Does Safehold need a Switzerland?

Tonto Silerheels wrote:
It sounds like you're suggesting that Charis should, indirectly, loan gold to the Church of God Awaiting. I think that would be very good for the Church and very bad for Charis, particularly considering that Charis can simply leave that gold in the ground and it won't cause inflation.

Leaving that point for the moment, though, and turning to the non-inflationary aspect, Milton Friedman has said that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. What he meant by that is that if you increase the money supply without increasing production then you will have inflation. (I'm glossing over the velocity of money here.) If he's right then Charis can't put that money anywhere except towards increasing production without causing inflation. And the one place they don't want production to be increased is in lands controlled by the Church of God Awaiting.

~Tonto

I have advocated that encouraging consumption on the part of the least efficient mainland economies would be more damaging to those nation than marching the ICA accross their borders. One of the most effective strategies would be to buy women and children slaves from Harchong and Desnair. The effect would be to reduce future production in those nations while increasing the growth of production within Charis.

This would be effectively bribing Harchong and Desnair slave owners to allow their slaves to emmigrate. Those slaves would be freed once they arrive in Charis. The effect in Charis is to allow the middle class to marry younger. One reason that Charisians marry late is that a significant number of women die in childbirth. That suggests that widowers compete with younger bachelors for wives. Another reason is that men need to establish their finances before they marry. Charisian prosperity took care of the latter problem and increasing the population of marriagable women will help with the former.

Since the bribes would go to the biggest consumers in Harchong and Desnair, most of that money would return to Charis to buy consumer goods. Had Charis made the same amount of funds available only as loans, they would have created an incentive for the borrower to generate income to pay for the interest. By using those funds as a bribe to slave owners, Charis reduces the cost of consumption and so encourages it. Those slave owning aristos would also be limiting the potential growth of their production. Within one generation those nations would find they had a labor shortage. That would in itself make life better for the slave. That state of affairs would also ecourage innovation to better use the labor they do have. Both these factors would pressure societal change more effectively than military force.

Hi PeterZ,

We've been in general agreement here for awhile, so at the moment I'm just curious what the current depressed market price of slaves are, albeit improved slightly by the IHA press grabbing all the local slaves needed to reach their target numbers.

If the Harchong slaves are 90% of the population, ie ~175 million [which seems high, is there textev?], their reaction to such 'women and children first' operations will be very interesting, but does Charis announce they'll be buying women and children, or complete families, for the next 20 years the very first year?

L

PeterZ wrote:

Tonto Silerheels wrote:
It sounds like you're suggesting that Charis should, indirectly, loan gold to the Church of God Awaiting. I think that would be very good for the Church and very bad for Charis, particularly considering that Charis can simply leave that gold in the ground and it won't cause inflation.

Leaving that point for the moment, though, and turning to the non-inflationary aspect, Milton Friedman has said that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. What he meant by that is that if you increase the money supply without increasing production then you will have inflation. (I'm glossing over the velocity of money here.) If he's right then Charis can't put that money anywhere except towards increasing production without causing inflation. And the one place they don't want production to be increased is in lands controlled by the Church of God Awaiting.

~Tonto

I have advocated that encouraging consumption on the part of the least efficient mainland economies would be more damaging to those nation than marching the ICA accross their borders. One of the most effective strategies would be to buy women and children slaves from Harchong and Desnair. The effect would be to reduce future production in those nations while increasing the growth of production within Charis.

This would be effectively bribing Harchong and Desnair slave owners to allow their slaves to emmigrate. Those slaves would be freed once they arrive in Charis. The effect in Charis is to allow the middle class to marry younger. One reason that Charisians marry late is that a significant number of women die in childbirth. That suggests that widowers compete with younger bachelors for wives. Another reason is that men need to establish their finances before they marry. Charisian prosperity took care of the latter problem and increasing the population of marriagable women will help with the former.

Since the bribes would go to the biggest consumers in Harchong and Desnair, most of that money would return to Charis to buy consumer goods. Had Charis made the same amount of funds available only as loans, they would have created an incentive for the borrower to generate income to pay for the interest. By using those funds as a bribe to slave owners, Charis reduces the cost of consumption and so encourages it. Those slave owning aristos would also be limiting the potential growth of their production. Within one generation those nations would find they had a labor shortage. That would in itself make life better for the slave. That state of affairs would also ecourage innovation to better use the labor they do have. Both these factors would pressure societal change more effectively than military force.

Well Lyonheart, I suspect one has to employ some sneakyness. Offer to pay for older (less productive) men and women in addition to women of child bearing age. Perhaps by offering to buy some negotiated number of the old and very young for a set number of women. Of course bidding for men is the stated goal and accepting the above alternatives something to simply grimace and bear. Since Charis has gotten so rich, they don't want to work and need slaves tor their factories.

Charis can be quite open about their goals. They need workers badly. So badly they are willing to pay well even for women, children and oldsters. Thank God, Harchong, that the idiot Cayleb found all that gold. Paying so much for slaves! It is only a matter of time when such idiocy will destroy those heretics, surely! "In the meanwhile let's drain those coffers some more", says one slave owner to another.

With luck the desire yo beggar Charis will free millions of human beings from slavery and keep the peace all the while.