[IW] New parachronic programs procuring funding

[Minuteman37]

So I'm running a game about a secret government run parachronic program on a modern day earth.

In my efforts to establish what the programs budget would be I realized that one of the first earths that the program discovered was Lucifer-3.

"Lucifer-3 (Q5, current year 2004), radiation from a nearby super-nova or gamma-ray burster sterilized the surface of Earth in 1979."

Now I'm wondering how fast could this program liquidate assets like "all the 250 billion dollars worth of gold in fort Nox" without crashing the economy?

I'm pretty sure that would be the primary limitation on a thier annual budget for the forseeble future.

[scc]

Not very fast, pretty sure most of it would have to be disposed of on the black market to start with.

[Refplace]

They would be hard pressed to do much and still keep it a secret.

[thrash]

Think of it as an exercise in money laundering. As a secret government program, they could probably write a check from their black budget for more than they could reasonably get from fencing loot, as long as their returns on other fronts (long term intel, deniable Russian nukes, choice "fakes" for selected art-loving supporters, etc.) were sufficient.

It would be very different if the program was private and secret from the government. Still a money-laundering exercise, but more necessary. Newly-mined diamonds and other gemstones might be easier to transport than gold. Don't forget that the US Mint destroys hundreds of millions of dollars in worn bills every day.

Also, this thread might be useful to you.

[ericthered]

I don't think an extra Fort Knox will crash the economy. The world wide gold reserves are estimated at around 170,000 tonnes, and fort knox at 4,500 tonnes. Selling it all at once will hit the gold market, but not the economy.


If you want to introduce a bunch of gold into the economy without raising suspicion, I'd just claim to have found a gold deposit. Buy a facility and use it to house parachronic equipment, as well as to melt your gold back down and mix in impurities so it doesn't look like it came from someone's vault. No one will wonder why security is so high: its a gold mine!


You'll either want a stead source of gold, or you'll want to plan how fast you're going to liquidate your knox. A nice curve with a large chunk sold quickly and the rest of it tailing off should work nicely.



You're either intentionally staying small because you have non-economic goals, or you will eventually effect the economy. Its probably good to come up with cover stories. And the comments about money laundering are spot on, though I think a thread about money laundering fantastic amounts of parachronic loot would be fascinating.

[TGLS]

I think it's pretty simple. The setting has parachronics, so have them discover another Earth and have them sell gold there to soften the damage to the economy.

[Flyndaran]

What is the funding for? Whatever it is, most of it could probably be looted directly from parallels.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by thrash

Think of it as an exercise in money laundering. As a secret government program, they could probably write a check from their black budget for more than they could reasonably get from fencing loot, as long as their returns on other fronts (long term intel, deniable Russian nukes, choice "fakes" for selected art-loving supporters, etc.) were sufficient.

It would be very different if the program was private and secret from the government. Still a money-laundering exercise, but more necessary. Newly-mined diamonds and other gemstones might be easier to transport than gold. Don't forget that the US Mint destroys hundreds of millions of dollars in worn bills every day.

Also, this thread might be useful to you.

I've looked it up and secert government agencies have budgets in the single digit billions, and we'd want to keep it low as to not draw addition attention.

Fort Nox alone has 250 billion dollars worth of gold in it, it's a great way to supplement the budget or even go entirely off the federal books.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

What is the funding for? Whatever it is, most of it could probably be looted directly from parallels.

I don't know about that. Most of the *really* expensive stuff in the world tends to be labor costs for highly skilled experts, or bespoke, one-off or small production run, engineering (much the same thing, given a lot of the price is crystalized labor of those experts employed by the manufacturer).

[tanksoldier]

I’m wondering why you think somebody else didn’t find Lucifer-3 and it’s Fort Knox first....

...reminds me of a short story I read. Don’t remember author or title but it’s about a future earth that plunders the past of alternate earths for resources. When those worlds eventually realize their future is being plundered, but not the plundering worlds past they rebel and the “green card army” led by an alternate Ghengis Khan on a Harley moves in....