Finance Island

[frankly_mdear]

You wake up in a small, cramped motel room wearing a cheap suit and a collar around your neck. The rules are simple: create enough tl;dr to fill the gaps of amatomnes's financial system in two weeks (or... however long it takes) or EVERYBODY DIES.There are some problems with how the economic system of Atia currently functions. This is known. What is not

Comments

[frankly_mdear]

To start us off... the following are some late-night suggestions I PMed to Tans, combined with a few other ideas I've heard brought up...

-Amat is said to be a paper note currency, so what might amat be backed by? Precious metal? Nothing at all? If it's nothing, then is this just play money with no real value? So why do merchants accept it?
-If they're not here for money, what are they here for?
-Does it not matter how much collared folk earn, because all the land is owned by natives (this is Word of Jon) and they can jack up property values/taxes/rent however they see fit?
-Even the impoverished third district is apparently quite well off. So is this really a sort of upper class resort island?

[fancy_shooting]

:V

US Dollars aren't backed by anything. But they used to be. Maybe Amat dollars used to be backed but aren't now?

*kinda wishes Amat ran on credit, wheee*

[inspectorlink]

I think paper money is mostly backed by faith alone? I'm just scrounging what little recollection I have of my last economics class a few years back. From what I could find on the interwebs, no currency is currently backed by the Gold Standard anymore, but the Fiat currency (which tl;dr, I think is just the government accepts it as money). So in this instance, I think 1 Amat = 1 U.S. dollar simply because the Atians have come to an agreement that it has that worth.

[frankly_mdear]

So if it's a fiat currency, then the next question is, why does anyone outside the island see value in it? We know via the ship raiding plot that Atia's control does not apparently extend beyond the island, and she is in fact taboo on the mainland.

[thatkindofguy]

Lol on mobile, so this might not be cohesive.

- What happens with the currency exhange for newcomers? There is no true EXCHANGE because the "old" currency has no value here. So you're just arbitrarily increasing the money supply...or are you? Someone weigh in on how this works? :D

[frankly_mdear]

Vivi's suggestion below is one idea. If the exchange was instead a loan, it states that foreign currency retains its value (maybe the NPC trade on a multiversal exchange?), while still enforcing amat as the local standard.

[thatkindofguy]

Ooh, that's a possibility. Maybe Atia gives money back to the worlds she stole from? :9 Though really, it depends on how that whole thing works.

[holocaustdog]

literally nailed (7:03:35 PM): :|a
literally nailed (7:03:42 PM): I personally think the currency "exchange"
literally nailed (7:03:46 PM): should be turned into a loan
Der Menschenhass (7:04:16 PM): oh, that'd be cool. Because they are all kind of just tenants on the natives' land.
literally nailed (7:04:18 PM): you can borrow up to how much of your old currency you have on you.

JUST A THOUGHT

[frankly_mdear]

Now, the further question is, would that affect the relative ease of getting a larger loan for starting a business? (Tighter loan regulation wouldn't be that bad a thing to have, and hey, ~relevant~.)

[holocaustdog]

Probably? Let's think about this. Owning a business is a privilege on the island and not a right. You're creating* strain and competition on native run places and such. Obviously they wouldn't be too keen on that, especially as the collared people are invaders.

*I can type, really

[frankly_mdear]

It's also rather optimistic to play as though all businesses remain open until those running it leave the island-- most businesses fail, that's just reality. Not saying players should be obligated to play their businesses in a cutthroat, totally realistic fashion, but at any rate it might not be so bad for it to be a little harder to open and maintain a business, especially considering other people's projects (Balthier's airship, for instance) have their cost and time commitment emphasized.

[frankly_mdear]

The Count wrote this a while ago. Mun said she is willing to retcon if need be, but in any case it's something worth reading through.

[frankly_mdear]

bluehairedsenshi (6:32:42 PM): maybe the currency exchange works because Atia takes all the currency from other worlds and goes on extravagant extra-dimensional vacations with it, and in return, leaves amat... yeah ok that's lame, but she seems the type to take our money and have vacations with it