The Emperor in debt

runsforcelery wrote:

iranuke wrote:The tithes from the South Harchong Empire have to go by sea to get to Zion. Sea travel in the Gulf of Dohlar has already become more difficult with the Earl of Sharpfield in possession of Claw Island and when the Heavy Cruisers show up (sometime July to September as a guess) the Gulf will be closed to all non-Charis shipping.

Actually, they normally don't. They can get to the Temple via canal and overland, although the travel is a bear in winter. At the moment there is a combination of winter weather and a couple of Allied armies in the way, of course.

The same is/was true for Desnair's tithe. They preferred to send it by sea for security reasons (ships may sink, but they're a lot less subject to pilferage than overland convoys or canal boats with all those transfers and stops) and especially when there was a need for speed (blue water transport is normally, although not always, faster over the same distance than canal traffic), but the overland route would work just fine if it weren't for those pesky Allied armies and the snow.

I believe South Harchong was paying with in Kind Materials in lieu of bullion. Much more voluminous and unhandy. Long Travel and close to impossible to ship once the ICN takes over their Coasts. Major war materials and goods will be embargoed.

These logisical problems will not please Clyntahn. But I think Clyntahn is not happy about other things as well. He will demand someone's or many heads.

Thanks to RFC for the tidbits but

"Sir, may we have some more porrage", please . . . . . .

First of all, the church will NOT be building a canal system in Harchong anytime soon, how will it PAY for it?

Second the Church can't use much credit, people don't TRUST the Church (Or at least the BANKS don't) so there's a limit on how much credit it can issue at a time.

Hi SCC,

Amen.

And Amen.

Kudos for being so succinct.

L

SCC wrote:First of all, the church will NOT be building a canal system in Harchong anytime soon, how will it PAY for it?

Second the Church can't use much credit, people don't TRUST the Church (Or at least the BANKS don't) so there's a limit on how much credit it can issue at a time.

SCC wrote:First of all, the church will NOT be building a canal system in Harchong anytime soon, how will it PAY for it?

Maybe the Church won't build the canal, but the original premise of the thread was the Harchongese Emperor going broke because of Church demands. The Church doesn't have to pay for the canal if they can demand that Harchong build a canal.

SYED wrote:Merlin could potentially arrange for stores of the church money to be found to be adulterated. If no one trusts their money, easier to shatter it. also, their remotes would allow priesty corrupt and greedy enough to potentially commit the crime.
I wonder if any priests attempted to taint secular currencies, that could be known to the inquisition, great target.

That's what I meant by Steal it - resmelt it- put it back.
On further reflection- having folks not trust church gold seems to be a short term solution- after Charis wins the war- that trick would have long term implications..

tootall wrote:

SYED wrote:Merlin could potentially arrange for stores of the church money to be found to be adulterated. If no one trusts their money, easier to shatter it. also, their remotes would allow priesty corrupt and greedy enough to potentially commit the crime.
I wonder if any priests attempted to taint secular currencies, that could be known to the inquisition, great target.

That's what I meant by Steal it - resmelt it- put it back.
On further reflection- having folks not trust church gold seems to be a short term solution- after Charis wins the war- that trick would have long term implications..

The church is already putting out notes that it doesn't have the cash to pay for, fooling with the hard currency will have a less than meaningful effect. Not being able to pay for their notes will be the killer.

Direwolf18 wrote:My guess is they are on a gold standard, and that he who has the ACTUAL gold, holds the power. Kind of like when all the other nations gave the US their gold to back a stable US dollar. Yea that one didn't work out to hot but still, the initial idea sound, follow up politicians were corrupt. Paper is only worth something as long as people agree it is, gold has its intrinsic value. Gold being gold, and humans being humans that tends to be rather high.

I agree with you that they are on some sort of gold standard as a medium of exchange. I tend to dislike the dichotomy about the difference between paper and gold however. Gold has no intrinsic worth, like any commodity it's worth what people will pay for it.
Currency, be it paper, gold, copper, tin, seashells, or whatever is a mediating method for exchange of value. Golds secondary value in this regard is that it's of limited availability and only slowly increasing in supply. Thus it's a naturally mediating standard permitting only very slow economic growth. It's primary value is it's universal acceptance that detaches it from depending on trust of a particular government. This universal acceptance is mostly in our own minds. If everyone tomorrow decided that that liked agate instead, then the value of gold would drop to nothing more than what amount of agate it would cost to buy it for use in electrical contacts and printed circuit boards.

<OK I'll admit to some vast over-simplification in this, but the gist is true. The long answer version on this fills scholarly tomes of multi-volume length. Short version: Gold is valuable mostly because we've decided it is and that's mostly on the basis of tradition>

Larry

Larry wrote:

Direwolf18 wrote:My guess is they are on a gold standard, and that he who has the ACTUAL gold, holds the power. Kind of like when all the other nations gave the US their gold to back a stable US dollar. Yea that one didn't work out to hot but still, the initial idea sound, follow up politicians were corrupt. Paper is only worth something as long as people agree it is, gold has its intrinsic value. Gold being gold, and humans being humans that tends to be rather high.

I agree with you that they are on some sort of gold standard as a medium of exchange. I tend to dislike the dichotomy about the difference between paper and gold however. Gold has no intrinsic worth, like any commodity it's worth what people will pay for it.
Currency, be it paper, gold, copper, tin, seashells, or whatever is a mediating method for exchange of value. Golds secondary value in this regard is that it's of limited availability and only slowly increasing in supply. Thus it's a naturally mediating standard permitting only very slow economic growth. It's primary value is it's universal acceptance that detaches it from depending on trust of a particular government. This universal acceptance is mostly in our own minds. If everyone tomorrow decided that that liked agate instead, then the value of gold would drop to nothing more than what amount of agate it would cost to buy it for use in electrical contacts and printed circuit boards.

<OK I'll admit to some vast over-simplification in this, but the gist is true. The long answer version on this fills scholarly tomes of multi-volume length. Short version: Gold is valuable mostly because we've decided it is and that's mostly on the basis of tradition>

Larry

Waaaayyyyy to simplistic, Larry. Gold doesn't oxidize or react much to many other checmicals. It is soft and doesn't shatter, so is easily formed into useful shapes. As a means of storing wealth goes, there are fewer materials out there that are better suited. One of the reasons so many cultures over the millennia decided that gold was optimal for storing wealth was because they didn't find many other better options.

PeterZ wrote:
Waaaayyyyy to simplistic, Larry. Gold doesn't oxidize or react much to many other checmicals. It is soft and doesn't shatter, so is easily formed into useful shapes. As a means of storing wealth goes, there are fewer materials out there that are better suited. One of the reasons so many cultures over the millennia decided that gold was optimal for storing wealth was because they didn't find many other better options.

Our Greek ancestors viewed silver as the basis of exchange, and gold as a metal for jewelry. Alexander used gold coins.

Indeed so. Silver to transfer/exchange value and gold to store it. Gold coins tended to circulate less frequently that silver coins.

phillies wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
Waaaayyyyy to simplistic, Larry. Gold doesn't oxidize or react much to many other checmicals. It is soft and doesn't shatter, so is easily formed into useful shapes. As a means of storing wealth goes, there are fewer materials out there that are better suited. One of the reasons so many cultures over the millennia decided that gold was optimal for storing wealth was because they didn't find many other better options.

Our Greek ancestors viewed silver as the basis of exchange, and gold as a metal for jewelry. Alexander used gold coins.