What Happens When The Church Runs Out Of Money?

If the Church falls back on the usual answer, which is hyperinflation, then they'll be directly violating Writ. Someone might notice.

Expert snuggler wrote:If the Church falls back on the usual answer, which is hyperinflation, then they'll be directly violating Writ. Someone might notice.

The CoGA (aka Jasper Clyntahnn) is already issuing dispensations right and left for violations of the Proscriptions. I doubt that one more to finance his Jihad will cause him to hesitate a microsecond.

SciFi90 wrote:

captinjoehenry wrote:Hi I am sort of curious about what you folks think will happen when the church runs out of money (Assuming it last that long). I would bet that the Harchenese would still be fighting but that Dolhar would back out. Any thoughts?

"Money" is merely a set of tokens with which goods and services can be exchanged by a system other than barter. Troops must be fed, pay means nothing if there is nothing to spend it on, or any place to go to spend it. The same applies to the civilian workers who make guns and ammunition. Therefore, the church will eventually have to concentrate on production of food and weapons, instead of exacting tithes and contributions.
Interfering with production of food and weaponry should be made a priority of Charis and allies. Interfering with delivery of both to the church armies is an additional priority of great importance. It will be very interesting to see how Mr. Weber handles the approach to both these matters. Current events suggest that Charis will be visited by saboteurs again, at some point.

Yep. This is the point I was making earlier. Resourses, however you go about arranging the allocation, is the significant issue. Money only facilitates the exchange of those resources.

Don

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The question is: "Is the Empire intrested in a bankrupt church?"

They could use their intelligence Service Information for good old robbery of the church Gold transports, if they on the sea or on a street near the sea. That would make the church bankrupt a Little bit faster.

Weird Harold wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:If the Church falls back on the usual answer, which is hyperinflation, then they'll be directly violating Writ. Someone might notice.

The CoGA (aka Jasper Clyntahnn) is already issuing dispensations right and left for violations of the Proscriptions. I doubt that one more to finance his Jihad will cause him to hesitate a microsecond.

They had to kill the Writ in order to save it....

Maldorian wrote:The question is: "Is the Empire intrested in a bankrupt church?"

They could use their intelligence Service Information for good old robbery of the church Gold transports, if they on the sea or on a street near the sea. That would make the church bankrupt a Little bit faster.

Charis has already snapped up several bullion shipments early in the war. At this point, I'm not even sure the Church still ships ANY tithes by sea.

Not that it really needs to. Given all the debt spending, it'd be much cheaper to keep the actual tithes in the lands that paid them so the Church can pay for whatever services those lands provide. The only things that need to be sent to and from the Temple itself are all the accounting receipts so that Duchairne can keep his records straight.

Also, with all the paper script being issued, I've been fairly confident for several books now that Duchairne was in the process of inventing paper money anyway. Oh, and the collapse of the Church and resulting hyperinflation would result in the general adoption of paper money being heavily retarded on Safehold, because no one would trust the system after such a graphic failure.

JeffEngel wrote:They had to kill the Writ in order to save it....

Without the concept of divine resurrection, killing the Writ will only serve to remove it for something to replace it. That is acceptable or at least should be acceptable to the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle then would not be killing the Writ, but the CoGA's suicide will effectively take the Writ with it.

So, by all means fudge with the Writ's honest weights and measure imperative. Ignore Langehorn's injunction on destroying the canals. Ignore Jwo-jeng's procedures for adjudicating violations of the Proscriptions. While they are at it, ignore any part of the Writ that calls for treating any human being as a child of God. Use the Writ as the preferred medium to wipe consecrated asses. If the defenders of the Writ's orthodoxy treat it with casual contempt, the rest of Safehold will lose certainty of the Writ as an inherent template for salvation. If not all the Writ is essential in all cases, then what is the true sine qua non of salvation?

The more the Writ is abused this way, the easier it will be to replace the Writ's more egregiously repugnant elements with reasonable alternatives.

One important thing that will occur is that during the intellectual struggle to keep Church finances alive the various members of the bureaucracy will be attempting to create new means to achieve that end. Advancements aren't just being made in technology, but advances in finance and banking and the creation of bond markets, stock exchanges, etc are equally important and the crisis the Church is facing is giving its accountants/recorders/scribes an incentive to think outside the box. This is all towards the greater long-term goal of Merlin and Nimue.

Darman wrote:One important thing that will occur is that during the intellectual struggle to keep Church finances alive the various members of the bureaucracy will be attempting to create new means to achieve that end. Advancements aren't just being made in technology, but advances in finance and banking and the creation of bond markets, stock exchanges, etc are equally important and the crisis the Church is facing is giving its accountants/recorders/scribes an incentive to think outside the box. This is all towards the greater long-term goal of Merlin and Nimue.

The problem here is that since these things are being created by the LOSING side of the war, future attempts to implement such measures are going to be met with far greater skepticism than in real life.

The measures failed the side using it and left them in economic shambles. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the other side and future generations.

evilauthor wrote:The problem here is that since these things are being created by the LOSING side of the war, future attempts to implement such measures are going to be met with far greater skepticism than in real life.

The measures failed the side using it and left them in economic shambles. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the other side and future generations.

Pardon my vagueness, my emphasis was on developing a culture of creative thinking with regards to finance and economics, not just rote following the rules laid down in the Writs. The success or failure of the tools created is less relevant than the fact those tools were thought of, and the process taken to get there.