Church Financial status

I've long thought that with all the IOUs that Duchairn is issuing, he's practically inventing paper money.

Given how much the Church CAN'T back those IOUs though, this is likely to result in setting back the actual adoption of paper money by a century or so IMO. Nobody's going to trust paper money for a good long while after seeing the Church's example.

evilauthor wrote:I've long thought that with all the IOUs that Duchairn is issuing, he's practically inventing paper money.

These IOU were in use well before the jihad. For example, I can't see Aivah actually transferring a hoard of bullion to Siddarmark.
As I've remarked in another thread, Clyntahn is probably already eager to switch everything to a war economy. Duchairn is demuring because than he'd be relegated to the central economy planning authority, fully under the direction of Clyntahn.
The point is: If all economic activities are directed towards the jihad effort by the CoGA, you basically end up with a planned economy, where quota and rationing effectively replace money.

THis could be very useful in a way, they could use the spy drones that merlin has to locate the entire holding of the richer church members. THere will be those eager to hide their wealth from the inquisition, so they are vulnerable to blackmail. Do as you are told, or the inquisition learns where your money is, and you get taken for the punishment. And if they dont do as your told, then that guy will be punished for with holding money from the war efort.
I wonder how hard it would be to make fake evidence and a paper trail. With the need for money, the inquisition will be eager to attempt to regain funds.

TN4994 wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:I got the impression that most of the currency in circulation is actual gold and silver coinage (probably introduced by Langhorne as a way of strangling commerce, which would tend to keep innovation down). If so, the value of the coin is in the actual metal in the coin, not on the perceived value of the coin. The only danger here is the shaving of coins (which was a problem in the ancient world here on Earth), and the reason that ridges were introduced on the edges of coins - to make it easy to detect that someone was shaving the value.

I can see various metals being used for currency. But several references are made to script, notes of credit, and such. Personal notes between nobles were a gentlemens' agreement on old earth, and banks got involved later on. The CoGA has issued promissory notes.

True - about the notes, but that is not the same as general bank notes in circulation. I am not too sure that they have made that transition yet, and that is what is required to do counterfeiting on the scale you are advocating. If the CoGA had been issuing bank notes, then I would have expected that they already would have cranked up the printing presses, and started inflating the currency, despite the Writ's admonition against debasing the currency. After all, what's a small violation of the Writ as opposed to fighting the heretics, at least in Clyntahn's mind.

The Church has been issuing promissory notes/IOUs for awhile now, with the intention of backing them up, after the war is over, with real coins. As long as the Church looks like it is doing something and maintaining something, its notes will stand until it is too late.

The Church also has a very rigid stance against counterfeiting/debasing the coinage. It's specifically against Church doctrine and they know that if they started debasing the coinage, then their financial house of wood would come down, the same thing with counterfeiting. Given the Church stance on that, any claims of counterfeiting and/or debasing the coinage by Charis wouldn't be believed simply because there is no history of the Church -ever- doing that, and their stance on full value for coinage is very well known by those that use/deal with any sums of money.

Not to mention the Church couldn't afford to counterfeit Charis marks. The Church needs the precious metals for its own coins. Making counterfeit Charis/Siddermark marks would mean they have less gold/silver for their own coffers.

Zakharra wrote:The Church has been issuing promissory notes/IOUs for awhile now, with the intention of backing them up, after the war is over, with real coins. As long as the Church looks like it is doing something and maintaining something, its notes will stand until it is too late.

The Church also has a very rigid stance against counterfeiting/debasing the coinage. It's specifically against Church doctrine and they know that if they started debasing the coinage, then their financial house of wood would come down, the same thing with counterfeiting. Given the Church stance on that, any claims of counterfeiting and/or debasing the coinage by Charis wouldn't be believed simply because there is no history of the Church -ever- doing that, and their stance on full value for coinage is very well known by those that use/deal with any sums of money.

Not to mention the Church couldn't afford to counterfeit Charis marks. The Church needs the precious metals for its own coins. Making counterfeit Charis/Siddermark marks would mean they have less gold/silver for their own coffers.

Well the idea behind counterfeiting is that you substitute something cheap for the real thing. In the case of coinage, you use a base metal, like iron or brass, which is relatively cheap, and then coat it with the real metal to make it appear to be real. The church could do that to Charisian marks, except that the coating process will require electoplating, which, surprise, requires electricity, and that is a big NO-NO. Since it isn't easy to counterfeit the IOUs, since those tend to be personal i.e., the church owes nobleman XYZ 100,000 marks, and which nobleman XYZ can't really trade to anyone. Granted Corisande was issuing its own IOUs backed by the church IOUs, but again those were to specific merchants for their goods and products, and were probably not tradable.

IIRC at one point Duchairn was thinking about selling church properties in the Empire. Did we ever hear any more about how that did or did not work out?

SYED wrote:The world at large must know the war and crusade has seriously cut into the coffers of the church, especially with their selling of assets, and other money initiatives they had to put into play. The thing is do they know just how servere their cash shortage is in comparison to public knowledge.
If the broad sheets that keep popping up, start showing their true financial status, the world knowing just how bad a position the church is in. It might make the more ambitious out there put the screws to the church. It would allow people justify asking for cash, deeds, or even other non church based currencies.
IT will really piss off the inquisition if their dirty laundry is aired for the world.

I think the Church's credit is only as good as its overall military situation. Up to the events in LaMA, the Church was on the offensive. The losses of its fleet and the 'out islands' were serious, but not readily visible to the average person. Thanks to Church propaganda, I bet most people see the Sword of Schueler as the triumph of God. The moneyed classes know more, of course, but I think that it's only with the catastrophe of the Army of Shiloh that they're starting to consider the possibility of defeat. But it's not like they have a lot of other options than supporting the Church - the Inquisition will make sure they remember that, and the Inquisitors couldn't care less about economics.

My guess is that by the end of HFQ, Church control will be reduced to the Temple Lands, the Border states, and North Harchong. The economy will have switched to Total War/Survival mode, similar to the Germany and Japan in 1945. As long as Clyntahn is alive, he and the Inquisition will ensure the war effort has absolute priority. As far as he is concerned, economics is just a distraction from Faith.

jms

I've never had a lot of faith in the theory that the CoG is going to go bankrupt and the war effort will collapse. I remember the early books of the Honorverse series, where the initial version of Haven was supposed to be near bankruptcy at the beginning of the war. In fact, their whole reason for starting the war was to gain plunder through military gains.

Of course this did not work out and they ended up in a protracted, expensive war. However, despite their dire economic straits, the war continued for nearly 20 years. In fact, Haven managed to not only maintain the war effort without interruption, they also managed to overhaul their economy at the same time. Given this prior example, I am skeptical that the Safehold series is going to end due to the CoG going bankrupt.

Henry Brown wrote:I've never had a lot of faith in the theory that the CoG is going to go bankrupt and the war effort will collapse. I remember the early books of the Honorverse series, where the initial version of Haven was supposed to be near bankruptcy at the beginning of the war. In fact, their whole reason for starting the war was to gain plunder through military gains.

Of course this did not work out and they ended up in a protracted, expensive war. However, despite their dire economic straits, the war continued for nearly 20 years. In fact, Haven managed to not only maintain the war effort without interruption, they also managed to overhaul their economy at the same time. Given this prior example, I am skeptical that the Safehold series is going to end due to the CoG going bankrupt.

I agree they aren't going to go bankrupt, but with the reduction of support for other aspects of the economy, there may well be significant unrest, leading to uprisings that will distract the CoGA from the war against Charis. And as the situation grows more desperate, I expect Clyntahn to become more and more extreme, to the point that the Inquisition decides it can no longer afford to have him in charge, which will effectively lead to a civil war within the church.