Currency

[Rook]

We have, as you probably have seen, been approached by a fellow nation on the subject of trade. It seems as good a time as any to discuss currency. Up to this point we've really had no use for it. With everything to do and create and invent currency was not high on our list. But since its asserted itself politically, I thought it's the best time as any to come to terms with the subject.

Since our crest involves a lion I've always mused at the base currency be the lion. Though it does sound hokey to me and I don't really like it.

What do you think?

[Gelare]

"I'll have a cheeseburger, a large fries, and a diet soda."

"That'll be four lions and fifty-seven cubs."

"Change for a five?"

[Rook]

See, it sounds silly. Anyone have any suggestions?

[Mira O'Halloran]

Personally, i prefer the favours/swapping system, and it's one i use here at home with friends and family - there is no need for money. Like a litre of milk for a kilo of oranges, or i'll cook tea if you do the dishes. But as we have a lack of physical presence in the here and now, currency in any form is really quite useless unless everyone gets paid for doing a job and pays taxes. Then it'll get complicated...

[Rook]

Well I agree with you Mira, I detest money and have, for the longest time, worked on creating a system in Uantir that doesn't need it. Barter is the oldest system and assuredly a great one. But technically, currency is basically standardized bartering. Each dollar or note you carry represents a specific amount of precious metal. So instead of carrying around that metal to barter with, you carry around promises to the metal. Now the problem is no currency is actually backed by precious metals. There was a time where you could trade in one British Pound Sterling for a physical pound of sterling silver. There was a time when you could trade in one United States Dollar for a dollar's worth of gold. None of that is really true anymore though.

So, the problem with barter, internationally, is that there is no way to standardize it, thus there is no way to make it simple. International affairs are complicated enough. That and there's a social comfort to currency. Everyone knows how much one unit of currency is worth, but how many oranges you'll get for one litre of milk varies by the person you're trading with. Sure oranges can cost more, or less, at different grocers, but if you go to the store you'll know for certain you can get oranges for dollars. No grocer is going to say 'I have too many dollars.' because a dollar doesn't depreciate as quickly as milk does. A grocer very well may have too much milk when you come to trade for oranges, and you're milk will be worth nothing to him.

See how this complicates things?

And you're right Mira, the idea of issuing currency since we don't really exist in the real world is a glaringly large problem. What is the point in paying Uantirians for things because honestly: who would really care? If I were to print up Uantirian money and offer people Uantirian money for services, what desire would they have to earn it? There's nothing to spend it on except within Uantir. In reality US money, or British money, or Australian money is simply a fantasy of those governments. But since there is such a foundation of people who believe in its worth, it achieves real importance. Money in Uantir would be like playing an RPG. In the RPG you can gain vast amounts of gold coins or gil or whatever the currency of the game is and it allows you buy goods and services in that game. But you can't exchange your Final Fantasy gil for US dollars. Anything you earned in Uantir would be incompatible with the rest of the world.

But, all that being said, if we're going to be playing the game, we should probably play the game with the same equipment as the rest of the players, correct? All the other 'big time' micro nations have currency, as fake and useless as it is, with which they trade anything or nothing with other micro nations. In the same way you spend your gold pieces on a new sword in a video game. If you decided never to pick up gold pieces in the game because the money was really 'quite useless' in 'real' standards you'd be playing the game at a disadvantage. It would impair your ability to interact with the game, not just the game but the other players who want to buy and sell stuff from and to you. That's the reason I've always wanted an Uantirian currency, despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of currency. One cannot barter, effectively, on an international level. If Uantir were ever to be a real, sovereign, fully functioning country with land and enough citizens to support it, I would put a lot more thought into creating a barter based economy. But since everyone here in Uantir is more than willing to help each other out with no thought of money in mind, simply the trust that the favour will be returned in kind someday, an internal barter system has already created itself out of good will. Any currency we create would be used as an international diplomatic tool.

[nick112147]

It seems I have started a little bit of a cultural mishap . My bad, sorry. However, what His Lordship speaks of in the last paragraph is true, you are on the Micras map along with alot of other countries that openly use currency. Even more so, the micronations.net forums use a very basic currency system for various thing like purchasing soldiers to protect your boarders. All in all, this is ALL silly, because once you boil it all down, this is a simulation, a game, something we all do as a hobby, albeit a serious hobby.

To compound what His Lordship has said about games using currency of some sort, I enjoy playing the Rachet and Clank series for PS2 and PS3, it uses a very basic currency system using 'Bolts' as the means to purchase weapons, armour and upgrades. If I were to play this game without collecting bolts, I would probably not be able to beat the game, or at least have a very, very hard time. And ask His Lordship has said, if you want to play the game, you have to use the equipment others are using.

Internaly you can still use bartering, however, externaly, you would have a hard time interacting with other nations if you were to not create some sort of monetary based system. Sadly enough I have started trouble on accident, and I wish to offer my appolagies.

[Rook]

Cultural mishap? Hah! Not at all. Debate is not strife, conflict is not misery. It's good to have multiple views, it's good to talk them out. It makes things more dynamic, more fun, more 'real.' No apologies necessary.

Unless someone avidly and vehemently disagrees with the concept of having a currency as an inter-micro-national tool, regardless of whether we use the currency within the borders of Uantir, I return to my initial question. What should our currency be? What should it be named, what should its text symbol be, what should it look like? Should it be paper notes or coins or both? Granted I'll likely not have the money to mint much, if at all, but it's good to have a graphic concept somewhere as a visual reference.

And the big question is, how much should it be worth? If it's used only in inter-micro-national relations I can see no reason to mint large amounts of it. Thus, logically, it would be worth more than a country who has a large printing. I could be wrong, and I'm assuming its lack of use in our country might affect its value. This is a question for Gelare I think.

[Nesslandria Haneh]

Indeed, I think Dean Gelare is well suited to this task. =D

An issue I have with the monetary system is how do citizens of Uantir earn whatever currency we come up with? Would everyone be issued xx amout of currency as a start just for being a citizen? Does everyone citizen receive a stipend, or is nobility entitled to a salary of sorts, etc.? I personally don't feel that I do enough for Uantir to receive monetary compensation. And as King Ari has already stated, internally we don't have much use for money. Perhaps Uantir as a government could have funds for dealing with outside nations while interanlly we could still operate on the barter system?

We could just be generic and call it 'silver' or something. That cheeseburger will cost you 3 'silver'. Etc. True, it's not actually based on silver, but as you said, if we're going to play the game...

[Mira O'Halloran]

All points taken. I think that internally we should be able to use the barter/favour system, and externally, this form of currency that we're trying to come up with.... perhaps on usable replacement word for 'gold/silver' could be Uans? I'm tying to keep it based on us, and most European countries use Euros...

[nick112147]

Well look at it this way, me personaly I didn't want to use money either because its all so complicated. Income, taxes and so on, made my head spin for a week. Not to sound like a billboard, but honestly, as soon as Tim releases his MyCountry, I am jumping on that boat as soon as I can because he tells me that eventually it will allow transfer of funds between nations via its backend.

Another thing I should mention is that micronations.net uses its own, albeit very basic currency system like in the MRWS and others. To be able to function outside of your own borders, currency is almost a must. Unless your state is mildly isolationist, at which point a currency is not needed, nor recommended.

A major downside to adopting currency besides its complexity is that it propogates alot of undesirable things, including dependency on other nations etc. Everyone should consider these things, because adopting currency after maintaining a barter system since this nations creation will indeed start a cultural and economic revolution. When I say revolution I do not mean people taking up digital pitch forks and toches, rather it means that this country will be taking a massive step forward, changing the nation forever.

Anyway, best of luck with all decisions made on this subject.

[Rook]

Nesslandria, the common way a micro-nationalist earns money is through a pay by post system. There is a bank program you can incorporate into the forums that allows you to earn a unit of currency for every post. Stores can be set up where items, be they tangible or no, and services can be bought and sold. Setting one up here would be completely contrary to establishing a barter economy.

If anything a stipend would be issued for foreign travel. And in the spirit of barter, a good or service would likely need to be exchanged for the stipend. Though everyone would receive a specific amount depending on their rank and status. The barter would be for extra.

I like that Mira, Uan. Or perhaps the Tir? I wouldn't want people to think we trade in human suffering though. Hah.

Nick, I am still waiting for MyCountry to be published and reviewed before I jump on that particular wagon. Apiya's MyCitizen program was a bigger inconvenience than taking the ten minutes to set up a Microsoft Access database for yourself. Taxes, at their simplest, are not that complicated. The government receives a percentage of what the people have earned. It becomes complicated if it's re distributive or there are escalating tax percentages based on income etc. etc. I like to think, or am naive enough to think, that any Uantirian who hangs around these boards long enough is an honest, trustworthy person who has in their character the core values of an Uantirian citizen. For that reason I feel comfortable enough with the taxes in Uantir, for now, being non-existent because they already pay their taxes from a barter standpoint. For example, Baroness Mira runs an infirmary and a library. Those services to the country more than justify her 'taxes' so to speak.

And I think we can successfully have a currency for foreign relation without becoming dependent on other nations. Honestly, we have had rich relations with other nations and have never had to use currency for it. So I am relatively comfortable that any currency with which we use to interact with other nations would almost be more as a social grace than anything else.

[Nesslandria Haneh]

Ah, that makes sense. Another part of my ignorance has been vanquished this day!

I actually like the Tir, even if it does sound like tear.

[Gelare]

I'm flattered in your confidence in your humble Dean, I'll look into the matter soon. In fact, as I type this, I am overseas (relative to where I usually am) in London, studying International Economics, a perfectly appropriate topic if ever I heard one. Currency is, in general, extremely good for a nation - like, by extremely, I mean increases its productivity by thousands of percent. As I said somewhere else on these boards, it solves the double incidence of wants problem, so that I don't have to find someone willing to sell their produce for my cow, I just have to find someone willing to sell some produce, reducing the problem to a single incidence of wants.

On a tangentially related note, I really like the coins here in England. These things are huge, it's fantastic. A two pound coin could be used for a slammer in a game of pogs. And yet, at the same time, it's worth a full four bucks. Wicked.

[Nesslandria Haneh]

Jul 7, 2008 11:03:15 GMT -5 Gelare said:

On a tangentially related note, I really like the coins here in England. These things are huge, it's fantastic. A two pound coin could be used for a slammer in a game of pogs. And yet, at the same time, it's worth a full four bucks. Wicked.

That brings back memories. I saved a few of my pogs because they're cool looking, but I got rid of most of them years ago. =D

[Rook]

Congratulations Dean Gelare! You finally did get to London. Hip hip.

Yes, British money is so much more entertaining than US currency. The new coloured fives and such are an attemp, but still pale in comparison to the sheer artistry of the British Pound and the Euros.