has some cash to throw around to everything perfect and set it up the first time. Your situation is closer to what happens when a corporation creates a child company. IMR on the other hand is a small business that grew organically from the ground up. There's a world of difference in the experience level and framework at startup.

Not saying it makes the situation any better. I don't know exactly what happened, but I tend to believe that human error is more likely than human malevolence, at least until it's been proved otherwise. From everything I've seen so far I think they're likely to learn from their mistakes and fix things going forward. Or you know, they could go under too. That could always happen.

Of course, posting this, yeah, it's all pretty much of a dead horse, and I should learn from my mistakes and not respond to discussions like this. So instead, I vote we change this to the "Useless Debate over Semantics Thread". Here I'll start.



Yup, though it need not bee financially related. I can only think of one usage of the word "scheme" that does not have the "evil/bad/negative" connotation to it and that's "color scheme". Though lately "companies want to make money" seems to equal evil lately too, because as they love to teach now, making money is greedy and wrong. ;p

Isn't that the truth! Making money used to be called "successful". Apparently now-a-days companies are supposed to exist for the sole benefit of paying taxes and providing jobs (so that individuals can pay taxes).

Making money by producing and making money by ripping others off are not one and the same, no matter how much the financial industry likes to tell you it is.

I posted that because of a request, and because I think it speaks to the difference between a company, of any size, that gets the "being a company" part right and IMR. It doesn't matter how big you are, if you don't get the basics down, there's nowhere to grow. If you do grow there's no way to do so efficiently and mistakes are made. Sometimes people use those mistakes to nefarious ends, that's how I picture what Lorne did at IMR. He used a bad situation to line his own pockets.

I will say though that you're idea of charity organizations as privileged does not jive with the majority that I've had contact with, but we are mostly an on the ground type of organization. The big non profit foundations normally find someone like us to partner with. We live off the good graces of a sea of minor donors, a few major donors (the lucky ones do) and the whims of the local and federal government. We do the best we can, though. The one I work for has been in western MI since before the turn of the last century and I hope we're around as long as people need us.

QFT

I don't have that idea about charity organizations. I have that idea about church-funded organizations. Churches are many things in this country, but poor generally isn't one of them. Or maybe the fact that I live right next to the CBN complex could be skewing my perception. (Addendum: Just to clarify, any child company being founded by a parent corporation would have the similar advantages you're having in this case, religious or otherwise. The magic criteria is having cash and experience to dole out upon the child company.)



I never said they were. I was making a joke about a common trend in thinking I've noticed, especially in people my age or younger who live in the US. Anyway, I doubt we really want to get into a discussion like that. So let's just leave it with. Yes, fraud is bad. Mmm'kay.

Not in a healthy way, at least.


And here we differ. I think he just lost control over his finances, and how much he could and should draw from the company that was, effectively, his (can you even embezzle from yourself?). Mistakes were made, but I don't think there need to have been nefarious intents. Not saying there weren't, I may well be mistaken. But it is far from provenl, as some would say it is.


Religious charities are privileged in that they usually receive an organsiation blueprint and help with organisation from their parent churches. Startups don't get such help. And gamers often aren't the most organised people to begin with.

Sadly, yes, we're doing the Imperial Order warmups.

Given how much they butchered the country I don't care if it ever comes out, unless it is to change it back. Look another standard corporate city, this time with more pointy ears. Yeah I'll pass. I can rename bars from the Seattle source book and add more pointy ears on my own, I don't need to pay anyone to do it for me.

Indeed

But he isn't the only one who is an owner. And his actions impact more than himself. I also can't see such behavior on that scale over that time period being an accident.

I think I see where the questions are going and I happily report that we are not affiliated with any "televangelist" churches that I know of. We're proud of our roots as a church, but I have to admit we look a lot like a business these days. In fact, our affiliate doesn't have a single building that I would call a church in the sense that normally springs to mind. We do have a national office as well, but each affiliate is self governed and expected to fund themselves. And we did get some help starting out, though that was over a hundred years ago when the operation came over from England. They later asked us to sell our headquarters and send back the cash, so take that as you will. We broke off from the original group over one hundred years ago and then made nice with them during the last century, even if they tend to be much more well known than us. We also made the decision that people are offered the cup of tea and are welcomed to stick around for the salvation, their choice and in that order, when we because our own organization back in the day.

We didn't have a perfect setup by any means. Or money, just people.

From my own perspective I tend to think of churches as those little buildings on the corner that are only an entity at all because the locals show up on Sundays. Poor is a fantastic word to describe them.

Churches can be rich or poor just like any other organization. The church I went to as a kid was poor as heck, they could barely afford the rent. The church my sister goes to is rich, it is a miracle what a difference 20 miles makes.

Yup, ordered through CGL almost 14 months ago. Yeesh.

It's shiny. I'm not taking it out of the shrink wrap for now. Probably bust it open for Gen Con.

Bull

No, but as has been previously stated co-mingling funds is a form of tax evasion. In effect it's stealing from all citizens. The official PR release says that it was accidental and steps are being taken to fix it. Hopefully that's true.

::paddles cyberzombie unicorn with belly-button jewel just a little more::

Like the Energizer bunny.....

You know when I read the description of short selling in the old corporate shadowfiles waaaay back in highschool. I did a double take and yes it is legal.

Now that I've got it I feel the same way. Bent corner sucks, but it's mine.

So wait, I'm not clear on your point. Are you trying to say that people can misinterpret information or come to inaccurate conclusions? Because we all clearly know that's not true, sir.

Somehow, I'm not feeling surprise, like I thought I would, when I realized that these comments were left to lie unanswered.

The problem is that the main people responsible for all the great material from CGL have gone and have such a damaged relationship with any company under Loren Coleman that they're not coming back. And that's my biggest issue. Ultimately I care about the game. And I attribute responsibility for it primarily to the creative team that wrote it, not the company that facilitated them to do so. Given the lag between development and release, we were still seeing the efforts of Peter Taylor (Synner) being put out long after he left. As I've said before, I'd sooner see a temporary hiatus in releases than the hypothetical "Lone Star Cop on the Unicorn". Once a YotC has been released, we're stuck with it.

And it's supposing that there is a long hiatus. CGL have a pretty poor record of releasing products in a timely fashion. It would be in the interests of a new company to get the ball rolling quickly and we know that there's ready to roll material in the background, e.g. all the 6WA stuff that AH did. If CGL don't release this material, then presumably the writers are free to sell it to the new people.

Anyway, that second paragraph is guess work. There could well be a pause if there were a change in licencee, I don't know. But I would strongly prefer to have to wait a few months before the presses started rolling again, before I saw whatever the next "changelings" were or Leonardo created technomancers plot-twist or whatever. I suspect you'd actually feel the same if you considered this risk to be a likely outcome?

K.

I'll take your word over Frank's in this case.

I never meant to throw you in with the nutjobs. Other, less nutty churches have a very strict and time honored organisational blueprint too - think of the Catholics, Anglicans, and the older Baptist paishes (and from yourt comment, I take it your organisation has an Anglican background?). A startup company set up from a hobby group by people coming from a subculture not exactly known for their business savy - unlike people who have an American church background, which, as you say, requires at least some idea of how to manage a business - do not have this at all, and thus are far more prone for making mistakes a business owner should avoid at all costs.


That entirely depends on where you're from. A Swiss might consider it a human right (that is a strong notion in switzerland, and tax evasion is a crime on one height with parking tickets there - it's what their economy is built upon after all). Competition and all that. Competition is never wrong, now is it? Everybody knows everything's better with competition (and Dikote).


FWIW, I found one sidebar about the Aztlaner warrior orders that looks a lot like SoLA. Everything else South America relevant seems to build more on Runner Havens' Caracas entry.

*snort* Yeah, because you totally earned that tax money. I mean that money needs to be forcibly extracted and sent to to Washington so it can be hidden away in private funds and doled out as kickbacks and favors to the politicians' wealthy campaign contributers while they feed every else lies that it's "for the people". It's the 'merican way!

(Again, not saying co-mingling of funds was good, because it's definitely not. I just couldn't get by the "Oh noes he stolez from evrybodiez!" line.)



Wait.. that statement was a tad confusing. Are you saying tax evasion in Switzerland is an offense of equal magnitude to parking tickets in Switzerland? And if so, are parking tickets a major offense there? ;p Or are you saying that a large part of Switzerland's income comes from parking tickets? (I wonder if they're the country employing those tire-tread detecting cameras)

No..he is saying a large part of Switzerlands income comes from their anonymous banks that take the money
rich americans put there to avoid taxes. You pay alot for the anonymity. Probably as much as you would pay
in taxes in the U.S....fortunately, US treaties made in the last few years have managed to get Switzerland
to be able(as in...Forced to) to disclose the info to the US IRS

Rich Europeans and drug lords for the most part. A swiss secretary (finances, I think) once said he considers putting money anonymously and away from prying statres' eyes into swiss coffers a basic human right.


No, about half. They call it tax competition. You see, the US could just slash taxes in half and would be able to compete on the taxes market again!

Swiss law differs between tax evasion (hardly an offence, let alone a crime) and tax swimdle, which involves willful fabrication of false papers and all other needless stuff, which is a crime like tax evasion is in non-tax-haven countries.

The US made some harsh threats, and so did many European states. Switzerland fumed and raged, but ultimatlyx cowed, because they took a look at a map, I guess.

There's a lot of inaccuracies over there. Luckily the thread got locked for now. I wonder where all that Dumpshock hate will be vented to....

Okay, as a Swiss citizen, I seriously take offense with that statement.
First off, before throwing stones, you should take a look at the tax evasion opportunities Delaware, Florida and Nevada offer.
Secondly, the possibility to obtain information on bank accounts in Switzerland existed long before the recent negotiations; however, information exchange requires the submission of proof that there is, in fact, foul play involved, in which case the is the "Amtshilfeverfahren".
Lastly, the treaties regarding the ceding of information on UBS accounts to the IRS is not yet ratified by the Swiss National Council and faces stiff opposition. Why? Because some parties adamantly want to defend the right of Swiss banks to aid and abet tax evasion and tax fraud, but also because to some, there is a desire to take the UBS in particular and manager boni excesses on a very short leash, which - as is customary in Swiss politics - is done by judicious horse trading ("We agree to the information ceding while you will back us on legislation against boni excesses and for stronger oversight in 'too big to fail' banks).

Only if you could prove up front that there wasn't just a case of evasion but of willfull swindling [Steuerbetrug], usually tied to fabrication of wrong papers. Tax evasion [Steuerhinterziehung] wasn't usually persecuted, and asking for proof up front when the proof is likely in the banks' records is awfully convenient for a country whose financial industry depends on foreign monies, too.

It might offend you as a swiss, but your country was for a very long time thoroughly unhelpful, and gleeful comments by government members about how tax evasion is a human right sure didn't help.

As for the horse trading, with your weird perpetual government of national unity, that is kind of to be expected? I wonder why you bother with national votes at all. Like it would make much difference? Well, apart from the elections being an excellent opportunity for the SVP to embarass the entire country again.


Doesn't Frank have a blog?

Yes, I guess you could say I favor a known but changed quantity over a complete unknown. Further Jason has made statements that he doesn't see himself making major earth shattering changes under his watch. I do think if CGL comes through this they will be stronger for it as more financial oversite and better operational procedures benefit all companies.

Personal Anecdote One: As a side affect of becoming more active on DS as opposed to just lurking and have started to become more aware of who is responsible and put names to books/persona's. This has been both a good and a bad thing because even amongst the current crop of stuff there have been stuff I just didn't care for or couldn't get the rational. Whereas previously I would have merely chalked it up to differences of flavor and preferances now everything is a tad more personal. So in short while the talent departure is concerning there has been no spate of SR writing, going all the way back to first or second, that I've found completely perfect. Hopefully good talent will return, and if not, more good talent will work it's way in.

Anecdote Two:
It's not to say I don't want to see any changes occur in Shadowrun, I just want those changes to fall more squarely on sixth world actors and actions and less reliance on immortal elves, dragons and assorted earthdawn baggage. All the immortal elves dieing in a bio-engineered plague would not go amiss in my book. I want to see some national power conflict and megacorp wars.

Yay for inaccuracies: This one has, this one hasn't.

I'd love to see an actual quote saying just that.




See, when your government has to get popular approval on just about any legislation (yay for the Referendum!), a government of national unity is a lot more efficient that getting slapped down by popular decision every time (and even so, the government has lately shown a remarkable tendency to still get slapped). Also, and I am assuming that you are neither Swiss nor residing in Switzerland, the fact that each party with a seat in the councils participates in drafting legislation merely camouflages the fact that there are several different majorities depending on the item at hand. For instance, military spending regularly gets voted down by the so-called 'unholy alliance' of SP and SVP, while immigration policies usually find their majority withing SVP, FDP and CVP. And while this system generally makes it very, very hard to introduce any new piece of legislation that is not overly popular, it is also extremely stable, in the sense that you need not to worry that every policy installed by the current government will be overturned by the next.

Exactly. That sidebar is from my SoLA writing and I was the one who put it in Ghost Cartels. And since I was paid for Ghost Cartels, you could say I was paid for that SoLA writing.

::Checks the TOS before responding::



Sadly, or fortunately depending on your point of view, the TOS prevent me from responding as I would like. Sticking to the facts, our government provides services in a state of market failure. These services are paid for primarily by a progressive income tax system where as one earns more, one incurs a larger proportion of the tax burden.

For example, According to data from the IRS, the bottom 50% of income earners pay approximately 4% of income taxes. The top 25% of income earners pay nearly 83% of the income tax burden, and the top 10% pay 65%. The top 1% of income earners pay almost 35% of all income taxes. To personalize this, if you earn more than $70k (as likely many dumpshockers do) you are in the top 25% of income earners.

Whether or not this arrangement is "fair" or if the disproportionately high use of government provided services by those paying the least taxes is "earned" is a subject for debate on another forum. Perhaps we can all agree that despite the roles we play in the game we enjoy, not paying taxes is bad, stealing is bad, lying is bad, not paying employees, contractors, vendors, or licensors for services provided is bad, CGL/IMR has promised to clean up their act, and we have no idea if they actually are or not.

Now, where's that cyberzombie unicorn again?

Thanks for posting this, augmentin. Makes my job easier.

Please take the real world political debate elsewhere. A comment here or there is one thing, but this thread is not about the legalities of tax-sheltering in Switzerland.

Thanks!

This was meant to go to Eldritch Parcival McR'lyeh by PM, but it seems he is too new to receive PM. I apologise for violating TOS and take my warning in stride, but as I researched this I am kind of unwilling to not let him have a look at it.

/switzerland discussion; if you could somehow release your PM function, Eldritch Parcival McR'lyeh, we can well continue this via PMs if you are interested to.

So Frank has mentioned on other boards that IMR released a summary of their internal audit to employees and freelancers. Can anyone in those groups confirm or deny within the bounds of there respective NDAs?

I know they're conducting an audit, and they've sent e-mails to most of the current and former freelancers asking for their own records.

What's happening is that each contractor will be getting a list of the contracts issued for them and CGL's records of what has been paid. We'll ask them to verify that we have everything right, or correct what is not accurate, so that we have everything nice and organized. The first step is making sure we have current contact info, which is what is happening currently.

Jason H.

That last line isn't so reassuring in terms of CGL not having some very serious prior data management issues.

Welcome to four weeks ago, such things were frankly admitted, it's cute to see folks go AHA to old news.

People move, email addys change...and I don't know about you, but I'm oftem pretty bad about remembering everyone who has my email address and might need an update, especially if I'm not working for them anymore. This is not to say that CGL does not, or at least dd not, have some data management issues, but it's probably not all their fault in this case.

People move, change addresses, etc. Some people have not worked with Catalyst since I became line developer, so I don't have a lot of contact information for them. So I'll gather it, we'll compare it to what the offices have, and correct where necessary. Updating databases is something that has to happen on occasion, and it's happening now.

Jason H.