Church Financial status

TN4994 wrote:Someone knows about enveloping one metal inside another. The silversmith guild can do it for a percentage.

Or you could debase the currency by using lower grades of precious metals - 14 carat instead of 21 carat gold or a silver / nickel or lead alloy. (One of the duties of the Master of the Mint (Issac Newton was one) in Tudor times was to use assay's to detect this (when its someone other than the government...) (and terminate with extreme prejudice the culprits), a task the Secret service continues today).

AirTech wrote:

TN4994 wrote:Someone knows about enveloping one metal inside another. The silversmith guild can do it for a percentage.

Or you could debase the currency by using lower grades of precious metals - 14 carat instead of 21 carat gold or a silver / nickel or lead alloy. (One of the duties of the Master of the Mint (Issac Newton was one) in Tudor times was to use assay's to detect this (when its someone other than the government...) (and terminate with extreme prejudice the culprits), a task the Secret service continues today).

Didn't they also have a set of balance scales a specific weights to randomly verify coinage? I remember something about a London. counterfeiter being caught because his silver coins were slightly heavy.

TN4994 wrote:Have faith. We'll make good after we kill off all these heretics. Tell you what, I'll let you use those to buy land in Codisande.

Isn't that what they're ALREADY doing? I seem to recall that it's already mandatory to for people to accept Church IOUs at face value... at least when it comes DIRECTLY from the Church.

But Duchairne notes that said IOUs are already trading for well under their face value which he considered to be a bad thing. It's easy for the Church to compel people to take the IOUs at their face value when the Church is one of the parties in the financial transaction. But the Church has nowhere near the manpower to monitor and police every PRIVATE transaction unless they decommission the Army of God and turn every soldier in it into accountants... and that's probably STILL not enough.

As long as the Church is going to survive in religious control of at least a portion of the mainland, people will still accept Church IOUs, albeit at a discount from face value.
Put it this way - the tithe in peacetime provided enough of a surplus to 1) fund the luxury and decadence of the Vicars and other high churchmen and 2) make substantial loans to secular figures including most of the Kings of Safehold.
Even though postwar tithe receipts will be lower - either Charis and Siddarmark have been pillaged or they are outside the CoGA structure - the Church will be making a lot of money which can be used to gradually pay down their debt. Britain had a national debt of over 250% of GDP at the end of the Napoleonic Wars - higher than after WW2 - and paid it down across the course of the 19th century. Bearing in mind that the British national debt was over 100% of GDP in the 1790s and built up over 20 years of fighting war around the world and subsidising allies, I would be surprised if the Church has anywhere near the same debt burden.
The key innovation which would make it practical for the Church to keep their debt under control would be consols or a close equivalent - instead of an IOU signed Rhobair Duchairn to be paid at war's end or thereafter, you get a bearer bond which will pay say 2% of it's face value every year until bought back by the church at face value. That makes church debt an income stream, not just an IOU and would keep up the face value. A higher rate than 2% might be necessary, but even at 5% or so it's in Duchairn's interests, because revenues from the Temple Lands and whatever tithes make it to Zion can fund the annuities on bond issues and he can spend easily ten times in bonds what he could in cash. Yeah, he's mortgaging the Church's future in order to fight the war right now, but the war is about the future of Safehold and God's Plan - what are a few decades of paying down the debt compared with that?

Hi Anwi,

Duchairn and Trynair already discussed their options early in MTaT, and how the choice of going to a full command economy was not appealing.

One of the problems with a command economy is that if you forgot to include something, like winter clothing production, it will take month's to a year to make, way too late, while a free economy has more excess capacity and can react faster.

The CoGA still has considerable resources, the lands Duchairn was offering were only second tier, ie none of the CoGA's prime land was offered.

The vicarate or the KotTL have never been taxed before, I've always suspected it was part of Duchairn's plan to aim their anger at Clyntahn, while it also argues they're pulling more of their weight when its only a start.

I wondered a long time ago, if there were no banking instruments how Charis's annual tithe got to Zion, since the CoGA messenger galleys were too small.

Given Charis's tithe was 3-4 times higher per capita than the average, sending an armed escort would have been a courtesy and an important annual training tool, but there was absolutely no mention of a treasure fleet for any of the outlying nations, implying either all the tithe was spent in country -WRONG- or transfers often used various banking techniques including promissory notes, which RFC says they did.

There are several pearls involving finance and the economy on Safehold, so I suspect RFC will continue to describe the CoGA's increasing financial and economic problems.

L

anwi wrote:

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.

Hi EdThomas,

I suspect we'll be reading about that in HFQ, I suspect Duchairn will report it wasn't as much as he hoped for, forcing him to further schemes that really hurt the jihad.

The last such data dumps on the CoGA economy were early in both MTaT and LaMA, so perhaps soon.

L

EdThomas wrote: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?

Hi JMSeeley,

I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of HFQ that the alliance is advancing through the Border states rather easily, since they've been stripped of their rifles, and the MHoGatA has been defeated in detail, so there's no one to stop them advancing on Zion.

SYED's suggestion of OWL's broadsheets referencing the CoGA's financial and economic information, seems right down Nynian's alley as it were.

Duchairn already expressed concern early in MTaT [February 896] that some merchants and bankers already knew that the CoGA is already spending more than it has, ie selling IOU's it couldn't cover, and are seeking property etc of almost any kind in preference to church paper, an indication of how long the CoGA has been using such arrangements.

Certainly the changed battlefield is going to affect the CoGA's financial and economic current and future state.

The defeat and destruction of the Army of Shiloh is going to have major effects, not just on Desnar and Dohlar, but the Go4 and the jihad.

Besides losing the major CoGA southern army affecting the strategic picture, the jihad, being blessed by God, isn't supposed to lose, especially on that scale.

So I too wouldn't be surprised if RFC's list of Safehold national marks showed Desnar, Dohlar and the CoGA/KotTL marks suffering a 10-20% loss as the news sweeps Haven.

Quite aside from the doctrinal problems, and the need to find a replacement army, the effect of losing Howard also comes into play when the Salthar Canal is taken; Silkiah's liberation comes second to taking the locks intact, but physically isolating Howard will also have important political, economic and military aspects, knocking the CoGA mark and economic prospects even further.

L

jmseeley wrote:

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

Hi Henry Brown,

I too don't think the Safehold series is about the economic and financial aspects of the war, but I do think they will play an important part.

Yet in the honorverse the economics were critical to starting the war, and keeping the SKM able to compete with the peeps who had 8-10 times the SKM's industrial capacity and avoid being overwhelmed, something the MAlign didn't expect.

The first war ended after only about ten years, not twenty, the reforms not yet making themselves fully felt.

But the economic reforms were one of the major reasons Pierre destroyed the legislaturists in the first place, so yes I think they played a major role in that series.

L

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.

Hi FallsfromTrees,

Unfortunately Clyntahn took over the inquisition over 20 years ago, its his and almost everyone now in it has been approved by him and thinks like him, so getting rid of him is about the last thing they'd do.

I don't think anyone has subscribed to the theory that the temple economy's collapsing causes the end of the war, rather it reduces CoGA capabilities considerably, to something the alliance can beat far easier.

I don't think there will be time for distracting insurrections before the alliance advances make them moot; but after the war, there could be several that require the temple's immediate attention before attempting a rematch, which will happen.

Merlin's reference to many religious wars ought to be more noted by some posters.

Technically, the continental economies have to be seriously humbled, because they are currently overvalued, because most of the continental traders don't know just how advanced Charis is becoming, which requires a peaceful interlude, even if its only 2-3 years.

L

fallsfromtrees wrote:

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.

Hi Draken,

Inflation is already happening in the CoGA nations, and I can't help think Duchairn isn't pushing it for his own purposes.

Only Charis was 'rich' in the pre-jihad days, but a population of around only 14 million was just 1/70th of Safehold's population, perhaps 4-5% of the total tithe, so not worth bothering about by Clyntahn and the rest of the Go4's thinking back then.

L

Draken wrote:Church is losing money very fast, army isn't cheap it's like a black hole which will eat any money it can find. Haven is different thing, compared to CoGa it looks healthy. Church need any money and can't get it easily, Haven hadn't that problem, they have money, but they spend it on useless things. Unless Church want to kill his economy using taxes and fees, he has one option making as many coins as possible and don't think about inflation. It's longer term suicide but for 1-3 years it would be OK, but not great, after that time inflation would be skyrocketing.
Another problem for Church is that Siddamark, Charis, Chisholm, Emerald, Corrisand, Tarot aren't big, but are very very rich and cash from them was a big chunk of they income. They have a lot of money in vaults but it will be burned in few months term.