merchant Infinite Earth campaign is impossible!

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by Byteknight

However, the point is....there is an infinity of Raw Materials and labour from Homeline's perspective, or at the very least quite a lot of it. The only value is the uniqueness from Homeline's point of view that is being sought after.

But that infinity isn´t freely accessible. To get raw materials and labor and products to homeline you have to buy them and transport them home. Buying isn´t free, and as The Secret has to be maintained you cannot even have them compete against one another. You can only go to the one that is cheapest, and pay as much as the locals do as otherwise they won´t sell to you. And then you have to transport everything home. So there will be a floor, below which prices won´t drop.

[ArchonShiva]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Go to a world where RPGing is a national passtime and buy games that have never been published on homeline.

Get the finalized Hot Lead rules and sell them to Steve Jackson so he can publish them as his own work! Or sell them on ebay and claim SJ has finished them years ago but still isn't satisfied with the product and doesn't want to publish.

[No offense meant Steve, I know you're really down about that project hitting a wall.]

P.S. Hell, get Ultra-Tech 4e and sell it to SeanR451!

[Mark Skarr]

Again, you're assuming that Pandimensional travel is easy, cheap and 100% effective. It isn't. The premis of your argument is that anyone can bring over enough of anything to make the market insolvent.

Don't forget that Homeline has a world of it's own to run. With the discovery of interdimensional travel, we could close down all of our mining and lumber mills. Why screw up our environment when we can do it to another world? Suddenly, there are no natural resources "available" on Homeline and it must all be imported. How much can a conveyor bring over (A)? How much would a nation need on a second-by-second basis(B)? Wanna bet that A-B is a HUGELY negative number? My IW book is unavailable at the moment, but there is no way that Infinity (and by extension WST) could provide a measurable amount of the worlds requirement for raw materials. A single corporation's maybe, but not a city's, let alone an entire nation's or a world's.

Another issue is that with the ability to (even inadvertantly) flood the world with precious metals which would undermine the economy, we'd have to change our monetary standard. Go from Gold to some form or information exchange, like the Megaframes did in Reign of Steel. Something like $1 = 1 minute of mainframe time. Now, gold and platinum will still be valuable, because of their luster and properties, but a deluge of them won't undermine our economy.

And, Byteknight, you keep assuming (or ignoring posts to the contrary) that you won't be able to sell alternate Earth money on Homeline. Anyone visiting that world would want to buy it. Other traders might want to buy it to start their own trade empire. Your Homeline money isn't going to be any good on earth-x. And, as stated before, they would have to give you a fair price for it because if they don't, what is your incentive for keeping The Secret? If Infinity (and by extension, WST) were screwing out-world traders, the traders would go sell the technology to someone who would pay for it. Think there are enough ISWAT to prevent that?

Another use for your earth-x dollars: Buy the intellectual rights to a movie. You now OWN that movie. Even Homeline's courts should uphold that, provided the only thing that was hinky was that you were from Homeline and not earth-x. Now, you can copyright and sell your movie on Homeline. Do the same with books, music, TV shows.

You discover that Joe's Pandimensional House of Pancakes has come up with a surplus of earth-y dollars (pancakes have become really popular on earth-y). You also know that earth-h makes a beautiful form of leaded crystal that you can sell on Homeline. Earth-y also has a spectacular wheat crop and earth-h is currently suffering a famine.

Anyone see where that is going?
With an infinity of earths, the opprotunities are infinite. All it takes is some creativity.

[seano1]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Another issue is that with the ability to (even inadvertantly) flood the world with precious metals which would undermine the economy, we'd have to change our monetary standard. Go from Gold to some form or information exchange, like the Megaframes did in Reign of Steel. Something like $1 = 1 minute of mainframe time. Now, gold and platinum will still be valuable, because of their luster and properties, but a deluge of them won't undermine our economy.

Our present day money isn't based on gold or in other commodity and I don't see why IE's earth's should be.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by seano1

Our present day money isn't based on gold or in other commodity and I don't see why IE's earth's should be.

Technically, it's supposed to be based on gold. The only reason it has any value is that our government says it does.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Technically, it's supposed to be based on gold. The only reason it has any value is that our government says it does.

it not techicl ment to be based on gold... and has not sence 1971. and the Goverment doesn't set the Value either.

Originally Posted by Bretton Woods system From Wikipedia

In 1971 more and more dollars were being printed in Washington, then being pumped overseas, to pay for the nation's military expenditures and private investments. In the first six months of 1971, assets for $22 billion fled the United States. In response, on August 15, 1971, without consulting members of the international monetary system or his own State Department, Nixon unilaterally imposed 90 day wage and price controls, a 10 % import surcharge, and most importantly "closed(ing) the gold window," making the dollar inconvertible to gold directly, except on the open market.

The surcharge was dropped in December 1971 as part of a general revaluation of major currencies, which were henceforth allowed 2.25 percent devaluations from the agreed exchange rate. But even the more flexible official rates could not be defended against the speculators. By March 1976, all the world's major currencies were floating—in other words, their exchange rates were not set by governments but depended on demand across the international currency markets.

[Mark Skarr]

Right.

I didn't mean that our government said "The Bison Buck is worth 5 British Pounds." I mean our government says "This is our legal tender." It's only worth something because the government says it's worth something.

[Byteknight]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Again, you're assuming that Pandimensional travel is easy, cheap and 100% effective. It isn't. The premis of your argument is that anyone can bring over enough of anything to make the market insolvent. .

It is easy. Gurps Infinite Worlds notes that we got all the Major Govts., Rogue Govts, UN, Mafia, Swagmen, Tourists, corporations, Amnesty Intl, the Vatican, miracle workers, etc, all jumping. Everybody and his cousin is jumping. If there are boatloads of tourists jumping, you just know that paradimensional travel is safe and easy to do.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

My IW book is unavailable at the moment, but there is no way that Infinity (and by extension WST) could provide a measurable amount of the worlds requirement for raw materials. A single corporation's maybe, but not a city's, let alone an entire nation's or a world's. .

Again, you are forgetting everybody else. WST is the largest dimensional corporation, but there are other corporations out there. There are national govts with $billions of funding each, out there. All of them looking after their own interests, with the Patrol forced to "look the other way" were told, on ocassion, as they have their eye on Centrum and the Nazis.

Gurps IW pg. 8 states that there are 10s to 100s of thousand trips PER DAY.

Let me repeat that: 10 to several 100,000 trips per day!


That has to be about as common as commercial jet travel is today, if not more.

Let's say 500,000 trips a day for easier calculating. Could be more, could be less. 500,000 daily trips is 1 trip per 12,000 people on Homeline earth, EVERY DAY!

Let's say only 10% of those trips carry only 1 measly ton of cargo: That's 50,000 tons a day. I'm being real conservative here, b/c we all know that 10% and 1 ton is ridiculous, but anyway....

So, what can other TL 7 and earlier Earths offer us every day that we will buy 50,000 tons worth a day? Homeline will buy things other Earths together have the most of: commodities, precious metals, etc. That means the prices of most commodities will go down over the long run. There will be very little Homeline govts. can do about it.


Other Earths manufactured goods (TL 7 and below) won't impress Homeline buyers unless it was unique. I can't foresee anyone selling a TL 7 toaster oven to Homeline at a high price.


Homeline can't sell an equal amount (50,000 tons a day) to Earths b/c of the need to keep the secret. That means it's a buyers market on Homeline. Prices will go down.

I disagree with you on Homeline being able to prevent a flood of goods entering homeline. You seem to think that all govts on homeline are holding hands in unison, somehow preventing the economy being ruined by preventing jumpers from dumping their goods, ruining the economy.

In the real world, you can see economic cartels never lasting long (like OPEC) as each cartel member will eventually look after his own interests. You see govts losing the war against all kind of smuggling (drugs, immigrants, exotic animals, etc). You see govts going back on trade agreements all the time (eg. US preventing Canadian softwood lumber imports despite NAFTA, Europe imposing tarrifs on the US despite the WTA, etc).

Companies need to grow to keep up their stock price (it's a mathematical formula- a company's stock is based on dividends and growth). If they can grow by hook or crook on other Earths, they'll do it. If they can cut costs by a nickel/unit by using other earths, it'll be done. They must, it's a mathematical imperative. With 500,000 trips a day, you can see what will happen.

If the price of diamond futures is going down b/c yet another empty South African mine was discovered by one of those 500,000 daily trips, the price of diamonds will go down, whether it's feasible to go to that Empty South Africa or not.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

And, Byteknight, you keep assuming (or ignoring posts to the contrary) that you won't be able to sell alternate Earth money on Homeline. .

I'm not ignoring it, I just don't see it at the current stage of development. An exchange has to be transparent, mobile and liquid.

It's not transparent because (a) everyone is sneaking around in other earths
(b) you don't know what's happening on that Earth until you get there. In the real world for instance, if you see hurricane damage on TV in Brazil, damaging their coffee crop, you dump the currency

Money is not mobile b/c you can't instantly transfer money to another Earth. You got to physically transport it or have some clearinghouse warehouse it on all the other Earths and give it to travelers who are going from Earth-a to Earth-b. Very hard to do across many Earths and keep the secret. The clearinghouse itself has to constantly ship currencies to their branches on other Earths.

Money is not liquid. Since there is a secret to maintain, you can't expect to take out 100s of billions you need for each currency to maintain a foreign exchange.


Besides, why the hell would a traveler bother? A cheap TL8 color copier, and he can print all the TL 7 and earlier "funny" money he wants, especially if it's an undiscovered Earth. It's not as if the govt. on Earth-x, who doesn't know the traveler exists, or the Patrol, who doesn't know of this Earth yet, will punish him. If he was honest, he can just bring some cheap gold or trinkets from elsewhere and sell it for the local currency.

Your other ideas sound great but I'm just saying is that the final tally is in Homeline currency. They can make a ton of funny money on other worlds but if they come back to Homeline, players will have a problem if they bring back the same old same old. If you bring back (at best) TL 7 normal everyday goods to Homeline (TL8/9), you're in trouble. If you bring back commodities (lumber, silver, etc), you must expect to sell it cheap. If you bring back a suitcase of Earth-x dollars, you must at least expect people on Homeline to raise their noses.

They only thing of value they can bring back to homeline and sell is unique items, whether it's ideas (cultural, scientific, etc) or goods. That lumber better be unique (eg Space:1889 etherwood), those crates of RPGs need to interest fans (Dungeons & Dragons (1974) by Steve Jackson), and those Star Wars DVDs (starring Sammy Davis, jr), need to appeal to Homeline buyers.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Byteknight

It is easy. Gurps Infinite Worlds notes that we got all the Major Govts., Rogue Govts, UN, Mafia, Swagmen, Tourists, corporations, Amnesty Intl, the Vatican, miracle workers, etc, all jumping. Everybody and his cousin is jumping. If there are boatloads of tourists jumping, you just know that paradimensional travel is safe and easy to do.

Then why do they make such a big deal about vanishing cargo? They mention it happening on a critical failure . . . that's .3% of the time. .3% of 500,000 jumps -- 1,500 critical failures a day. That's assuming a roll of 18. Unless we're going to a world where we consider it a "mundane" action and then we don't have to roll. But, if it were a mundane action, we would have a great deal of information built up there.

Originally Posted by Byteknight

Again, you are forgetting everybody else. WST is the largest dimensional corporation, but there are other corporations out there. There are national govts with $billions of funding each, out there. All of them looking after their own interests, with the Patrol forced to "look the other way" were told, on ocassion, as they have their eye on Centrum and the Nazis.

Who's forgetting that? It seems more like you're forgetting that. Since a major government would be quite interested in buying outworld money.

Originally Posted by Byteknight

Besides, why the hell would a traveler bother? A cheap TL8 color copier, and he can print all the TL 7 and earlier "funny" money he wants, especially if it's an undiscovered Earth. It's not as if the govt. on Earth-x, who doesn't know the traveler exists, or the Patrol, who doesn't know of this Earth yet, will punish him. If he was honest, he can just bring some cheap gold or trinkets from elsewhere and sell it for the local currency.

Because it doesn't matter who you ask, counterfiting is illegal! As to why a traveler would bother . . . he's a tourist. Do you think that any legitimate tourist agency would let them get away with counterfit money? And the moment the government of earth-x discovers a deluge of counterfit money (and they would figure it out sooner or later), they'll watch that area. And then they'll catch and arrest the perps. Maybe the perps will spill the beans, maybe iSWAT will rescue the (to incarcerate them in Homeline). Don't ever assume the locals are stupid, they're infinitely better suited to catch you than you are to avoid them. They know their world and what goes on there, you're just visiting.

Originally Posted by Byteknight

Your other ideas sound great but I'm just saying is that the final tally is in Homeline currency. They can make a ton of funny money on other worlds but if they come back to Homeline, players will have a problem if they bring back the same old same old. If you bring back (at best) TL 7 normal everyday goods to Homeline (TL8/9), you're in trouble. If you bring back commodities (lumber, silver, etc), you must expect to sell it cheap. If you bring back a suitcase of Earth-x dollars, you must at least expect people on Homeline to raise their noses.

You wouldn't go to 7-11 and try to buy a slushee in earth-x dollars. You'd have to sell them. They would only trade in money for relevant earths, earths that people go to regularly. As I said in the first part of the post, Homeline would have good information on those worlds, and would have people specifically watching the stock markets there.

Originally Posted by Byteknight

They only thing of value they can bring back to homeline and sell is unique items, whether it's ideas (cultural, scientific, etc) or goods. That lumber better be unique (eg Space:1889 etherwood), those crates of RPGs need to interest fans (Dungeons & Dragons (1974) by Steve Jackson), and those Star Wars DVDs (starring Sammy Davis, jr), need to appeal to Homeline buyers.

Actually, any media from from another earth would probably go over fairly well. After all, have you seen the drivel that gets put on the screen (big or small) these days? And you need only go to your FLGS to see that RPGs come in all shapes and sizes. Anything that is unique to a world would go over quite well. And I don't mean Mona Lisa unique, I mean worlds where Easter is celebrated instead of Christmas and you have Easter Trees and the Easter Bunny flys around in a balloon filled with flowers unique. Anything culturally different is usually bought up. Look at Anime.

Honestly, Byteknight, it seems that you don't want it to work. If there is going to be a lot of actual trading amongst other worlds there would have to be some form of monetary trading on Homeline to facilitate this. Otherwise, everyone must start out either breaking the law (Homeline would punnish counterfiters) or dead broke.

Mom and Pop stores these days don't try to compete with Wal Mart, they compete with each other, or they try to fill a niche. My parents run an embroidery business out of their home. They don't compete with Wal Mart to sell shirts, they sell shirts with a company logo on it, which is something Wal Mart can't supply. It would cost Wal Mart too much money to build the infrastructure to have an embroidery machine on hand to put whatever the customer wanted on their shirt. Any out-world trading would be niche trading. You'd sell something unique that you can't get on Homeline. You're not selling wheat, you're selling Dixie Flapjacks. You're not selling lumber, you're selling an armoir from Rome Eterna. You're not selling chocolate-covered straws, you're selling Pocky (sorry, I hate that stuff).
You set up two businesses. One on Homeline to sell the stuff from earth-x and one one earth-x to sell stuff from Homeline. You buy cheap cuttlery on Homeline and sell it on earth-x to buy earth-x toys that you sell back on Homeline.
Also, realistically, you'd be renting your conveyor to other, less fortunate, traders who couldn't afford their own. That way, you'd have the pick of the times, and you'd be making your payments.

I'm sure I had more to say, but this post is big enough.

[Byteknight]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Honestly, Byteknight, it seems that you don't want it to work.

I'm sorry Mark if I offended you in any way.

As a role player since 1980, I can believe anything: aliens, talking dinosaurs, nazis in space, but as a 9 to 5 financial analyst, I just don't see how prices can stay up on Homeline.

Thanks.