(L) C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control (w/Kenji Nakamura)

[Guardian Enzo]

I think there's a Catch-22 in this show I'm still unclear about. Obviously, what Mikuni is doing is ultimately self-defeating (and the real-world commentary subtle as a sledgehammer). But what exactly happens if Kimimaro wins? It's nice to have a future and all - but what good is a future if there's no present? We've already seen countries erased from existence when no one does what Mikuni did. Is a future with no present even possible?

Maybe the answer is "the house always wins" - but I'd like there to be more.

[~Yami~]

Spoiler for 10:

okay! so Jennifer is really dead.... I got the point since she gave all of her future to Kimimaro
no future = dead...
although I'm sure that at the end we will see her again (if kimimaro can return the future)

hyperinflation idea?? cool! But I don't see any solution in here. According to what I see, hyperinflation only works at interfering Mikuni's plan. If hyperinflation idea is better, I'm sure that Mikuni will choose that solution too. I'm curious about what will happen if Mikuni's rotary press is cancelled...
what will happen if Yen and Midas money lost their trust??? Japan will disappear, right?

anyway, I'm not really understand Kimimaro, Jennifer, and Taketazaki's plan so I will just enjoy the relationship between Kimimaro and Masyu.... lol
hopefully they can give a proper explanation and happy ending in the next episode
and also the micro-mezzo-macro (ultimate) move of the asset is cool.... Cannibalism and Overheat Economy is really HOT... xD

[hamstar]

A lot of you have questioned the logic in this series. If you truly understand economic principles, what money is, what capitalism is, what the federal reserve is, everything does make sense. You have to realise that the entire series is an allegory for what is happening today. If you saw helicoptors dropping money from the sky and took that at face value, this series is lost on you. You might as well enjoy the deals that strangely resemble pokemon fights

[thundrakkon]

Originally Posted by hamstar

A lot of you have questioned the logic in this series. If you truly understand economic principles, what money is, what capitalism is, everything does make sense. You have to realise that the entire series is an allegory for what is happening today. If you saw helicoptors dropping money from the sky and took that at face value, this series is lost on you. You might as well enjoy the deals that strangely resemble pokemon fights

There is economic theory, and then there is realistic expectations. Economic theory is just.. well... theories. Some principles can be applied in a perfect environment.

However, the reason why people find this not logical is because common sense kicks in, and because not all economic theories are perfectly correct. Yes, some of the scenes in the anime portray symbolism, but defying common sense is very illogical.

Take for example, as someone has already mentioned, hyperinflation of the yen as done by Yoga's group. Hyperinflation is just cause in a pure capitalism sense for an economy that over exerts itself and prints too much money, but theoretically, will self-correct itself over-time. Well, two more recent examples are Mexico and Argentina. During times of hyperinflation, their economies were devastated, and they are still both trying to recover from it (well, at least the legal business side of it).

Yoga's group is trying to save Japan by destroying its economy and many people in the process in hopes that the future will remain, but who knows what the future will be, since it could end up worse than it is right now.

That is why people are questioning the logic of it. A lot of the actions just don't make common sense, and you have to really stretch your believability in order to accept it.

[shmaster]

Originally Posted by orion

I too am in the "Jennifer is dead." camp. She gave away her future before she went bankrupt so the House has nothing left to take in return but her life.

Technically, she goes bankrupt because she gave out her asset. Transferring asset means to sell all your stock to one person, aka you lose all your fortune. So what she did is really committing suicide.

[Kanon]

[QUOTE=ars89;3656560]So Jennifer died and left Yoga her darkness card. What an awesome back up plan.QUOTE]

It wasn't part of Jennifer's plan. All she did was give her assets, entrusting his future to Kimimaro. The darkness card was given to Kimimaro by Masakaki on the higher-up's order. I'm sure they have ulterior motives for doing so, and it can't be anything good.

[hamstar]

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

Take for example, as someone has already mentioned, hyperinflation of the yen as done by Yoga's group. Hyperinflation is just cause in a pure capitalism sense for an economy that over exerts itself and prints too much money, but theoretically, will self-correct itself over-time. Well, two more recent examples are Mexico and Argentina. During times of hyperinflation, their economies were devastated, and they are still both trying to recover from it (well, at least the legal business side of it).

Yoga's group is trying to save Japan by destroying its economy and many people in the process in hopes that the future will remain, but who knows what the future will be, since it could end up worse than it is right now.

That is why people are questioning the logic of it. A lot of the actions just don't make common sense, and you have to really stretch your believability in order to accept it.

Hyperinflation does not correct itself, in fact it never has. Name me any fiat currency that has stood the test of time, there are none, absolutely none. Once trust in fiat is completely diminished with something like hyperinflation government will eventually have to reissue a new currency to replace the old one, this is textbook history.

Takedasaki theorised that hyperinflating the money supply would make the Japanese yen lose credibility and that is exactly what happened. They all wanted to swap their yen for dollars as you saw in the episode. Now what good would it do Mikuni to print more Midas Money/Yen when the public sees it as worthless? He wouldn't be able to prop up any failing industries when the yen is seen as worthless. It would make it impossible for Mikuni to artificially prop up failing comanies and enterprises even if he used the rotary press.

The whole idea that is pushed by the show is to accept loss when it comes to you. If you artificially prop up failing companies with cheap credit it leads to the same problems down the road just as we saw in episode 9. You saw that Mikuni tried to save the failing companies and enterprises with a 'stimulus' of money but the long term effect seen was largely negative. Simply kicking the can forward does not solve the issue. You have to let failing institutions fail and let others take their place. Governments have to be disciplined when it comes to fiat currencies backed by nothing.

The show hasn't made any major blunders that make a need for an intelligent viewer to stretch his believability. Yes, the show uses magical alternate realities, terms like entrepreneurer, asset, etc but anyone that knows anything about economics knows that these terms represent something completely different in the context of the show.

Now, if you really wanted to criticise something about the show I'd probably question how the higher ups were ever able to get this show on the air in the first place. This show really only caters to a tiny segment of the population that is interested in economics and money. Spicing up premise of the show with alternate realities and pokemon battles is not enough to attract viewership. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking when they decided to air this show but I'm very happy it happened.

[sapphire-pyro]

I also think [C] is following the shounen formula in the recent events, but still... not the typical shounen. I agree on [C] being an allegory, though I acknowledge [C] being fiction and in a supernatural setting.... I also agree that some of it's logic is kinda questionable o_O But ah well, there are more shows out there that made less sense, haha!

But I think Jennifer nor Kimimaro's opponent are dead, at least not in the real world. They just happened to go bankrupt in a more painful way.

Oh Episode 10 was so awesome, and I think the writer misses Durarara!!, teehee

Originally Posted by Tempester

Although you could probably blame Takagi Noboru (the writer) for making it so ambitious in the first place when it was meant to have 11 episodes from the beginning.

Baccano managed to be epic despite the episode limit.... though it got 3 special episodes. Hopefully it'll be the same for [C]. More episodes please >_<

[hamstar]

The way I see it, this is really a seinen anime with shounen aspects to draw the younger crowd into it. When you put anime out, you have to cater to a wider range of audience to get those ratings.

[Archaic]

Had an interesting line of thought regarding the events of this episode, interested to know what others think of my speculation.

Spoiler for Not entirely random speculation:

• The Midas Money being printed by Mikuni has a fixed value in relation to the Japanese Yen
• Hyperinflation reducing the value (purchasing power) of a currency.
• But, perhaps what's important isn't that the value of the currency is dropping, but that the values of goods, services and assets rise relative to the currency under hyperinflation. ie. For the same actual value, you'd receive a greater amount of currency when selling something.
• When someone becomes an Entre initially, they're effectively receiving a secured loan with their future as collateral (easiest way to conceptualise that is that they're pawning their future). Their loan isn't given just in Midas Money, they also receive in exchange for their future the Asset, the right to enter the Financial District, etc.
• Characters have mentioned "buying back their futures". It's reasonable to assume that just with any normal secured loan, the Entre could purchase back their future for the amount of the loan plus some pre-determined amount for interest.
• The kicker though is that that's in terms of the actual amount of currency, not the value of currency.
• Thus couldn't the rationale behind causing the hyperinflation be to create a situation where the amount of currency needed to purchase back the future becomes trivial in comparison to the value of physical assets which could be given in exchange to pay off the debt?

With everything this series has done so far, it seems like too much of a cop-out ending for this to be how it's going to play out, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

This should end in a tragedy. I hope it does. Short of a deus ex machina ending, I don't see how there can be a happy ending from here on. After all, the only thing that let Kimimaro even challenge Mikuni was given to him by the real antagonists -__- and Kimimaro doesn't even have a plan for what to do should he win.

[thundrakkon]

Originally Posted by hamstar

Spoiler for Saving Space:

Hyperinflation does not correct itself, in fact it never has. Name me any fiat currency that has stood the test of time, there are none, absolutely none. Once trust in fiat is completely diminished with something like hyperinflation government will eventually have to reissue a new currency to replace the old one, this is textbook history.

Takedasaki theorised that hyperinflating the money supply would make the Japanese yen lose credibility and that is exactly what happened. They all wanted to swap their yen for dollars as you saw in the episode. Now what good would it do Mikuni to print more Midas Money/Yen when the public sees it as worthless? He wouldn't be able to prop up any failing industries when the yen is seen as worthless. It would make it impossible for Mikuni to artificially prop up failing comanies and enterprises even if he used the rotary press.

The whole idea that is pushed by the show is to accept loss when it comes to you. If you artificially prop up failing companies with cheap credit it leads to the same problems down the road just as we saw in episode 9. You saw that Mikuni tried to save the failing companies and enterprises with a 'stimulus' of money but the long term effect seen was largely negative. Simply kicking the can forward does not solve the issue. You have to let failing institutions fail and let others take their place. Governments have to be disciplined when it comes to fiat currencies backed by nothing.

The show hasn't made any major blunders that make a need for an intelligent viewer to stretch his believability. Yes, the show uses magical alternate realities, terms like entrepreneurer, asset, etc but anyone that knows anything about economics knows that these terms represent something completely different in the context of the show.

Now, if you really wanted to criticise something about the show I'd probably question how the higher ups were ever able to get this show on the air in the first place. This show really only caters to a tiny segment of the population that is interested in economics and money. Spicing up premise of the show with alternate realities and pokemon battles is not enough to attract viewership. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking when they decided to air this show but I'm very happy it happened.

For the most part, I agree with your assessment. Hyperinflation has always been bad, but it eventually corrects itself many decades later when the economy recovers. It will never gain back its value, but it will correct the over-value of money.

What is unbelievable, however, is that the show wanted to make hyperinflation as a solution to the problem, even though that would essentially destroy Japan's economy. So it is like saying, "let's save Japan by destroying it." That does stretch one's faith in believability.

[ipodi]

Originally Posted by hamstar

A lot of you have questioned the logic in this series. If you truly understand economic principles, what money is, what capitalism is, what the federal reserve is, everything does make sense. You have to realise that the entire series is an allegory for what is happening today. If you saw helicoptors dropping money from the sky and took that at face value, this series is lost on you. You might as well enjoy the deals that strangely resemble pokemon fights

I study economics. When it comes to actual economics, nothing in this series makes sense. The series has used metaphors to make comments on the real-world event. But that doesn't mean the story and the plot make any sense when inspected from the the perspectives of economic realities. Let's take one of your comments as an example:

Takedasaki theorised that hyperinflating the money supply would make the Japanese yen lose credibility and that is exactly what happened. They all wanted to swap their yen for dollars as you saw in the episode. Now what good would it do Mikuni to print more Midas Money/Yen when the public sees it as worthless? He wouldn't be able to prop up any failing industries when the yen is seen as worthless.

Of course he can. Yen is still the legal tender in Japan, so failing industries can still benefit from "bail-out" money. Inflation affects the purchasing power, interest rate, the exchange rate, and the credit market, it doesn't affect whether it can still be used in daily economic transactions.

So while the series make several comments on the current economic situations, their portrayals are nothing short of nonsensical. The series is not better just because it contains social and economic commentaries.

Now, if you really wanted to criticise something about the show I'd probably question how the higher ups were ever able to get this show on the air in the first place. This show really only caters to a tiny segment of the population that is interested in economics and money.

Anyone interested in or knew about economics would find this series' treatments on the issues of economics and money to be superficial at best. I enjoy the Kimmiro's relationship with Myshu and the Pokemon fights a lot more than anything else presented in the series.


P.S.

Hyperinflation does not correct itself, in fact it never has. Name me any fiat currency that has stood the test of time, there are none, absolutely none.

I can find several easily. British pound, US Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar. I don't know how you define "the test of time," so it's impossible to argue otherwise.

[hamstar]

Originally Posted by ipodi

How does this make any sense? What would Japanese people do with US Dollars in their pockets? It's not like they can use them in their daily transactions. This is completely illogical.

It makes perfect sense. Wouldn't you want to store your wealth in another form before it becomes worthless? You can at least temporarily change your yen to USD or gold or some other currency and change it back to yen or the newly issued Japanese currency later when you think it is safer to do so or simply exchange goods and services in USD and switch it back to yen when paying taxes. Do you really study economics?

Originally Posted by ipodi

Of course he can. Yen is still the legal tender in Japan, so failing industries can still benefit from "bail-out" money. Inflation affects the purchasing power, interest rate, the exchange rate, and the credit market, it doesn't affect whether it can still be used in daily economic transactions.

This isn't exactly the same scenario in real life where new money is introduced into circulation slowly and companies get bailed out. In the anime, the midas money is already introduced into the public even before companies get the bailouts. So No he would not be able to prop up as many failing companies if yen is seen as worthless. You do realise that at a time when hyperinflation is going on, you'd need a lot more money just to do the same things as before.

Originally Posted by ipodi

I can find several easily. British pound, US Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar. I don't know how you define "the test of time." If you want stretch that far enough, then one can also argue that no democracy has stood the "test of time."

So far none of these currencies has stood the test of time at all. They've all been replaced in less than 100 yrs. In fact, the US fiat has already been completely replaced with the Greenback in the past and in 1971 again it was detached from Gold. That's twice the US fiat has been reissued. If you look at the history of the Canadian dollar, AUD, the British pound you will also see that they have been detached from precious metals as well. You clearly do not know the history of money and you didn't even look it up on wiki before commenting.

[hamstar]

Originally Posted by Archaic

Had an interesting line of thought regarding the events of this episode, interested to know what others think of my speculation.

Spoiler for Not entirely random speculation:

• The Midas Money being printed by Mikuni has a fixed value in relation to the Japanese Yen
• Hyperinflation reducing the value (purchasing power) of a currency.
• But, perhaps what's important isn't that the value of the currency is dropping, but that the values of goods, services and assets rise relative to the currency under hyperinflation. ie. For the same actual value, you'd receive a greater amount of currency when selling something.
• When someone becomes an Entre initially, they're effectively receiving a secured loan with their future as collateral (easiest way to conceptualise that is that they're pawning their future). Their loan isn't given just in Midas Money, they also receive in exchange for their future the Asset, the right to enter the Financial District, etc.
• Characters have mentioned "buying back their futures". It's reasonable to assume that just with any normal secured loan, the Entre could purchase back their future for the amount of the loan plus some pre-determined amount for interest.
• The kicker though is that that's in terms of the actual amount of currency, not the value of currency.
• Thus couldn't the rationale behind causing the hyperinflation be to create a situation where the amount of currency needed to purchase back the future becomes trivial in comparison to the value of physical assets which could be given in exchange to pay off the debt?

With everything this series has done so far, it seems like too much of a cop-out ending for this to be how it's going to play out, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

Asset represents the entre's future (or future that could have been) in this anime. It's not an asset in the conventional sense we understand it in economics. That's the explanation why the assets don't increase in value or become stronger when the Midas Money rotary press is activated.

With hyperinflation, assets would be a lot harder to buy back as you can imagine the price of things skyrocket. The only way to "buy back the future" I imagine would be to reverse the rotary press and decrease the midas money supply in circulation, the reverse of what Mikuni did. The whole point of causing hyperinflation in the anime was to let the Japanese lose confidence in the yen as well as the Midas Money. Takedasaki said himself that it would basically be a race between the Japanese and Midas bank to see which one collapsed first. If the Midas Bank disappears, it is insinuated that the Financial District (金融街) will disappear.

[ipodi]

Originally Posted by hamstar

It makes perfect sense. Wouldn't you want to store your wealth in another form before it becomes worthless? You can at least temporarily change your yen to USD or gold or some other currency and change it back to yen or the newly issued Japanese currency later when you think it is safer to do so or simply exchange goods and services in USD and switch it back to yen when paying taxes. Do you really study economics?

No. Only investors would do this. You would be insane to keep trading your own money between two currencies temporarily since you have to incur a transaction charge every time you exchange one currency for another. Not to mention that you would be losing a load of money when trying to exchange Yen, that has been losing its value, for another currency.

And how are the Japanese people going to buy all the necessities if they don't have Yen anymore? Japanese stores don't accept US Dollars. American money is not the legal tender in Japan.

As I said, the plot is presented in a fantasy realm that cannot be explained by any logical manner, even if the creator has tried to make commentaries on the current economic situations.

This isn't exactly the same scenario in real life where new money is introduced into circulation slowly and companies get bailed out.

?? I don't follow.

In the anime, the midas money is already introduced into the public even before companies get the bailouts. So No he would not be able to prop up as many failing companies if yen is seen as worthless. You do realise that at a time when hyperinflation is going on, you'd need a lot more money just to do the same things as before.

Sure, during hyperinflation, nominal prices go up. So what? Central bank can print even more money. As long as Yen is the legal tender, companies can be bailed out - just print more money.

So far none of these currencies has stood the test of time at all. They've all been replaced in less than 100 yrs. In fact, the US fiat has already been completely replaced with the Greenback in the past and in 1971 again it was detached from Gold. That's twice the US fiat has been reissued. If you look at the history of the Canadian dollar, AUD, the British pound you will also see that they have been detached from precious metals as well. You clearly do not know the history of money and you didn't even look it up on wiki before commenting.

There are some inherent logical contradictions in your quote above. You asked which fiat money stood the test of time. When the world was on the gold standard, the US Dollar then was NOT a fiat money. The same goes for all other currencies.

Thus, all currencies I listed have all became fiat money only after the demise of the Bretton Wood. And since then, all these currencies have stood "the test of time."

If we are using your logic, then gold itself did not stood "the test of time" since we no longer use gold in market transactions.



In any case, people are free to enjoy this show and think that the social commentaries are intelligent or interesting. That's totally okay. But I do believe that those who have studied economics seriously would be insulted if people say that the economic events presented in this series is in any way realistic or a realistic reflections on what have transpired in the real world.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by ipodi

Sure, during hyperinflation, nominal prices go up. So what? Central bank can print even more money. As long as Yen is the legal tender, companies can be bailed out - just print more money.

Let me make this simple for you:
- Print Midas money (whose value is directly indexed to the yen)
- Trigger hyperinflation by pumping the market so hard with money that prices go down
- Result: Yen (and correspondingly Midas Money) are now virtually worthless.

What you're failing to see is that the companies that would need the bailout would need progressively more money to be rescued since the money itself would have increasingly lower value.

Another thing some people are forgetting is that they aren't technically saying that destroying the economy would save Japan, they are saying that Jennifer reached the conclusion that to destroy the Financial District the value of money itself would have to be destroyed and that's what she's trying to do in this episode, hence the comment about it being a race to see who folded first: the Midas Bank or the Japanese Central Bank.

What I'm thinking might happen, and it's something some other posters in this thread have hinted at, is that in the end they'll probably succeed in making the Midas Bank fold therefore triggering a disappearance of Midas Money from circulation. What happens when a large chunk of the money disappears from the market? Deflation!

There you go: it may not be based on theoretical or even pratical economics but it's decently sound in layman's terms and that's ultimately good enough for a freaking piece of entertainment. /end_rant

[ipodi]

Originally Posted by Dextro

Let me make this simple for you:
- Print Midas money (whose value is directly indexed to the yen)
- Trigger hyperinflation by pumping the market so hard with money that prices go down
- Result: Yen (and correspondingly Midas Money) are now virtually worthless.

What you're failing to see is that the companies that would need the bailout would need progressively more money to be rescued since the money itself would have increasingly lower value.

Why do companies need bailout?

1. When they can't roll over their debt or can't service their debt any longer
2. When they can't cover their operation costs due to poor sales

In the first case, the nominal value of the money is irrelevant. In fact, it might actually help the company since the debt is now worth less than before in real terms.

In the second case, companies would need progressively more money with or without hyperinflation if it could not generate enough revenue and profit to cover their operational costs. Hyperinflation is not needed to stop these kinds of bailouts from happening, nor can it stop these kinds of bailouts from happening. If the government insists on bailing out these firms, then they will get bailed out, since money supply is controlled by the government.

Let me restate this once more: under the series' own internal logic, the case for hyperinflation "makes sense." What I am driving at is that the justifications and presentations of these economic conditions do not reflect the real world. I honestly don't think this is a controversial argument or an argument that this series is not without any merits.

There you go: it may not be based on theoretical or even pratical economics but it's decently sound in layman's terms and that's ultimately good enough for a freaking piece of entertainment. /end_rant

No one is questioning the series' entertaining value. Just because the series is not realistic or the economic premise is too fantastical to be believable, I have long contended that some other features of this series are entertaining.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by ipodi

In the first case, the nominal value of the money is irrelevant. In fact, it might actually help the company since the debt is now worth less than before in real terms.

I was actually going to say this but left it out at the last minute: did you consider that the debt might be in Dollars instead of Yen? What would a lowered value of the Yen do to that?

Also: the one doing the bailout in this series case is not someone who can print money at will but an "entrepreneur" in the F.D. that needs to spend future in order to print money and as stated on the episode it would now take all his future to do another printing. It it were the government sure they could just write a check, it would worsen the inflation but they could, however it's not.

[ipodi]

Originally Posted by Dextro

I was actually going to say this but left it out at the last minute: did you consider that the debt might be in Dollars instead of Yen? What would a lowered value of the Yen do to that?

Japanese companies denominated their debt in Dollars? If that is the case in Japan, then I will happily concede, but I highly doubt it.

Also: the one doing the bailout in this series case is not someone who can print money at will but an "entrepreneur" in the F.D. that needs to spend future in order to print money and as stated on the episode it would now take all his future to do another printing. It it were the government sure they could just write a check, it would worsen the inflation but they could, however it's not.

I agree. Which is why I mentioned that the series makes sense in its own universe and one cannot think that it correctly reflects the real world. Looks like we disagree very little over the content of the series.