Bay 12 Games Forum

I'll note that each guinea invested in a copper trading ship returns +100% in 3 months. That is +33% of the initial quantity per month, averaged.
It is a great time to leverage any source of money you can get access to.

To the Good Queen Phillipa IV of the Glorious Homeland,

We humbly request approval for the incorporation of the company "Sharks & Loans". In those times of merchant ventures and exploration, we seek to provide liquidity for all merchantmen to pursue the profit and glory of the realm.

Humbly Yours,
-Edward Sharks and Merdicant Loans.

Sharks and Loans is a partnership of bankers. While not above owning the means of production ourselves, our primary objective is to fund other companies or the kindgom itself.

The current offerings, up to the total of 3 guineas, are the following:

To Queen Phillipa the Fourth,

We, the undersigned Sharks & Loans, agree to transfer X guineas to the undersigned company, Y.
This amount will incur into a monthly interest of 10% of the initial sum. The initial sum will need to be repaid in full after 6 month. Failure to pay interests or to provide the full initial sum at the end will cause expropriation of assets for at least equal value.
In consideration of the cyclical nature of trade, it is agreed that interest payments can be suspended for up to 3 months. The amount due will still need to be paid either immediately or spread across the rest of the loan. No further suspension can be awarded until there is no longer outstanding suspended interest.


Signed:

To Queen Phillipa the Fourth,

We, the undersigned Sharks & Loans, agree to transfer X guineas to the undersigned company, Y.
This amount will incur into a monthly interest of 7.5% compounded. The initial sum will need to be repaid in full after 18 month. Failure to pay interests or to provide the full initial sum at the end will cause expropriation of assets for at least equal value.
In consideration of the cyclical nature of trade, it is agreed that interest payments can be suspended for up to 3 months. The amount due will still need to be paid either immediately or spread across the rest of the loan. No further suspension can be awarded until there is no longer outstanding suspended interest.


Signed:

Loans will need to be approved and we accept different proposals from those above.
In case demand exceed supply, applicants will be selected firstly by estimated reliability of payment and following that by date of application.
At the expiration of a loan, we accept the possibility of loaning more money to cover the previous loan. This is still subject to approval.


Sharks & loans: money when you need it.

we don't even know what they want it for...
Seems pretty decent.

B

At worst, with this in hand they will be able to better tell us the priorities.

Whatever you think players will do in a situation, they will do something completely different in the worst way possible for your plans.

Yes, even if you prepared 30 contingency plans and alternative path. They will find a way to break it.

A
Well within our budget, without squandering political capital we don't have. Keep in mind that we still haven't delivered anything, and this would be our second request of increased resources in half a stardate without having provided anything...

Intrigue
Use GATE/HAUNTER to perform recon on the hidden facility draining ICE in MAGMA: (3) NUKE9.13, Madman, Andrea
No Intrigue:

Moon Nonsense
Lunar Mereth: (1) TricMagic
Moon International Research/International Science Shuttle: (3) NUKE9.13, Madman, Andrea
No Moon Nonsense:

ANGEL Nonsense
Board it:
Crush it:
No ANGEL nonsense:

Also including possible decisions about ANGEL, since we no longer need its STC.
We can either do nothing, or try to disable it for Aratamite military use ( it is their only way to get stuff into space. Stuff like their orbital platforms.

Destroying it should be reasonably easy and safe, but we would destroy an internationally prestigious and valuable asset, since everyone has civilian access to it. Furthermore, we have a decent likelyhood of shovering a wide belt around the world with huge chunks of debris at high velocity. Not a move that would make us popular I suspect.

Boarding it means using the greater plentitude of space assets we just gained this turn to land SPACEMARINES on ANGEL station. Harder to do, possibly opens a new front in the war, but it gives us a chance to selectively disable it ( as in only stopping Aratamite military payloads) while preserving the structure and international civilian shipping.

We could do nothing either because we don't want to damage it (it is certainly a pretty cool project) or because we see no benefit, or to give us more time to spin it positively from a PR perspective ( although waffles seems to insist that this is not  apolitics arms race... but what does he know?)


Personally, I am not sure of what to pick.

Regarding the 2 other things: On GATE invetsigation, I lack a better idea.

on the moon, outright claiming it whole seems... somewhat hostile to the rest of the world.

The matter is also somewhat complicated in that Bezos's wealth isn't exactly fungible. It is calculated based on the market value of the stocks he owns, but that isn't quite money. If he tried to access a large enough chunk of it, the actual value would become significantly lower. If you nationalized it in order to sell it and generate revenue for social programs, it would be worth much, much less that its currently stated value. It is wealth, but it is not money. While it may look like it since it is quoted in dollars, there isn't actually a 180 billion dollar pile of money sitting unused.

A better measure for inequality may be spending capability ( as in how much money one can reasonably afford to consume, regardless of availability of goods.), Mind you, even with that he is waaaaaaay richer than any common person, but that is a more accurate representation , if difficult to calculate, of how much richer than the common person he is.

Due to the way those huge net worths are tied to the market worth of businesses rather than actual physical stuff owned or money, it can be hard to fix without creating some perverse incentives or suboptimal situations. For example, if you have a wealth tax on shares, you basically force companies to issue enough dividends to pay the tax. Lets say, a 5% tax on all shares. For anyone to afford holding the company, that company needs to pay at least 5% dividend or owning it becomes extremely costly; since revenues are often quite a lot less than worth of a company, it becomes crippling. Of course you can have a threshold, but then you are incentivized not to grow your company. Which could arguably be considered a plus actually, with an incentive toward smaller companies. More diluted ownership is also a possibility, the effects of that I honestly don't know.
Point is, going directly after that accrued value has a lot more consequences to everyone than just lowering unequality.

I wonder if going after corporations themselves wouldn't be a more effective route, closing some tax loopholes and exemptions.

But regarding wealth accumulation itself, a favourite of mine is an inheritance tax. Let people earn and keep a lot in life, but don't let it accumulate across generations to make aristocracy.

Well, ingesting enough disinfectant would actually work to eliminate the virus, by depriving it of a suitable environment for survival and reproduction.
As in, by killing the host.