OOTS #1161 - The Discussion Thread

[Riftwolf]

A Grand Malburro....

A Big Bad Donkey?

[Jasdoif]

A Grand Malburro....

A Big Bad Donkey?

And/Or those huge plant octopus-like things with the huge mouth and correspondingly horrible case of halitosis.

[The MunchKING]

And/Or those huge plant octopus-like things with the huge mouth and correspondingly horrible case of halitosis.

That's the one. You just need Ribbon to prevent all the status ailments and they get MUCH easier.

[DavidSh]

And/Or those huge plant octopus-like things with the huge mouth and correspondingly horrible case of halitosis.

The ones with a name suspiciously similar to a popular brand of cigarettes.

[D.One]

Keyboard. It's minted on your keyboard, entering circulation by gambling. For example, I bet 1 gold the next comic will have Hilgya or Minrah appearing. Bam, I just created 1 gold and put it into circulation! Of course, it's in escrow until the next comic shows up and we see who that gold goes to, but still.

Better?

You know that people printing/minting money as they see fit is one of the great causes/aggravators of inflation, don't you?

I won't give examples, in order to avoid stepping in RL, but I've seen the effects firsthand.

[Peelee]

You know that people printing/minting money as they see fit is one of the great causes/aggravators of inflation, don't you?

I shall weep for the forum's insular digital gambling-based economy.

[Jannoire]

I shall weep for the forum's insular digital gambling-based economy.

I'll bet you 10 gold, that someone will start wasting forum gold on stupid bets...
Wait, what?

[D.One]

I shall weep for the forum's insular digital gambling-based economy.

You should. Soon enough, everybody will be minting their own 10 gold to bet, and the forum gambling will be flooded with those golds, and 10 gambling-forum-gold will mean less then 1 gold, and people will start making their bets at 100 forum-gold, and so on...

I'll bet you 10 gold, that someone will start wasting forum gold on stupid bets...
Wait, what?

In fact, I bet 11 gold that will sooner or later happen.

[Snails]

You should. Soon enough, everybody will be minting their own 10 gold to bet, and the forum gambling will be flooded with those golds, and 10 gambling-forum-gold will mean less then 1 gold, and people will start making their bets at 100 forum-gold, and so on...

What enforces the integrity of the imaginary currency is shame, which is why I keep a public ledger in my .sig.

That and the theoretical threat that three brains will god-like technology will come and collect in a future century when we are a space-faring race.

[Cazero]

You should. Soon enough, everybody will be minting their own 10 gold to bet, and the forum gambling will be flooded with those golds, and 10 gambling-forum-gold will mean less then 1 gold, and people will start making their bets at 100 forum-gold, and so on...



In fact, I bet 11 gold that will sooner or later happen.

The tempation to raise that bet to 12 bazillion gold is overwhelming.
But I'll resist because I've played too many incremental games to trust a big number that isn't displayed in scientific notation.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The tempation to raise that bet to 12 bazillion gold is overwhelming.
But I'll resist because I've played too many incremental games to trust a big number that isn't displayed in scientific notation.

Eh. There is also that a gazillion, I've been told, can be as high as 100,000,000 if you're counting jellybeans, and as low as 32 if you're counting, say, gunshot wounds.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

See, this is why I wanted to start the gambling thread, so bets could be recorded and everyone would have a +/- value showing how far ahead or behind they were.

[jokem]

See, this is why I wanted to start the gambling thread, so bets could be recorded and everyone would have a +/- value showing how far ahead or behind they were.

What is the exchange rate for Quatloos?

[Kish]

If you're dealing with me, the answer is that there is none. I have no more interest in Star Trek money than in green paper; gold or nothing.

[jokem]

V has access to the spells; they used scrolls of Dismissal in Battle of Azure City, and attempted Banishment on the Pit Lord.
It sort of boils down to whether Durkon knew about the scroll of Gate. And whether either of them can get through LDWs defences. And whether this fights going to be resolved by a single save-or-gtfo.
(dismissing the elementals would cause narrative problems if it happened too soon)

Seems to me they would expect summoning from the opponents, and if not Durkon could always swap it fro a cure. Oh well...

[Goblin_Priest]

I have a question about forum bets.

Whence cometh gold wagered?

Same place banks take the money they loan to people, I reckon.

[Goremplotz]

just noticed the period at the end of "Mass Hold Monster."

Gives the spell a nice sense of a "halt" signal.

[zimmerwald1915]

Same place banks take the money they loan to people, I reckon.

That'd be, for the US, an account held by the bank at the Federal Reserve.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And even that is funded by all of the money customers have deposited.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

And even that is funded by all of the money customers have deposited.

Technically only 90% of the money customers have deposited. Technically technically, smaller banks are allowed to go up to 97% and even smaller ones have no reserve at all, but most money, by definition, is in banks which must have 10% reserves.

Admittedly, given enough time, it is an infinite sum as the money they lend out will make it back into the bank, and 90% of it will be lent out again and again. But still, technically not all the money.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

That'd be, for the US, an account held by the bank at the Federal Reserve.

Well, on paper, at least. Everyone knows that Simon Gruber actually pulled it off, with the whole "movie" thing making it seem like a fictional plot that failed.

[Doug Lampert]

Technically only 90% of the money customers have deposited. Technically technically, smaller banks are allowed to go up to 97% and even smaller ones have no reserve at all, but most money, by definition, is in banks which must have 10% reserves.

Admittedly, given enough time, it is an infinite sum as the money they lend out will make it back into the bank, and 90% of it will be lent out again and again. But still, technically not all the money.

Grey Wolf

Not infinite, that's a convergent sequence. Take, say, $1,000,000,000,000 and loan out 90%, get that back, and loan out 90% of the return, take that back and loan out 90% of the return, keep this up forever and it only comes to ten times as much loaned out as there is actual money. (With real money this will be slightly off as loans have to be in increments of not less than $0.01, so roundoff will kill the last few cents of that.)

Now, since the Federal Reserve is OWNED by the banks, and it can print new money, they can in fact print unlimited amounts of money. But you can't get there by repeated lending of the same money as long as there is a reserve requirement of at least some fixed epsilon greater than 0 (epsilon may be applied either as a flat amount or as a percentage of the loans, doesn't matter, still finite).

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Not infinite, that's a convergent sequence.

In infinite sum that converges is still an infinite sum. The usual example is the sum of the reciprocals of the powers of two, which is obviously infinite, and converges to 2.

In RL, yes, it can't be an infinite sum since we operate in finite time and loans tend to have a minimum amount, but mathematically, it is still an infinite sum.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

In RL, yes, it can't be an infinite sum since we operate in finite time and loans tend to have a minimum amount, but mathematically, it is still an infinite sum.

And, you know, economic crahes. Being a banker is a great way to make money, until it suddenly isn't.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

And, you know, economic crahes. Being a banker is a great way to make money, until it suddenly isn't.

I don't see any bank owners & upper directives having suffered much during or after the latest economic crash. Seems to be a pretty nice gig: whether the bank goes up or down, they still make more each day than I'll make in a lifetime.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

Now, since the Federal Reserve is OWNED by the banks, and it can print new money, they can in fact print unlimited amounts of money.

Unless they put out a bill with a lemniscate in the corners, they can't print unlimited amounts of money. Resource depletion and all.

[Fyraltari]

I don't see any bank owners & upper directives having suffered much during or after the latest economic crash. Seems to be a pretty nice gig: whether the bank goes up or down, they still make more each day than I'll make in a lifetime.

Grey Wolf

Depends on the crash. 1929 wasn’t a great year for bankers all things considered.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Depends on the crash. 1929 wasn’t a great year for bankers all things considered.

It wasn't a great year for anyone, and I'd hazard a guess that even at their lowest, bankers still fared significantly better than most of the population affected by the crash.

And since then, things have gotten way better for them than for most.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

It wasn't a great year for anyone, and I'd hazard a guess that even at their lowest, bankers still fared significantly better than most of the population affected by the crash.

And since then, things have gotten way better for them than for most.

Grey Wolf

2,294 banks closed in the U.S.
I don't know if that's better or worse than the other industries but that's a lot of banks that stopped making infinite sums and a lot of bankers that stopped making money, however well their successors are doing.

[Snails]

And, you know, economic crahes. Being a banker is a great way to make money, until it suddenly isn't.

Once upon a time, "Would you bet the company?" was a question intended to bring sober reflection on the potential downsides in the bigger picture.

Today, many many many powerful people would immediately respond: "Absolutely. Because I get bonuses proportional to how big the winning bet is, and here I would be betting a whole lot of someone else's money. If I lose, I only lose a job. My upside is vastly bigger than my downside."

Banker's do not necessarily lose any of their own money when their bank goes under, unless you count stock awards they chose to hang onto and future bonuses they might have realized. But potential future rewards are always part of an opportunity cost calculation.