2013-03-15, 19:19 | Link #1561 | |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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(I'm remembering what happened to the Templars when it turned out they were owed a little too much money.) |
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2013-03-15, 20:08 | Link #1562 |
Princess or Plunderer?
Join Date: May 2009
Location: the Philippines
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Protestantism, commercialism and war.
The Southern Triad is pushed into a corner as the Central Church and the Merchant Alliance race to who will claim greater power. And the Merchants are clearly on the lead; the concept of "worry" establishes the concept of "demand" and "supply", and he has forced everyone, the Southern Triad included, to play this dangerous waltz. However, this is not the only problem the Southern Triad has. The sudden shift towards independence, not to mention the threat of losing their precious resources on the hungry citizens of Central forces them into a scenario that a full-scale war is inevitable. Without the guidance of Maou, the way ahead would be a treacherous one.
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2013-03-15, 20:31 | Link #1563 | |
osananajimi
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Midwest USA
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You would need a substantial amount of money to manipulate a county's economy. But this may not be an ideal, efficient market, so he may benefit from having better information and communication than other players. (I haven't read the novels or manga, this is just my interpretation.)
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2013-03-15, 20:36 | Link #1564 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Go back to ep 3. they control 60% of all wheat trade (pretty much anything that isn't local) and if so desired are powerful enough to dethrone nearly any of centrals kings and according to Maou human life rests on "this monster's back". They are centrals suply lines. You also assume they will have the needed money to pay people to do anything. They have a nasty inflation spiral going and reniging on contracts doesn't set much trust with the mercenary armies the central lords use.
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2013-03-15, 20:39 | Link #1565 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
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If anything this merchants ploy could actually destabilize the power base and lead to the collapse of the central nations, what he's basically doing is making coin currency worthless and making food the new currency.
Which begs the question how is central going to feed it's invading army, as the old saying goes an army marches on its stomach. If the Southern Triad can hold the central armies they'll be in a strong postion bacause they'll only be 2 players with lots of food reserves them and the Merchants, which begs the question what do the merchants want? |
2013-03-15, 20:49 | Link #1566 | |
Emperor of the Expected
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Florida
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2013-03-15, 21:08 | Link #1567 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
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When your starving who are you going to listen to the Church or the people paying you with food? Last edited by Newhope; 2013-03-15 at 21:20. |
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2013-03-15, 21:37 | Link #1568 |
KLAC OF THE ANIME WORLD
Join Date: May 2007
Location: gs series
Age: 34
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ep.10
hero, female knight, winter king, etc wonder to do give after big speech big sis maid did among is free the serf while wonder little sis give everyone pie. merchant is making plans to make scroll of also make lots of buys of everything of all. which in most areas prices going messed-up with concern that if keep everyone will come winter land to take all food & etc on buy overload. merchant had meet with dragon lady had some talk while flashback with red queen & head maid give how ideas red queen even had pic-book show hero as a baby want to have the hero. with all going talks of war going on hero want no kills so hero & winter king need snow to stop the battle.
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2013-03-15, 22:30 | Link #1569 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
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Young Merchant is dealing with a "market world" that has a time-lag that we're not used to. Smartly operating in it can net a lot of profits, which is pretty much what he's up to.
I haven't read the novels, but I think how he read the situation is pretty straight forward: Potatoes (so a new, major food stuff in the southern countries) is about to go off the market, which is going to drive Wheat prices up. Further, there is going to be War. This is going to put whoever controls the Wheat as the major player going forward. So, he's taken this information and created a Futures Market. He's locked up a huge portion of next year's crop, while at the same time buying up a large enough supply of the Open Market wheat to drive prices up a lot. (It actually doesn't take buying too much higher, especially in this time period to create a minor "panic" in pricing) When everyone sees a major player in the Alliance start buying a lot of Wheat, the nobles will start hunkering down, to avoid getting hit latter. (This is still a heavily Feudal system, so a lot of Nobles need to buy Wheat) What by a fairly small amount of work, just mostly being ahead of the market, has started off a nasty hording/deflationary spiral in Wheat prices. As Wheat goes up because everyone starts hording, moving an army becomes too expensive for the Kings/Nobles to do without relying on the Alliance for money. So, it's a chance to pretty much "end" the War before it goes anywhere. Oh, and Young Merchant is going to make a play to take over the Council and make a HUGE profit next year on Wheat. (Plus Hero has tried to setup him up with the Dragon Princess, there were some flags there... and some "umm... do I want to hit that?" anti-flags as well) |
2013-03-16, 05:35 | Link #1570 | ||||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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You too. They're the "Economic Alliance of Free Merchants and Southern Independant Cities".
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2013-03-16, 07:12 | Link #1571 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
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I haven't read the novels, so I can't guess how much was actually bought, but from from the visuals of the store room, it's probably only in the 25-50 ton range. Not as much as you'd think to start a panic, but follow the information that everyone is working from. 1) A major player in the Alliance is buying tons of Wheat at a 25%+ premium for several weeks, mostly in Central Capital. 2) The same Alliance folks lock up much of the local crop for next year at roughly the same prices. 3) They're buying until the store house is full, which takes several weeks. What this does is create a huge amount of uncertainty. "Central" is now buying Wheat at huge prices with the "business people" suddenly hording Wheat. When prices start going up, everyone else (especially the Nobles) start panicing and hording themselves. It starts a cascade effect of bad information going out from Central. What was previously just an Alliance merchant way over paying for Wheat morphs into a panic that something is wrong with the Wheat supply and if you don't buy & stock up now, you're not going to have Wheat. Which means you'll not have food and starve to death. Most food purchases are based on trust of supply being available when you need it again, given yearly conditions. (You can't get fruit at certain times, for instance) When that suddenly comes into question, especially for *THE* staple food, suddenly everyone starts to panic as fear & doubt set in. That's the reason that Young Merchant had to keep buying at that high price for several weeks. It's a great lesson (had they had more time to lay out the details) in old world market manipulation. It results in the Commodity Deflation (the value of a bag of Grain is increasing without any change in supply) and Currency Inflation (the utility of the current currency is falling like a brick, thus everything gets more expensive). The side benefit to this is that Young Merchant can gain massive leverage in the Alliance itself and parlay the massive profits into his own power. Further, it's going to make a large scale war all but impossible, given the cost to buying food. |
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2013-03-16, 08:03 | Link #1572 | |
Adeptus Animus
Author
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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Meanwhile, the Merchant's Guild keeps buying wheat at lower prices because of their contracts. This is an important detail, because it allows them to sell wheat not for high prices, but for lower prices, undercutting the market and making them the go-to source for wheat. To illustrate with a theoretical example: The merchant's guild buys sacks of wheat for 5 silver a bag, while creating an artificial shortage. The price of wheat begins to rise. This spreads to the other merchants, who also begin storing wheat in anticipation of further price growth, which further increases the price of wheat. Then, as the price of wheat reaches... say... 15 silver a bag, suddenly the merchant's guild releases its stock and sells their wheat for 10 silver a bag. Since they bought the wheat for 5 silver a bag, they still make a massive profit, double their cost even, but in the eyes of the public, they're good Samaritans selling wheat way cheaper than anyone else. Last edited by Keroko; 2013-03-16 at 08:22. |
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2013-03-16, 08:53 | Link #1573 |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Which would have been a great plan if they'd sold their contracts last year.
The way things are, they need the prices to keep rising until next harvest when they collect the wheat (if they don't get stiffed by powerful nobles or royals with standing armies) when things are already at a breaking point. (as in, oops, they've already started a war.) And who knows what that's going to do to the price of wheat once the dust settles? |
2013-03-16, 09:21 | Link #1575 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
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Doing that in the major capital would cause a chain reactions of both higher trade and massively constrained supplies, as the open market for Wheat contracts rapidly. It's the opposite of the reason for an Economic Bubble, but its the same effect. It's just, if you can time the market, you can make a killing. Oh, and mess up any plans for a War. |
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2013-03-16, 11:37 | Link #1576 |
Snobby Gentleman
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Monterrey, México
Age: 43
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Verse 10: So now their plans are finally coming to fruition?
Finally, we're back after a week of hiatus.
Basically, it impacted me how much the Merchants Guild responded to the possibility of the landowners and the nobles considering at freeing up the serfs. I'm mean what I try to say is that the Merchants Guild thought up of a new alternative to save and increase fortunes, and to the landowners, nobles, and kings of the other Central Nations who signed with the purchase agreements followed the example. Cornering the markets, stimulate the buyers and sellers that the prices are increasing not that the prices are really going up but the stratagem worked. The farmers are concerned and want to be safe, if the supply is running out of stock. The people are left impoverished without food at Central so they go to the Southern Nations to buy food, knowing full well that prices have not risen, but the problem is that the demand of people wanting to buy what they need exceedingly overcomes the supply of crops that the Southern Nations can produce. The ratio is disproportionate, the Central Lords are getting filthy richer by buying and saving, and the economy in the Southern Nations will topple. How the South responded to the inminent economic crisis by levying taxes on the purchased goods to protect their crops, however, they would likely played to which the Merchant anticipated a declaration of war issued by the Central Nations and the Church. Of course, their plan is to ruin the Southern Nations in order to reestablish their authority again over that land, and, hence, monopolize the business, productivity, and the people. People are made richer when they do and produce things by themselves, and this is possible with the proper education, acquiring the proper tools, and the rest is up to them using their willpower and attitude to go forward. |
2013-03-16, 11:42 | Link #1577 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
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2013-03-16, 12:49 | Link #1578 |
Yggdrasil DJ
Join Date: Aug 2012
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This is as far as I got on translating the document from the Lakeside Order, before the fuzziness of the text broke me.
Edit: Here is a letter from later in the episode, which was much easier to read.
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Last edited by rickadams; 2013-03-16 at 17:47. |
2013-03-16, 23:01 | Link #1579 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
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Oh yeah, we forgot to bring up the fact that Price Controls were implemented when the price got too high. This is known as "pulling a Louis XVI". It always ends badly, as you can't force sellers to work in a controlled market for very long.
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2013-03-17, 00:33 | Link #1580 | |
→ Wandering Bard
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Grancel City, Liberl Kingdom
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Quote:
This is why Young Merchant was my fave character in this series xD Edit: And so the war begins. We also get up to date with Maou's condition. Great episode ending. :3
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Last edited by Netto Azure; 2013-03-22 at 13:40. |
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economics, fantasy, harem |
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