295: The Economics of Meat
- Thread starter Adam Greenbrier
- Start date
Well, the dollar still has its Intrinsic value no matter how many more there are of it, only the intrinsic value of a dollar is limited to what you can do with a dollar without trading it for something else.CounterAttack said:
The real value of the dollar is based on what people are willing to give you in exchange for it.
It's been a long time since I've had an economy class, so I'm doing the best I can.Bre2nan said:
Ultimately it boils down to controling sales without doing any more work. If everyone was a millionare, a cup of coffee would cost a million bucks.
A dollar has a numerical value, but without the context of a government, isn't worth anything.Mullahgrrl said:
Haha, damn. I started the game a month after that incident so I missed out.
EDIT: I wonder if the people saying an opportunity was wasted to talk about EVE ever played KOL?
EDIT: I wonder if the people saying an opportunity was wasted to talk about EVE ever played KOL?
Great article. Always good to see KoL, the only game that can with only a bit of shame refer to itself as an MMORPG that I keep coming back to, getting a mention.
It reminded me of the WoW plague that has already been brought up (and of which KoL also had a version, essentially parodying the WoW one). It's interesting how these kind of environments can mimick real worlds - especially because the one thing that your ordinary computer simulation can't predict, the reaction of a bunch of people who dispair easily and have access to different levels of partial information, is the one it excels in creating.
How much does it cost to counter a spell?
Back in ye olden days, it cost
- that's Counterspell. A cheaper spell would not work as well, and a spell that cost more would have some extra advantadge.
Then, the Powers that Be decided that the best cost for counterspell should be
. They released a card that just countered a spell by that cost, and started releasing weaker cards that cost
.
Do you understand what happened?
is still
- it's still what you get when you tap an island. That didn't change. But what you use that mana for has changed. It now has less use than it had before. Because of that, it's like it's lost its value.
The opposite has happened as well - there was a time when Grizzly Bears was the best possible card you could get for
. Nowadays it's at best an ordinary choice. The cost is still the same, but because you can get better things by that same cost it's no longer as useful.
The difference is that in the real world there's no Mark Rosewater to dictate the value of money (well sometimes there is, but that's not how things actually work). If the cost of something changes, it's because something happened to cause it - maybe more people wanto to buy it, maybe more people want to sell it, maybe people don't want to hold on to their money, maybe people are stockpiling, maybe it's one of those inscrutable things that happen when you study social sciences. Still, if you could get one counterspell for $2.00, tomorrow you'll need $2.50.
I hope that this helps you understand it, since it was a pain getting those symbols from Wizards' site. Also I hope you actually play Magic and I didn't waste my time with an explanation you can't understand. I liked writing it anyway.
It reminded me of the WoW plague that has already been brought up (and of which KoL also had a version, essentially parodying the WoW one). It's interesting how these kind of environments can mimick real worlds - especially because the one thing that your ordinary computer simulation can't predict, the reaction of a bunch of people who dispair easily and have access to different levels of partial information, is the one it excels in creating.
I'll go with that other guy's idea and explain it in Magic terms because I'm evilly judging you solely on your avatar.CounterAttack said:
How much does it cost to counter a spell?
Back in ye olden days, it cost
Then, the Powers that Be decided that the best cost for counterspell should be
Do you understand what happened?
The opposite has happened as well - there was a time when Grizzly Bears was the best possible card you could get for
The difference is that in the real world there's no Mark Rosewater to dictate the value of money (well sometimes there is, but that's not how things actually work). If the cost of something changes, it's because something happened to cause it - maybe more people wanto to buy it, maybe more people want to sell it, maybe people don't want to hold on to their money, maybe people are stockpiling, maybe it's one of those inscrutable things that happen when you study social sciences. Still, if you could get one counterspell for $2.00, tomorrow you'll need $2.50.
I hope that this helps you understand it, since it was a pain getting those symbols from Wizards' site. Also I hope you actually play Magic and I didn't waste my time with an explanation you can't understand. I liked writing it anyway.
I'll take a stab at it.CounterAttack said:
Perhaps you're associated dollar bills with value, even though their value is entirely representative.
So let's use something else.
//============================
Suppose that we have an isolated village with one successful person who produces food. Suppose that everyone else in this village spends their lives searching for a special leaf with extremely shiny, beautiful leaves that the food-producer likes to look at; however, let's say that there's absolutely nothing about these leaves that is useful beyond their status as shiny things that the food-producer likes to look at. Let's say that these leaves are rare, and people use them to pay the food-producer, to get food.
Suppose that, at the present time, 1 leaf can buy a villager enough food to sustain them for a week. Also suppose that, at the rate that people bring the food-producer leaves, he can produce just enough food to distribute to them at this price.
Now suppose that, one day, one of the villagers finds a massive tree that produces these leaves at a high rate. So, the villagers grab armfuls of the leaves, and take them to the food-producer, hoping to use this massive amount of currency to purchase a massive amount of food. When the food-producer looks at these villagers, he quickly realises that he doesn't currently have enough distributable food to supply even the first person, at least according to the old 1 leaf=1 weeks worth price. The only way he could possibly distribute food to all of these people in exchange for leaves would be if he demanded more leaves for the same amount of food. Suppose, instead of 1 leaf for 1 weeks worth, he can instead demand a barrel of leaves for 1 weeks worth. This will not only allow him to distribute food to more people, it will also get him many more leaves, since he won't simply run out of food after accepting a few leaves.
Now, considering that you now need a whole barrel of leaves instead of 1 leaf to get a weeks worth of food, would you say that each leaf is worth as much as it used to be? A particular villager may now have 500 leaves instead of 1 leaf, but he holds no greater amount of wealth than he used to, because either way, it's a week's worth of food.
Yes. All that a bill contains is ink and a special paper. Without a government to say it's worth anything, it doesn't have any actual value for barter.Mullahgrrl said:
There are no socialists at the AH.
I have a friend who left high school a socialist. Then he played WoW. Any time he would promote a socialist issue, I would ask if he would be okay with the equivalent to be done to his raiding character. Such exchanges and a view of his first pay stub made a quick free marketeer of him.
I have a friend who left high school a socialist. Then he played WoW. Any time he would promote a socialist issue, I would ask if he would be okay with the equivalent to be done to his raiding character. Such exchanges and a view of his first pay stub made a quick free marketeer of him.
Interesting article that has a lot of fluff and limited economic insight. I wish the author went less into game examples and more into explaining economic theory.
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
-F.A. Hayek, the best economic thinking imo.
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
-F.A. Hayek, the best economic thinking imo.
eRepublik has a currency trading market in-game, since it's played on the real-world map and countries. You have to pay attention to the surrounding wars, region changes (affects resources), tax changes and political changes in each country (all of these are player-controlled by player-elected leaders) if you want to do well though.teknoarcanist said:
Basically everything is getting more expensive. That's all basically. Because everything is more expensive your dollar gets you a fewer quantity of goods. Less gasoline, less food, less drink, less games. Everything went up in prices. In the German hyperinflation in the 1930s a loaf of bread costed multiple millions of Reichsmark. Basically your standard one Reichsmark note was worthless since you needed a million 1 Reichsmark notes to buy some bread. But a Reichsmark is still a Reichsmark.CounterAttack said:
You're with me so far? Or is the problem that you have a hard time to understand the reasons for inflation?
There's nothing wrong with being an armchair economist--everyone needs to know a bit about economics if they're going to deal with their money intelligently. What's bad is being an armchair economist who promulgates economic myths.Mullahgrrl said:
The problem is, that a "dollar" is not worth ANYTHING. What has worth, is what you can GET for that dollar. Inflation means you can't get as much for your dollar. It means taking your food budget of $100 a month to the store and realizing that the chicken that cost $2 six months ago now costs $4. You're not getting any more chicken. Your dollar has decreased in purchasing power. That's the simple explanation of what "inflation" means. HOW it happens is rather complex and is based on, among other things, deficit financing and government fiddling with the money supply. Inflation is ultimately an invisible tax.CounterAttack said:
The easiest solution to this problem is to eliminate fiat currency (paper money) and use gold (or some other commodity, like uranium or gold-pressed latinum or whatever sci-fi sounding thing you can come up with). You can't inflate gold, because you can't print more of it. (You can dig more out of the ground, which will lead to price fluctuations on occasion, but you're going to get this no matter what commodity you use for your exchange basis, and gold has the benefit of being homogenous, divisible, and durable, which you can't say about, for example, a ham sandwich.)
Yay, KoL! (I wasn't around for any of the really interesting bugmeat days, but I know the history. Fun seeing my favorite game ever grace the front page of this place.)
Incidentally, KoL *has* a bank - it's player-run. Go look up Bank of KoL, if you want to see something interesting. (Its operator occasionally posts some interesting stuff on the forums, though he hasn't been by in a while.) And *tons* of people play the lending meat game, which is certainly one facet of banking (though most banks, admittedly, don't have as customers mainly those addicted to gambling.)
Incidentally, KoL *has* a bank - it's player-run. Go look up Bank of KoL, if you want to see something interesting. (Its operator occasionally posts some interesting stuff on the forums, though he hasn't been by in a while.) And *tons* of people play the lending meat game, which is certainly one facet of banking (though most banks, admittedly, don't have as customers mainly those addicted to gambling.)