Investors/Social Engineering

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

World wealth or net worth ("equity" if it pleases you) is 317,084 billion dollars, that is, 317 trillion dollars,

I have reviewed your source for this information.

It says: "National net wealth, also known as national net worth, is the total sum of the value of a nation's assets minus its liabilities. It refers to the total value of net wealth possessed by the citizens of a nation at a set point in time."

World net worth appears to be a sum of those national net worth figures.

What can be more or less debatable is what is the amount of total assets, calculated by adding the total debt to the previous figure.

I don't see why it would be debatable. Since the national net wealth figures were found by subtracting the national total liabilities from the national total assets, it follows that the total assets must have been the starting point. You should simply search your source for those figures and sum them to get to total world assets.

But after that, what use do you think that information will be to what you are trying to do?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Worldwide bank assets to GDP ratio seems to be 65.61%, which stands for about 51 trillion dollars, at 1% that would be about 510 billion dollars. Close enough to the previously estimated figure?

Sure, I'll accept figures in the range between half a trillion and one trillion for that 1%.

But now we get to the real issue: Is there any organization in the game world that can actually have that money available to lend? You cannot determine that by simply applying the search rules, or the pulling rank rules. Both of those rules apply in the case where an appropriate organization exists; they do not assert that such an organization does exist. It's the GM's job to decide whether, in their campaign world, it makes sense to suppose there is such an organization. And no game rules will do that for you.

In effect, I have been saying, "Okay, the game rules let you roll such and such to find the organization you want, if such an organization exists. Does such an organization exist?" and you have been answering, "Of course such an organization exists, because the game rules let you roll for it." That's a splendid petitio principii (assuming what you have been asked to prove), but it doesn't actually prove anything.

Say I'm a player in your campaign, and my character has Finance-18 and the other traits you discussed. And I ask you, "Can my character borrow $700 quadrillion? The rules give them a 6 or less to find a lender." Do you let me roll, and if I get lucky and make the roll, do you have a lender with $700 quadrillion show up? Or do you decide, based on what you know about the game world, that that can't happen and my roll's an automatic failure?

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Exactly, thank you. The only thing yet to be agreed upon is our definition of "available money" now :)

Quick and dirty estimate:

the 106 b was provided by12 major banks.
All of them are in the top 50 of the largest banks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks
So, if you could get the top 50 biggest banks to collaborate, you could dream about getting about 4 time that amount.

Lets round that to $500b. Anything more, and it is not a single private project, but a state-level project, with all that this implies.

I am not an economist, so take this for what it is worth :)

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Actually most accountants in the world agree upon my definition of total assets as the sum of equity and liabilities, but sure, why not (?)...

As far as I can see, no-one disagreed with your definition of total assets. What people disagreed with was what you think it's good for.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Sure, I'll accept figures in the range between half a trillion and one trillion for that 1%.

Thank you very much. Now please, consider what figures would you accept if you add entire governments to the equation.

Originally Posted by whswhs

Say I'm a player in your campaign, and my character has Finance-18 and the other traits you discussed. And I ask you, "Can my character borrow $700 quadrillion? The rules give them a 6 or less to find a lender." Do you let me roll, and if I get lucky and make the roll, do you have a lender with $700 quadrillion show up? Or do you decide, based on what you know about the game world, that that can't happen and my roll's an automatic failure?

Once we come out of here with an agreement upon what quantity would be the highest ever possible in our world, I would let you roll, and let you have a loan for that amount, while the people handing you the loan will excuse themselves saying that they would have let you have the money, but it is impossible since they havent got so much available.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Lets round that to $500b. Anything more, and it is not a single private project, but a state-level project, with all that this implies.

I am not an economist, so take this for what it is worth :)

I edited the previous message to add

1. Worldwide bank assets to GWP ratio seems to be 65.61%, which stands for about 51 trillion dollars, at 1% that would be about 510 billion dollars.
2. USA bank assets to GDP seems to be 62.67%, which stands for about 12 trillion dollars, at 1% that would be about 120 billion dollars.

so your figure is basically perfect :)

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't know the assumptions under which those figures were arrived at.

Alonsua cites a figure of world wealth of $317 trillion. Putting that together with your figure of $70 trillion economic output gives us world wealth equal to less than five years' output. Do you find that plausible? It seems to me that real property, at least, lasts longer than five years. So do a lot of large machines such as ships and trains and power plants.

I don't know the assumptions either. As for the world's output being one quarter of its value, I was honestly expecting a number between five and twenty, with twenty being a decent ROI on the stock market and five being a short write-off on a piece of machinery. But the more I think about it, the closer I lean to thinking the number should be twenty.



Of course, the Gross World Product is a much more concrete concept than the world's total worth, because there are some valuable things that just aren't for sale. The white house may have an estimated price tag, but its not going to be sold anytime soon. Whereas the GWP represents sales, trades, and so forth that actually happened in one way or another. I think that figure is much more relevant than total wealth.

I don't vouch for the correctness of any of those numbers; I'm just accepting Alonsua's figures. It strikes me as absurd that 5/7 of the world's wealth could be debts. But if that is the case, then merging the entire world into one big organization does away with all those debts and therefore with all that wealth.

It strikes me as absurd that 5/7ths of the world's wealth is debt, but I don't struggle to believe it.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

1. Worldwide bank assets to GWP ratio seems to be 65.61%, which stands for about 51 trillion dollars, at 1% that would be about 510 billion dollars.

Could you kindly indicate:
-where you got your figure for worldwide bank assets;
-why its relationship to GWP is relevant; and
-why 1% of that is relevant?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Once we come out of here with an agreement upon what quantity would be the highest ever possible in our world, I would let you roll, and let you have a loan for that amount, while the people handing you the loan will excuse themselves saying that they would have let you have the money, but it is impossible since they havent got so much available.

What do you mean by "let you have a loan for that amount," if there is no one who can actually make the loan?

[Andrew Hackard]

I'm closing this thread and have referred it to the GURPS mods for consideration. We require civil conversation at all times and several messages in this discussion have not met that standard.