Money Market

by **Gibberish45** 2011-06-06, 21:27

Keeps dipping to .002

Currently individuals are buying up the discounted BEF, but it won't be long before .002 is the new norm. I know this is global and stabilizing the MM is too costly and won't last.

Is there any feasible option to stop the bleeding? What happens when the average currency value in the eWorld hits .001? How could the admins even fix this? (assuming they cared)

RL economists and knowledgeable amateurs, please inform.

by **shadowukcs** 2011-06-06, 21:34

in short: the situation is FUBAR (f*** up beyond all repair)

since the government hasn't printed BEF in over 6 months, there should have been a shortage of BEF ages ago and this shortage would have caused the price to rise.

The problem lies in the admin bot that's artificially pumping BEF on the market. This will probably cause the BEF to drop till 0,001G

What the admins will do then is something no one knows. My guess is that they'll abolish currencies and work with gold only.

The value isn't so much a problem for me, the real problem for me lies in the fact that I simply can't sell BEF. No matter how long I put it on the market, no one seems to want to buy it.

by **Gibberish45** 2011-06-06, 22:04

shadowukcs wrote:No matter how long I put it on the market, no one seems to want to buy it.

I feel your pain, I have way more BEF than I need as well. So topic change, for those of us with thousands of BEF what is the best way to get the most out of your money? Assume you can't sell it @ .003 (I sure can't)

Would it make sense to purchase goods in Belgium and attempt to sell them later when the prices rise because of the falling BEF? Thereby "saving" your currency's current value.

by **ThomasRED** 2011-06-06, 22:27

Moved to General Economics forum...

by **Gibberish45** 2011-06-06, 23:55

Thanks TR, I mentally debated where to post and GD won as I thought more would see the thread. This is certainly more fitting though Smile

So that my question doesn't get lost.....

Would it make sense to purchase goods in Belgium and attempt to sell them later when the prices rise because of the falling BEF? Thereby "saving" your currency's current value.

by **NLSP** 2011-06-06, 23:59

eh no, cause purchasing goods pumps BEF into the economy
if you have a VERY big stock, selling them at a low price and keeping the BEF that would make a small effort
(normally a big effect, but due the bot ...)
I would say: unless the admins changes a few things, there is no way that the price go up (and with that I mean, back to the values that we where used to)

by **Gibberish45** 2011-06-07, 00:03

NLSP wrote:eh no, cause purchasing goods pumps BEF into the economy

This would devalue the currency more, which is ok because instead of the BEF you have a product you can sell at a later date when prices rise because of the devaluing currency that you have furthered by spending.

I realize I went off topic from "how to stabilize the MM without spending tons of gold" to "how to save my own skin and not lose my shorts on all the BEF I'm holding" The latter is purely selfish..... Twisted Evil

by **Jofroi** 2011-06-07, 07:45

Excepted for houses, the price of goods in gold is decreasing all around the world. So it's not a good idea to buy stuff (excepted houses, but then it's better to use your BEF to buy gold and then use this gold to buy houses on BM).

And as long as the bot will print money, the currency will decrease^^. We tried to fight it a couple of months ago, it just lead to bankrupcy.

by **Glenn Wauters** 2011-06-07, 09:27

Jofroi wrote:Excepted for houses, the price of goods in gold is decreasing all around the world. So it's not a good idea to buy stuff (excepted houses, but then it's better to use your BEF to buy gold and then use this gold to buy houses on BM).

And as long as the bot will print money, the currency will decrease^^. We tried to fight it a couple of months ago, it just lead to bankrupcy.

Yeah, but prices for houses and moving tickets is raising because they are finite, 10 sold, they wont return anymore
Food and weapons are infinite, 100 sold, 100 or more will be put back on the market

The admins simply want to force us to buy gold, but in the long run they are only destroying the game since new players have it very difficult, so the number of new players isnt as high as the number of players leaving the game each day

The MM Bot needs to be removed, only then "normal" economic mechanisms will work

Basically if this would happen in real life and people would start printing euros all the time, then eventually it will be worth nothing compared to the dollar and you can wipe your ass with those biljets since they arent worth the paper they are printed on
Thats already so in Erepublik, when we reach 0.001, game over economics

by **Bert_en_Ernie** 2011-06-07, 10:21

The only thing you can do is buy the gold that people are selling. It's not the best way but once you have gold in your pockets its value will remain the same. For BEF that's something completely different.

by **shadowukcs** 2011-06-07, 10:55

@glenn: they can't remove the bot. If they remove it, the crash would be even bigger. The bot basically buys up tons of good due to the WaM

Removing the bot would not be an option.

the only "option" is to remove WaM, but I think it will rain complaints then.

by **Ward De Bever** 2011-06-07, 11:18

There is one thing we can do: Lowering taxes (especially import taxes) would make market prices drop and increase demand for BEF on the market, thus increasing BEF value. Every time someone buys in foreign countries because prices in Belgium are too high, they need to sell (or not buy) BEF.

by **Ward De Bever** 2011-06-07, 11:22

What admins can do is increase the number of decimals to 4 or more ... (or do a Mobutu-style pseudo-revaluation, scrapping a number of zeroes, which is essentially the same)

by **shadowukcs** 2011-06-07, 11:24

Ward De Bever wrote:There is one thing we can do: Lowering taxes (especially import taxes) would make market prices drop and increase demand for BEF on the market, thus increasing BEF value. Every time someone buys in foreign countries because prices in Belgium are too high, they need to sell (or not buy) BEF.

Ward... seriously. Don't you know how this game works?

Ppl can't buy from eBE when they are located in a foreign country (except when they have eBE nationality). All you'll do by lowering import taxes is bump even more products on the market from foreign investors who will also want to cash in their BEF in gold.

Lowering import taxes would probably be the absolute worst you can do now.

by **shadowukcs** 2011-06-07, 11:24

Ward De Bever wrote:What admins can do is increase the number of decimals to 4 or more ... (or do a Mobutu-style pseudo-revaluation, scrapping a number of zeroes, which is essentially the same)

with this I agree tho

the problem with 4 decimals is that will only be a short term solution.

by **Jofroi** 2011-06-07, 11:31

Add, 5, 6 or 7 after :p.

And for the mobutu solution, they already did it once, with the iron^^.

by tecuvo 2011-06-07, 11:38

increase wages and all prices on the market.

count in gold: pay your employees a certain amount of gold, and ask a certain amount of gold for your products.

and when the bef value decreases, just increase your prices/wages so that you keep the same gold value for wages and products.

if we manage to do this, devaluation of the bef is just great!
new lands and resistance wars just get cheaper and cheaper (in gold value)

wages are already up to date
prices not really :/

by **Bert_en_Ernie** 2011-06-07, 11:45

This is something that can't be managed because then everybody has to do this. And also if we increase the prices foreigners will flood our market with cheap foreign products.

by **Ward De Bever** 2011-06-07, 11:48

shadowukcs wrote:
Ward De Bever wrote:There is one thing we can do: Lowering taxes (especially import taxes) would make market prices drop and increase demand for BEF on the market, thus increasing BEF value. Every time someone buys in foreign countries because prices in Belgium are too high, they need to sell (or not buy) BEF.

Ward... seriously. Don't you know how this game works?

Well, if you would care to read what I write, maybe you would understand it. I know that I need raw materials quite regularly. There's a choice of markets available: I may buy in Belgium or in other countries. If import (and other) taxes artificially inflate sales prices on the Belgian parket, it happens quite often that I'm forced to buy in a foreign country (generally in the Netherlands or Poland). For that, i need to obtain foreign CC (country currency) first. This operation increases demand for foreign currencies (and thus weakens the BEF).

shadowukcs wrote:Ppl can't buy from eBE when they are located in a foreign country

Maybe shadowukcs doesn't know that you can move to another country and buy on the market there.
For big enough transactions, the move cost is trivial. But I'm probably wasting my time in writing this. Shadowukcs doesn't want, or is not able to understand.

by **NicknameFromRonny** 2011-06-07, 11:50

@Tecuvo: How do you propose do to that?

Currency compared to price of Q2 food
POL 0.004 > 0.44
BEF 0.002 > 1.56
NLG 0.002 > 1.50
FRF 0.002 > 1.53
GBP 0.002 > 1.58
DEM 0.002 > 1.90 (but erased)
ESP 0.003 > 0.57
IEP 0.002 > 1.59
SEK 0.002 > 1.58
HUF 0.003 > 0.64

If you look internationally, we are in the middle of the bunch. Only warstates such as Poland, Spain and Hungary go below.

by tecuvo 2011-06-07, 11:52

@bert en ernie
with high import taxes, you can avoid that
and why would a foreign palyer sell his products in BEF, when the bef is worth almost nothing

all you have to do, is increase the prices.
very difficult, but not impossible, if every party explains this to his members, you got 99% of people who are selling products on the market.

when every congressmember increases his prices with 10%, it would be a start ...

by **NicknameFromRonny** 2011-06-07, 11:59

Then every congressmember will get bypassed by freeriders.

Only official statebuy and sellers could maintain such a thing.

by **Glenn Wauters** 2011-06-07, 12:04

Ward De Bever wrote:
shadowukcs wrote:
Ward De Bever wrote:There is one thing we can do: Lowering taxes (especially import taxes) would make market prices drop and increase demand for BEF on the market, thus increasing BEF value. Every time someone buys in foreign countries because prices in Belgium are too high, they need to sell (or not buy) BEF.

Ward... seriously. Don't you know how this game works?

Well, if you would care to read what I write, maybe you would understand it. I know that I need raw materials quite regularly. There's a choice of markets available: I may buy in Belgium or in other countries. If import (and other) taxes artificially inflate sales prices on the Belgian parket, it happens quite often that I'm forced to buy in a foreign country (generally in the Netherlands or Poland). For that, i need to obtain foreign CC (country currency) first. This operation increases demand for foreign currencies (and thus weakens the BEF).

shadowukcs wrote:Ppl can't buy from eBE when they are located in a foreign country

Maybe shadowukcs doesn't know that you can move to another country and buy on the market there.
For big enough transactions, the move cost is trivial. But I'm probably wasting my time in writing this. Shadowukcs doesn't want, or is not able to understand.

Well then, lowering import taxes doesnt have to do anything with what you just described

Also, a solution would be that the bot would buy up offer on the MM, and give the country the chance to take controll of the bot to put a certain amount to buy up all offers
ofcourse this would bring gold in the game for "free" and thats something admins dont want ofcourse

by tecuvo 2011-06-07, 12:06

as I told
when every political party convinces his members that this is necessary, there will only be a few freeriders left.

and it is the only solution i think
terribly difficult, but not impossible!

what do you propose to do?

by **Glenn Wauters** 2011-06-07, 12:09

There is nothing we can do, in real life you can put up maximum and minimum prices, but you cant in this game

Also at first this may succeed, but the moment one guy goes lower, the other go lower too and you end up in the exact situation we are now

EDIT: like you for example tecuvo, you tell about stabilizng the market, but all you do is put up lower offers yourself on the market (MM)

by **Bert_en_Ernie** 2011-06-07, 12:12

It's a nice plan in theory Tecuvo but I'm afraid getting everyone to do so is next to impossible

by **NicknameFromRonny** 2011-06-07, 12:13

Only a government account, that monitores around the clock, is possible to do such a thing.

by **Boklevski** 2011-06-07, 12:26

shadowukcs wrote:the problem with 4 decimals is that will only be a short term solution.

Ofcourse not! Gold will be even more valuable in CC, so more people will buy gold with reallife currency. That amount is transferred to the admin's bank account, and they will get some nice interest or a new tv that lasts at least 5 or more years.

Sounds like a long term solution to me, actually...

Razz

PS: I'm putting my money (my BEF, that is... it's worthless anyway) on the scenario where they create another bot buying up CC offers from the market (not steered by a government ofcourse, just another 'hidden' bot).

by **Glenn Wauters** 2011-06-07, 12:51

And after that they create a battle bot that will fight for Greece, oh wait, Plato is already doing that

by tecuvo 2011-06-07, 12:55

Glenn Wauters wrote:

EDIT: like you for example tecuvo, you tell about stabilizng the market, but all you do is put up lower offers yourself on the market (MM)

i'm just making huge profits Very Happy

but you're right
even if we reach a "stability" that way, it would be very fragile

by **shadowukcs** 2011-06-07, 13:41

Ward De Bever wrote:
shadowukcs wrote:
Ward De Bever wrote:There is one thing we can do: Lowering taxes (especially import taxes) would make market prices drop and increase demand for BEF on the market, thus increasing BEF value. Every time someone buys in foreign countries because prices in Belgium are too high, they need to sell (or not buy) BEF.

Ward... seriously. Don't you know how this game works?

Well, if you would care to read what I write, maybe you would understand it. I know that I need raw materials quite regularly. There's a choice of markets available: I may buy in Belgium or in other countries. If import (and other) taxes artificially inflate sales prices on the Belgian parket, it happens quite often that I'm forced to buy in a foreign country (generally in the Netherlands or Poland). For that, i need to obtain foreign CC (country currency) first. This operation increases demand for foreign currencies (and thus weakens the BEF).

Belgium is not the country you turn to for cheap products. We simply can't do that because we don't have the raws. Lowering the import tax won't change a thing.

You confuse RL economics waay too much with erep economics

Belgium can never become the country of cheap prices. Why? Because if you do manage to get prices at the same level as eUSA, why would a company owner go trough the trouble of selling here (foreign currency, insecurity concerning the import rates, small population, the effort of exchanging the currency ever time,...) when he gets the same prices in eUSA?

eBE citizens buy currency from ePL or eUSA markets, yes. I do it too. But they have the resources bonuses, we don't.

Besides, I don't see anyone coming to eBelgium to check out our markets and buy stuff here. Most ppl in the world barely know us.

Ward De Bever wrote:
shadowukcs wrote:Ppl can't buy from eBE when they are located in a foreign country

Maybe shadowukcs doesn't know that you can move to another country and buy on the market there.
For big enough transactions, the move cost is trivial. But I'm probably wasting my time in writing this. Shadowukcs doesn't want, or is not able to understand.

again, why come to eBelgium? There is NO WAY you will ever get the same prices of eUSA/ePL in eBelgium. Not only is it virtually impossible, it will also completely destroy every company owner in eBE in the process.

You mistake RL economics with erep economics too much

Lowering import rates in eBelgium is absolutely borderline insanity.

by **Jofroi** 2011-06-07, 14:45

Actually, eBelgian prices are not very far from Poland or USA prices.

Company owners don't make a lot of profit, but the truth is that our wages are very low, so we can compete.

by **Glenn Wauters** 2011-06-07, 16:55

Jofroi wrote:Actually, eBelgian prices are not very far from Poland or USA prices.

Company owners don't make a lot of profit, but the truth is that our wages are very low, so we can compete.

Low?
WDB is offering wages of 100 to level (15 was it?)
So they are pretty damn high Razz

Also prices in gold
Q5 tank in Poland = +- 0.05g
Q5 tank in Belgium = +- 0.06g

So for every 5 tanks you buy in Belgium, you can buy 6 in Poland

by **NicknameFromRonny** 2011-06-07, 17:51

On food, the margin is even a lot bigger then 5 to 6.

by **Jofroi** 2011-06-07, 21:56

You can think that wages are high, but wages in gold are just s***:

Skill 15 = 1/7 gold it's not even 50% of some foreign countries.

by temujin94 2011-06-07, 21:58

shadowukcs wrote:in short: the situation is FUBAR (f*** up beyond all repair)

HOW DARE YOU SHADOW

It's recognition YOU NOOB Hurry!

by **shadowukcs** 2011-06-08, 14:35

We inform you that 0.01 BEF have been sold for 2.0E-5 GOLD from the citizen account using the offer posted on the monetary market.

by **Boklevski** 2011-06-08, 15:44

temujin94 wrote:
shadowukcs wrote:in short: the situation is FUBAR (f*** up beyond all repair)

HOW DARE YOU SHADOW

It's recognition YOU NOOB

Well, in case of the MM, it's beyond repair as well Razz

by **Glenn Wauters** 2011-06-08, 16:33

shadowukcs wrote:
We inform you that 0.01 BEF have been sold for 2.0E-5 GOLD from the citizen account using the offer posted on the monetary market.

Got that message also a few times

by **Gibberish45** 2011-06-08, 18:22

Glenn Wauters wrote:
shadowukcs wrote:
We inform you that 0.01 BEF have been sold for 2.0E-5 GOLD from the citizen account using the offer posted on the monetary market.

Got that message also a few times

Not sure about the 2.0E-5 part but it looks like someone is trying the old trick to bump your offer from the top, does this still work?

by **NicknameFromRonny** 2011-06-08, 18:27

Jofroi wrote:You can think that wages are high, but wages in gold are just s***:

Skill 15 = 1/7 gold it's not even 50% of some foreign countries.

Checked that out in my newspaper (readvotesub The New Spaper *hidden publicity* http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/mr-nfronny-goes-to-brussels-part-8-1794248/1/20 ). Our wage is 2/3th of major nations. Our real wage is indeed around half of it, but so it is in most not-huge nations.
The situation is less bad then it seems.

It is bad. But not worse then elsewhere.

by **Jofroi** 2011-06-08, 19:02

Don't use the gold-Bef rate but the Bef-gold rate. There we're totally underpaid^^.

by **NicknameFromRonny** 2011-06-08, 19:04

Jofroi wrote:Don't use the gold-Bef rate but the Bef-gold rate. There we're totally underpaid^^.

I did compadre, read it more carefully^^. We're actually just moderately underpaid.

by **NicknameFromRonny** 2011-06-08, 19:18

Ward De Bever, in the commentsection of my article, wrote:It seems that we have enough gold income and do nothing with it. We could as well ABOLISH ALL TAXES - 75 gold of Congress donations, sold at 950, would earn us 71250 BEF per month at current rates (no need to put it on the market all at once). This is way more than the current BEF income from taxes. The other lower half would end up in the reserves.
For this we get the economic stimulus of a completely free-trade zone and a sizeable boost to the money market.

Some thoughts anyone?

by **Jofroi** 2011-06-08, 19:21

We should lower the congress donation? ^^

by **Glenn Wauters** 2011-06-08, 19:22

Jofroi wrote:We should lower the congress donation? ^^

Yup

by **shadowukcs** 2011-06-08, 19:38

Gibberish45 wrote:
Glenn Wauters wrote:
shadowukcs wrote:
We inform you that 0.01 BEF have been sold for 2.0E-5 GOLD from the citizen account using the offer posted on the monetary market.

Got that message also a few times

Not sure about the 2.0E-5 part but it looks like someone is trying the old trick to bump your offer from the top, does this still work?

no, your rank on the gold page is completely random and different for every person.

NicknameFromRonny wrote:
Jofroi wrote:You can think that wages are high, but wages in gold are just s***:

Skill 15 = 1/7 gold it's not even 50% of some foreign countries.

Checked that out in my newspaper (readvotesub The New Spaper *hidden publicity* http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/mr-nfronny-goes-to-brussels-part-8-1794248/1/20 ). Our wage is 2/3th of major nations. Our real wage is indeed around half of it, but so it is in most not-huge nations.
The situation is less bad then it seems.

It is bad. But not worse then elsewhere.

Take in equation that a eUSA worker produces 25% extra goods than a eBE worker.

by **Ward De Bever** 2011-06-08, 19:50

Glenn Wauters wrote:
Jofroi wrote:We should lower the congress donation? ^^
Yup

To reward hard-thinking and hard-working congressmen with gold? Why? This is an honorary job. I'm sure there are enough candidates willing to do this for idealism. You can't say that all 28-30 candidates deserve gold for their work. The Congress donation is by far our main source of income. Don't touch our strength!

(edit:) Directly funding congressmembers for hypothetical work (that's still to be done) is a complete waste of opportunities for our national strength. We have to make our economy stronger, not the guys who are already fat in their pluche seats. Ruling the country is an honour, not a privilege!

by **Jofroi** 2011-06-08, 20:20

It's not that we're funding them. I remind you that congressmen offers gold as a free will, that is not a law. They're making us a favor, not the opposite.^^

by **Ward De Bever** 2011-06-08, 20:46

It's a strong tradition, and we can use it to the max to establish ourselves as a tax haven in the e-world. This would give us a huge internal market (a bit like RL Luxemburg, Andorra or Monaco), will certainly lead to better citizen retention, and even the 1% tax rates would bring in sizeable amounts of local currency.

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