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Using Silverlode - Spoiler

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Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by Lazalarlives   » Tue Apr 08, 2014 11:29 am

Lazalarlives
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Just a question for the crowd;

Why not use the money from Silverlode to buy up COGA certificates and land in the EOC? Not immediately, of course, but from the speculators that purchased it?

The EOC could also buy up COGA debt via proxies and call it in all at once - say mid-winter in Zion - to provoke a financial crisis.

Cayleb and Sharleyan could end up literally OWNING the COGA post-war if it played out right - and while the Treasurer is savvy, I'm not sure how he'd fight off a hostile monetary takeover in the wake of the failed jihad.

Just an interesting idea to kick around.

Dave
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by Joat42   » Tue Apr 08, 2014 12:51 pm

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Have they started mining Silverlode already??

And calling in a debt from COGA at a time that's very inconvenient for them may get you a nice little meeting with the inquisition asking why you are disloyal to the church...

---
Jack of all trades and destructive tinkerer.

Anyone who have simple solutions for complex problems is a fool.
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by packhunter   » Tue Apr 08, 2014 5:25 pm

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Because you don't want to give free money to the church, since the certificates the church is seeling are the lands already owned by the EOC and its people. The other one's being in the lands of Empires you would have to conquor before you could use the land. Once again free money to the church.

But hey maybe Cayleb wants to sabatoge the entire empire, and surrender to the church.

I'm confused why this question was even asked in this way? Maybe you ment something different?
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by Lazalarlives   » Tue Apr 08, 2014 9:00 pm

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What I meant - and sorry if this was unclear - is that the EOC can buy up the certificates and titles ALREADY sold by the COGA to speculators or the 'obligatory' notes the COGA is having its loyal states buy at spec.

The 'obligated' certificates are going to be going for pennies on the dollar, especially if the war goes badly for the COGA.

What I'm looking at is if the COGA goes for detente with the EOC, trying to buy time to rearm. The EOC uses proxies to call the COGA debt and cause a run on COGA assets.

Other items of interest, of course, are using proxies to buy the legal titles of COGA properties in the EOC for pennies on the dollar - and when the smoke clears there's no legal space for the surviving 'Temple Loyalists' to stand regarding reparations for seized property.

I hope this clears it up; the economic impact of calling notes to start a run on COGA/Temple Land hard currency was the main impact I was looking for. I'm not saying for the EOC to spend money on these things - at least not retail. I'm saying that they can buy up the debt for a fraction of its real value. They then have a wedge on the original purchasers (loyalty for buying worthless paper) and the leverage to wreck the COGA economy almost at will.

This does rely on the principle of a bank run against insufficient assets. Yes, the Inquisition would have a cow. But if you get enough people to follow the panic, the results are nothing but bad for the COGA. Either you close the bank, deny the notes, or start killing people wanting their hard money promised on the notes. Any of these three pretty much wreck the value of COGA paper notes - and trash the COGA/TL economy.

Hope the explanation helps; some of it relies on the people's PERCEPTION of stability.

Dave
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by lyonheart   » Wed Apr 09, 2014 1:28 am

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Hi Lazalarlives,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the forum. ;)

Kudos for a very intriguing idea.

Given the direction the war is going, any CoGA paper is going to be worth far less than Duchairn sold it for initially, NTM the idea of buying up all the CoGA property in the EoC for ~1-2% of what they were worth at the beginning of the jihad is delicious!

Once this is known, I expect quite a rising market in Tellesburg as bidders seek title to land now much more valuable.

I suspect Nahrmahn and OWL might be monitoring who has what paper to take advantage of the opportunity after the war (it would be just like Nahrmahn), and even if it helped Emerald's financial portfolio, would that be such a bad thing, since it will still be within the Ahrmahk family?

Using CoGA paper to exhaust what assets the CoGA might have left, would be quite a threat to maintain the peace.

One would expect the next war to start with whoever is then running the CoGA to repudiate all past paper if the EoC has too much of it, though the majority was still held by TL's who are thus wiped out by the CoGA's latest financial shenanigan; nonetheless there will still be some TL's who will still blame Charis for forcing the church to do it, human nature being what it is.

While the inquisition won't have any affect on the EoC regardless, there's also the question of how much of the inquisition will still be left by that time. ;)

L


Lazalarlives wrote:What I meant - and sorry if this was unclear - is that the EOC can buy up the certificates and titles ALREADY sold by the COGA to speculators or the 'obligatory' notes the COGA is having its loyal states buy at spec.

The 'obligated' certificates are going to be going for pennies on the dollar, especially if the war goes badly for the COGA.

What I'm looking at is if the COGA goes for detente with the EOC, trying to buy time to rearm. The EOC uses proxies to call the COGA debt and cause a run on COGA assets.

Other items of interest, of course, are using proxies to buy the legal titles of COGA properties in the EOC for pennies on the dollar - and when the smoke clears there's no legal space for the surviving 'Temple Loyalists' to stand regarding reparations for seized property.

I hope this clears it up; the economic impact of calling notes to start a run on COGA/Temple Land hard currency was the main impact I was looking for. I'm not saying for the EOC to spend money on these things - at least not retail. I'm saying that they can buy up the debt for a fraction of its real value. They then have a wedge on the original purchasers (loyalty for buying worthless paper) and the leverage to wreck the COGA economy almost at will.

This does rely on the principle of a bank run against insufficient assets. Yes, the Inquisition would have a cow. But if you get enough people to follow the panic, the results are nothing but bad for the COGA. Either you close the bank, deny the notes, or start killing people wanting their hard money promised on the notes. Any of these three pretty much wreck the value of COGA paper notes - and trash the COGA/TL economy.

Hope the explanation helps; some of it relies on the people's PERCEPTION of stability.

Dave
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by Direwolf18   » Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:17 am

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Does Charis even need to buy said land from the Temple? Or did they just say, were in a war of total annihilation with each other, so your property in our countries has become forfeit. For some reason I don't see the Church of Charis sending Ducharin or his successors payment for things like the archbishop's palace that they seized. Ever.
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by Lazalarlives   » Wed Apr 09, 2014 10:05 am

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Direwolf,

While I don't see the EOC acknowledging the COGA's rights to the archbishop's palace, the possession of the COGA official title to said property stops even the pro-forma protest of illegally seized and/or nationalized property.

If the EOC/COC has bought all the property once owned by the COGA in Charis, then even the TLs cannot argue about the provenance. This short-circuits some post-war economic bumps about the disposition of non-religious COGA properties - most likely lands entailed to the clergy to support their estates. While MWW hasn't talked about any funding outside the tithe for church upkeep, I can't imagine the aristocratic dreams that created the 'Knights of the Temple Lands' telling the scattered clergy that they could not have their own lands in other kingdoms for 'support' - read 'direct supervision and taxation'.

Those COGA lands would be tax-exempt, too, just as the KoTL lands, and legally outside the EOC. Buying them also ends any discussion of extraterritoriality for COGA property - not an issue now, but possibly later. If you want to know how sticky/strange that can get, consider that the only churches that can easily grant sanctuary in the US are Catholic ones. This is because they belong to the nation of Vatican City. Most of the time sanctuary is denied, but there have been cases outside the US where the Vatican used Italy and France to lean on local governments about the right of sanctuary. It's dressed in religious terms, but is 'enforced' by the recognition of the nation-state which is the Catholic Church.

Sorry about the meandering. Going back to Nahrman and Owl - making title and deed clean, legal, and unchallengable could appeal to Nahrman's sense of humor.

Along with repossession of some Vicar's private vacation estate for default on COGA notes held, that is. :D

Just a bit there,
Dave
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by packhunter   » Wed Apr 09, 2014 11:55 am

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Your missing several huge points.

EoC and CoG are at war, and not just any war but a holy war, a jihad. All citizens in the EoC will be put to the Question and killed if the CoG wins. If the CoG were ever to find out that the EoC owns anything it immediatly reposeses or nationalizes the property in question, and then defaults on the notes as its owed to Heritics who would be the only one's hurt by such financial shinanigans. Which then means the Church could sell all that stuff off again probably to the same people that EoC bought them from in the first place.

With regards to legality of doing such, why would the Church care? Heritics have no rights except to be exonerated by means of the Question. So they can do what ever they want.

Remember Money is in the form of Gold and Silver, it's in limited supply.

So anything that adds more money, in the form of hard currency to the Church or its allies is such an insane idea that I can't even comprehend its conception.

One of the whole points of the Blackmarket trade with the mainland was to deplete the money supply in Church lands.

The intent being to cause inflation in prices for a limited quantity of goods, while devaluing the Church Currencey. Thus making there real purchasing power even less.

Now that dosn't mean that there isn't some sort of additional economic sabotage that the EoC could do. Ultametly when a regular person can no longer aford to feed their family their support for the jihad thats caused this will cease to exist. Which sucks for the poor and the middle class, which also sucks for the Church's tax base. Which also sucks for the rich, because where else will the Church get the funds to continue... Direct Levies on the rich. Eventually The whole system colapses and civil war breaks out.
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by Randomiser   » Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:15 pm

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I think some of the assumptions behind this are a bit dubious. But it seems clear that the OP is thinking of a peace or truce situation where the CoGA has at least conceded the EoC's right to exist and trade with the rest of the world. That being given however, you can bet your bottom Mark that the issue of property rights within the EoC and Siddarmark would have been sorted out beyond a peradventure in the treaty, just so no-one can start interfering with the CoC's ability to minister within its own area. And especially as the existence of such a treaty means the EoC were in a very commanding position at the end of the war.
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Re: Using Silverlode - Spoiler
Post by Lazalarlives   » Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:33 pm

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All,
Yes, I'm looking at endgame/post war items. No matter what, the COGA will endure in some form with Temple Loyalists.
There is textev of paper money; it is openly discussed by Maigwair and Duchairn during their financing meeting. Duchairn admits that the COGA cannot cover it's current paper notes from the treasury.
There is, however, one other thing that a buyout of COGA notes by the EOC could do in the post-jihad world. It is perhaps the most important one, since Duchairn will be driven by Clintahn to mortgage tomorrow against today's needs. The mainland is going to be completely stripped of capital if the jihad continues for any amount of time. Siddarmark will be all right; the re-tooling and investment from the EOC will keep enough capital around to foster the next step in industrialization.
If there is no 'loose' capital in the nations loyal to the COGA - and this is the end result of the raised tithes and forced note buys against economic pressure - the other mainland nations are going to turn into a poor imitation of Africa. There won't be money to invest or curtail a downward spiral for the continent of Howard outside Siddarmark.
If the EOC (post war) puts the hard currency back in, however, they will likely gain the support of the surviving nation-states.
Remember the long term goal of this conflict is to break the Church's overarching authority. There is no better way to do so than to make it a quite literally bankrupt organization that pulls men and women into service because it serves the greater good, not because it is the easiest way to wealth and power.
I agree that keeping hard money out of the COGA's hands is important, but being able to do long-term damage to the COGA's solvency could be the final straw needed by Merlin and the Circle to end the COGA supremacy in the minds of men.
Certainly, God would not allow his true church to beg for support if it was not his true plan - or at least that's how the EOC should sell it when they flood the market with near-worthless paper COGA/KoTC mark certificates.

Just a view to economic warfare.
Dave
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