The Desk of the Markets

Everyone loves RPing a thriving economy. It allows your war-loving government to do pretty much anything it wants without needing to consider the macroeconomic consequences. So who would ever want to RP a recession?

Absolutely nobody. That's why this desk exists. It will decide for you whether your economy is in a golden age or the shitter. This desk will act as a SoC dedicated solely to the economy. However, it will be much more intrusive and arbitrary.

The Desk will act on three levels: the individual market, the national market, and the global market.

The Individual Market: This determines the health of a single product or economic sector. Daily updates will be issued on a random selection of markets, some major, others trivial. The collapse of the model plane industry probably won't even be noticed by government officials, but a continental crop failure could doom an agrarian economy.

The National Market: This is somewhat self explanatory. Your nation's economy is effected by the vivacity of all the individual markets and the global market. Naturally, some individual markets will effect some nations much more severely than others. A shortage of helium will take a hit on the micro ship production of a tech-savvy nation, for example.

The Global Market: This is the combined health of the world's economies. It will always be described as either Depression, Recession, Downturn, Stagnant, Good, Thriving, or Booming. The global market effects all nations equally, as they all trade with each other. The one exception is the rare economy which is completely cut off from the world.


The Desk of the Markets' first action is to ask the formal recognition of the Secretary of Culture. The Desk of the Markets' second action is to nominate E for Secretary of the Markets.

[reserved]

I appreciate the thoughts, E, I really do. I would love to have this functioning in the RP realm.

However... as much as this sounds... good... this is one of the few things that just doesn't work for the current RP that Tiberiam is in. It isn't as much as I feel like it is un-doable, but as much as we NEVER have enough information to do what is necessary to keep this desk maintained.

In order to calculate the economy effectively, we need EVERYONE to post a econ profile of the nation... what kind of policies that the nation has, what is the tax rate, what is the general outlook and foreign policies of the nation, etc. etc. Currently the ONLY nation that has enough information to judge ANY economic prosperity is Oscal, mainly because Oscal is basically market masked as a country. This desk would require just TOO much demanding national database on economy that I cannot simply impose this upon everyone.

I am actually surprised that you suggested this, because you would need to do the MOST work. I know the general economic structure of every nation except you. Civa has honor-bound policy based on traditions, Ras has revolutionary policy based on military goods, KI has innovative mind focused on centralized-command economy, Oscal has powerhouse economy focused on market flow instead of market hoard, Isis has isolationist policy based on not losing already large ground that it has, etc. I don't know ANYTHING about your nation besides wanting raw resources, which everyone does. In some ways, you will have to explain EVERY aspect of your economy before I can even attempt to evaluate your economy.

In short... the reason why this was not mentioned before by me... was... because it takes too much effort to evaluate nation's economy. I will first need background info on all economy, and then I will have to mandate EVERYONE to write economic updates at least once a month in order to evaluate their economy based on that. Plus I would also have to factor in trade, which must ALSO be RPed. Foreign relations which must ALSO be RPed, and all in all... too demanding for Tiberiam citizens who have RL issues to deal with.

This is why I came up with Desk of Credit Control instead of Desk of Market. Credit Control is focused on how much you have spent as a country, which makes things clear. And once you spend too much, you have mandated recession/depression, which KI is facing now... although KI's economy is suffering because of ridiculous gov spending instead of economic flukes. If there needs to be a recession due to different reasons... well, seeing as every economy besides Oscal is command economy, there probably isn't any unless your government is dying of debt. As for Oscal... I will try my best to RP times when I have downs.


Basically.... this desk needs TOO much info and TOO much maintenance. I cannot mandate this to everyone... especially you, who will have to do RIDICULOUS amount of work to make this work for you. And then there is problem with Karagamoon and Donk... -__-;

Although I don't think I'd need to do too much explaining of my economy, I'm totally willing to type page after page on my RP economy once Ras tells me what resources I have. That matters.

Actually, I think this desk wouldn't require excessive work. The global market is really straight forward. Stagnant and Good are normal. Thriving and booming are prosperous. Downturn and recession are bad. Depression is lethal.

Individual markets would only effect people when the correct major market is hit. Oil, food, finance, and IT are big. The national markets would be me saying whether they need to do recovery RPs or not. It would use the same scale as Global, but there would be listed problems/awesomeness. And if their econ is thriving, they can splurge. (1990s USA)

Pretty much this is the Deck of CC for factors outside of a government's direct control. Also, it adds more realism. The economy's not always good, and everyone needs to take their turn RPing hard times.

... and this is what MOST people says. Well, you live in US, right? Tell me what started the current recession in the global market and maybe I shall consider your speech.

Seriously... the sarcastic comment above is what I probably SHOULD say. The global market is NEVER straight forward. In fact, judging when market goes recession or growth is IMPOSSIBLE at times. According to you, I mind as well as use wheel of misfortune to dish out who gets to be the "poor country of the month" because it is so random. When it really ISN'T.

I say I need all that info because one nation's global market policy would influence the farmer market of another nation. It is REALLY hard to determine when a nation will have growth and when a nation will have decline. That is why I need all those info. If I don't have those info... seriously, I will start up my coin-flip app from my iPhone, and we can leave it to that to see who will have recession and who will have growth.

I accept your challenge.

A massive campaign of financial deregulation; championed by Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Greenspan; set the stage for the recession. Billy C actually did the most damage by signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall and eliminated the essential barriers between commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies.

Then the housing bubble. The Bush Administration led the charge to put every American in a house they owned, the "American Dream." There was enormous demand for home mortgages, so the banks began giving loans to people they never would have before. While a few years back one needed a 620 credit score and a 20% down payment, now your average Joe just needed a 500 credit score and absolutely no down payment. You didn't even need employment, let alone a steady job. And since the smart bankers were selling these loans, the buyers thought they could afford them.

During the 00's, a number of new financial instruments were invented that literally no one understands well: OTC (Over the Counter) derivatives, ETD (Exchange Traded Derivatives) contracts, credit default swaps (CDS). The most important is the latter. Mortgages were bundled together by the millions, divided into slivers, and sold to every corner of the globe. These tiny fractions of the mega-bundles of mortgages were backed by CDS, where if the asset became worthless, the insurer would pay the initial value. Hence, these CDS-mortgage-bundle-slivers were given a AAA rating; they were thought foolproof. Virtually every single CDS in the world was insured by the corporation AIG.

Finance boomed during the deregulation of the 00's. Bankers made unfathomable amounts of money. Banks' stock values were enormous. Via the financial instruments not even their own experts understood, the banks became unbelievably interconnected. Assets were divided into so many pieces and sold through so many subsidiaries that no one knew whom owed what, and all their fates were completely intertwined.

Then the housing bubble popped. Those teaser rates on the sub-prime mortgages ended, and homeowners' debts now greatly outweighed their houses' market value. In addition, Americans had been buying everything on credit for an entire decade. The common people were horrendously indebted, and they all defaulted at once. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae died.

Now most of the American banks' assets are totally worthless. Well, at least they're all insured with those fancy credit default swaps. Oh wait, AIG, the insurer of virtually every bank and government on the planet, is suddenly the most broke institution in the history of the world. So Lehman Brothers, the 4th biggest bank in the US and by far the most indebted, topples.

Well, now literally every bank in the US plus AIG is on the verge of bankruptcy. They stop lending, having negative money. Without immediate and substantial cash injection, the entire US finance sector would collapse at once. And with zero credit available, gold-plated blue chip companies like GE can't even fund their day-to-day operations. That means ALL CORPORATIONS COLLAPSE AT ONCE. This is not hyperbole. I am deadly serious.

Cue Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke. These are by-the-book laissez-faire capitalists who worship Hayek and loathe all government intervention. But they know that without decisive and monolithic government action, the 2008 recession would eclipse the Great Depression of the 1930's. They sufficiently terrify Congress into creating a $700 billion TARP fund (Toxic/Troubled Asset Relief Program). The US government buys all the toxic debt of the banks, allowing them to survive. Well, most did. Lehman and WaMu aren't doing so well.

Do the banks galvanize lending as hoped? Nope, they just increase their bonuses. Now ten American banks own 77% of all financial assets. "Too big to fail" has become ever bigger. Still, global capitalist meltdown is avoided for the richest of the rich. Everyone wins.

Oh, wait, actually the bottom 99% get fucked over. Every European government (except Germany) and the US is broke. Unemployment surges throughout the world- with the exception of China. Western governments institute massive austerity programs where the rich get tax breaks, the militaries are mostly untouched or fatter, and social programs are slashed horrendously. Greece was raped most; see: my rant on Greece.

The US economy is stagnant. Joblessness hasn't budged. The division of wealth has soared. This all applies for Europe too. Throw in Islamophobic race riots for the EU and UK.

Is that good, or should I expand on the US? How about the EU? I can also do Russia. I don't know anything about the rest of the world. ^^

Spoiler:

Isis had his Kinetic Weapons battle with you. Is this going to be comparable?

Good, since you know the situation, let me tell you what "sparked" this recession.


A RUMOR

Bear Sterns was PERFECTLY capable of keeping up with the toxic assets as long as their stock didn't collapse. Sure it would have been discovered eventually, but nowhere NEAR that ridiculous amount if their stock did not crash. As Sterns pretty much died overnight, other banks were targeted as stockholders did not feel safe about what was going on with the banks.

You see what I would have to deal with? A SINGLE event in ANY RP will have to be accounted and evaluated in order to see which country is affected in what ways. So... basically, bad decisions made by KI will spark global recession if done right. Or something discovered in Oscal's member companies will somehow kill entire global market overnight. In order to determine just HOW much your country is affected, I would have to know EVERYTHING about that nation's economy. Otherwise it just isn't fair for the economies.


Basically my opinion of DoM is this: too "random," too unjust, just REALLY hard to keep up with. DoM requires too much RPing from busy Tiberiam citizens. And I don't want to keep up with it.

Been a while since I looked at this thread. And for the record, it was a highly justified rumor. (Link courtesy of the US's premier capitalist newspaper, the WSJ)

This would be a little too complex to run. Besides, I would be a highly biased arbitrator. I may or may not have been plotting economic apocalypse.

EXACTLY...

Plus, giving such a desk operational would only benefit Osc, who can definitely abuse the power to take over world stocks. Seriously, it is nothing scarier than capitalists who control supercompany of nearly 1 trillion dollar budget.

I assume there's still no chance of giving a communist say over the global economy.

Still, I think it'd be good if we assumed we were recovering from a recession at the beginning of the RP. That way we can postpone another recession in the RP at least 2 RL years.