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Old 2013-03-15, 19:19   Link #1561
Anh_Minh
I disagree with you all.
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Quote:
Originally Posted by kagato3 View Post
Branding 90% of the merchent class heretics is not a smart thing to do. It would completwly destory their infrastructure. Even more so when the alliance can pay a starveing people in food.
They're just a merchant alliance. Even if they're the wealthiest and most powerful, others would love to step into their shoes.

(I'm remembering what happened to the Templars when it turned out they were owed a little too much money.)
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Old 2013-03-15, 20:08   Link #1562
Marcus H.
Princess or Plunderer?
 
 
Join Date: May 2009
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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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Old 2013-03-15, 20:31   Link #1563
alunde
osananajimi
 
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Midwest USA
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
I never really got what the merchant was trying to do with his price manipulation. Can someone explain?
It would appear that he was trying to create inflation, and somehow benefit from also creating the equivalent of commodities options contacts, He was trading money for a mix of commodities at higher than market prices, and betting that the overall inflation would allow him get back some of the losses. But also he may have political goals in creating inflation.

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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Old 2013-03-15, 20:36   Link #1564
kagato3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
They're just a merchant alliance. Even if they're the wealthiest and most powerful, others would love to step into their shoes.

(I'm remembering what happened to the Templars when it turned out they were owed a little too much money.)
No, they are The merchant alliance.
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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Old 2013-03-15, 20:39   Link #1565
Newhope
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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?
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Old 2013-03-15, 20:49   Link #1566
ReaperxKingx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Newhope View Post
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?
"An army marches on its stomach" (Napoleon Bonaparte) is very true. Merchant is trying to make a new currency, of course, very risky. Merchant is currently buying all the crops and goods that are necessity for life in the capital. I believe he is hoping to make wheat, Capital's staple crop, as the new currency. Sounds weird in general but could work.
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Old 2013-03-15, 21:08   Link #1567
Newhope
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
I never really got what the merchant was trying to do with his price manipulation. Can someone explain?

And also, what's he going to do if all the nobles end up owing him a lot of money and decide it's cheaper to get the Church to declare him and his alliance a bunch of heretics?
Basically he's buying as much Wheat as he can to reduce the amount of food in circulation which increases it's price, eventually it'll get to the point where money will in essence become worthless. Farmers and other producers will also start becoming more wary of selling further reducing the amount of food, in the end it'll end up in a artificial food drought.

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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Old 2013-03-15, 21:37   Link #1568
D-KLAC
KLAC OF THE ANIME WORLD
 
 
Join Date: May 2007
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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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Old 2013-03-15, 22:30   Link #1569
SQA
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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)
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Old 2013-03-16, 05:35   Link #1570
Anh_Minh
I disagree with you all.
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Quote:
Originally Posted by kagato3 View Post
No, they are The merchant alliance.
Go back to ep 3.
You too. They're the "Economic Alliance of Free Merchants and Southern Independant Cities".

Quote:
they control 60% of all wheat trade (pretty much anything that isn't local)
In the South. And up until Maou came, it was all flowing from Central to the South anyway.

Quote:
and if so desired are powerful enough to dethrone nearly any of centrals kings
Any one King, maybe. But they're picking a fight with all of Central. Besides, they'd probably have to start using subtle means to weaken their target first. Or they'd expose themselves to a decidedly unsubtle counter-attack.

Quote:
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.
There's only that much money in the world. And their plan, it seems, is to hoard food, presumably to sell it at huge prices afterward. That's not going to endear them to the population.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Newhope View Post
Basically he's buying as much Wheat as he can to reduce the amount of food in circulation which increases it's price, eventually it'll get to the point where money will in essence become worthless. Farmers and other producers will also start becoming more wary of selling further reducing the amount of food, in the end it'll end up in a artificial food drought.

When your starving who are you going to listen to the Church or the people paying you with food?
Well, here's the thing. If I'm starving, not being employed by the Alliance, and the highest authority in the land tells me it's ok to put the bastards hoarding all the food to the sword and just take their granaries, I'm going to lend a serious ear.
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Old 2013-03-16, 07:12   Link #1571
SQA
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
Well, here's the thing. If I'm starving, not being employed by the Alliance, and the highest authority in the land tells me it's ok to put the bastards hoarding all the food to the sword and just take their granaries, I'm going to lend a serious ear.
You're thinking the Alliance bought up a lot more wheat than they did. They bought up a large chunk of Central Capital's available Wheat, plus other supplies, at *well above* market prices. What Young Merchant is up to is outright market manipulation. He doesn't need all that much Wheat, he just needs everyone to be thinking about buying Wheat.

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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Old 2013-03-16, 08:03   Link #1572
Keroko
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
There's only that much money in the world. And their plan, it seems, is to hoard food, presumably to sell it at huge prices afterward. That's not going to endear them to the population.
The inflation they create is not just because of them storing things, but because others are copying them. They're basically selling the idea to to store wheat to every merchant. Even market merchants unaffiliated with a guild are going "wait a minute, if the price keeps rising, I can just keep things in storage and make even more money later!"

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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Old 2013-03-16, 08:53   Link #1573
Anh_Minh
I disagree with you all.
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
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?
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Old 2013-03-16, 09:20   Link #1574
Keroko
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But the nobles have no reason to complain, much less target the merchants. They're making a killing of this wheat shortage.
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Old 2013-03-16, 09:21   Link #1575
SQA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
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?
Went back and checked a bit more of the episode. They actually don't have to store that much of the Wheat. They needed to throw a monkey wrench in the processes. They'll make money in the situation, but that's not the only play. They're manipulating the market. Once a Deflationary Spiral sets in, everyone starts hording/not selling, but since this is also a major staple food, all of the people start hording before the price completely skyrockets.

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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Old 2013-03-16, 11:37   Link #1576
Guido
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Monterrey, México
Age: 43
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.
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Old 2013-03-16, 11:42   Link #1577
kagato3
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
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?
Your not looking at the full picture. All you are looking at is the secondary plan. What has happend is by selling the wheat futures the nobles have gotten a large influx of useable assets that allow them to hire a large number of mercenary forces. Being able to do this allows them to push the wars time table up by a few months so they will do so now, in winter durring a "food shortage". So the nobles are goint to end up, broke or atacking with an army of cold and hungery men of questionable loyalty or both.
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Old 2013-03-16, 12:49   Link #1578
rickadams
Yggdrasil DJ
 
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
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.
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Old 2013-03-16, 23:01   Link #1579
SQA
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
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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Old 2013-03-17, 00:33   Link #1580
Netto Azure
→ Wandering Bard
 
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SQA View Post
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.
And who would control the Black Market? The Merchant Alliance who has wheat stored bought at below market price. LOLOLOLOL.

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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