The Emperor in debt

iranuke wrote:The tithes from the South Harchong Empire have to go by sea to get to Zion. Sea travel in the Gulf of Dohlar has already become more difficult with the Earl of Sharpfield in possession of Claw Island and when the Heavy Cruisers show up (sometime July to September as a guess) the Gulf will be closed to all non-Charis shipping.

Actually, they normally don't. They can get to the Temple via canal and overland, although the travel is a bear in winter. At the moment there is a combination of winter weather and a couple of Allied armies in the way, of course.

The same is/was true for Desnair's tithe. They preferred to send it by sea for security reasons (ships may sink, but they're a lot less subject to pilferage than overland convoys or canal boats with all those transfers and stops) and especially when there was a need for speed (blue water transport is normally, although not always, faster over the same distance than canal traffic), but the overland route would work just fine if it weren't for those pesky Allied armies and the snow.

Hello RunsForCelery!

Doesn't the land route pass through the equator and tropics?

As far as we know the alliance armies haven't advanced that far yet, so I assume they've moved a ways west thus far in HFQ.

Cool!

Neat!

Thanks!

Given two medium sized ships were collecting the Desnari tithe, can we estimate the tonnage they were going to carry?

Would 50 tons of bullion each be near the mark?

Or 100 tons?

I think 200 tons or more each would require it to be used in part as ballast.

But that doesn't seem enough for something the size of the Desnari empire, though it might not have been a whole year's tithe.

Thanks ahead of time for any further data dumps whenever you can.

More snippets please.

L

runsforcelery wrote:

iranuke wrote:The tithes from the South Harchong Empire have to go by sea to get to Zion. Sea travel in the Gulf of Dohlar has already become more difficult with the Earl of Sharpfield in possession of Claw Island and when the Heavy Cruisers show up (sometime July to September as a guess) the Gulf will be closed to all non-Charis shipping.

Actually, they normally don't. They can get to the Temple via canal and overland, although the travel is a bear in winter. At the moment there is a combination of winter weather and a couple of Allied armies in the way, of course.

The same is/was true for Desnair's tithe. They preferred to send it by sea for security reasons (ships may sink, but they're a lot less subject to pilferage than overland convoys or canal boats with all those transfers and stops) and especially when there was a need for speed (blue water transport is normally, although not always, faster over the same distance than canal traffic), but the overland route would work just fine if it weren't for those pesky Allied armies and the snow.

We know the empire is very corrupt, so why not use that in creating the canal system there. THe sheer scal and size of it would be a huge opportunity for graft and bribes, and they can use the chuch as it's main backer, if they want to get paid, they should use their influence to ensure the long term well being of the empire. All those men currently planned for the army, while they can not be used right now, can be used to build the canals? I wonder if the former madam of zion would know hte right people to approach concerning this plan.
Owl could design the perfect canal system for the empire, an make the plans detailed for usage.
THe worse the position of the church, the more they need money, so if the empire is tapped out on another project, fewer options for the temple.

runsforcelery wrote:Actually, they normally don't. They can get to the Temple via canal and overland, although the travel is a bear in winter.

There is something I have been wondering about for a long time : why do they move bullions around at all ? Back in the first books, we had the Church using paper money (Was it Corisande where they used the Church's credit to finance the artillery build up and wondered if people would accept it even without Zion's seal due to delays ?). And now it seems they ship bullions around for some reason.
Or might it be that the answer to this remark :

lyonheart wrote:But that doesn't seem enough for something the size of the Desnari empire, though it might not have been a whole year's tithe.

is that the Temple serves as a clearing house, and only the resulting imbalances are cleared by moving coins all over the planet ? But I don't see the Church using such a costly procedure instead of relying on credit ...

There must be something I don't understand in the way Safeholdian finance works. But what ?

niethil wrote:There is something I have been wondering about for a long time : why do they move bullions around at all ? Back in the first books, we had the Church using paper money (Was it Corisande where they used the Church's credit to finance the artillery build up and wondered if people would accept it even without Zion's seal due to delays ?). And now it seems they ship bullions around for some reason.
Or might it be that the answer to this remark :

lyonheart wrote:But that doesn't seem enough for something the size of the Desnari empire, though it might not have been a whole year's tithe.

is that the Temple serves as a clearing house, and only the resulting imbalances are cleared by moving coins all over the planet ? But I don't see the Church using such a costly procedure instead of relying on credit ...

There must be something I don't understand in the way Safeholdian finance works. But what ?

Interesting question.

I posit that paper currency is still backed by bullion. Now, remember that the Temple is the world's largest lender to other governments. Naturally, the Temple would want to make such loans in their own currency (bolstering its value). But to do that, they need bullion to back the paper. To get the bullion, perhaps they have rules promoting (or requiring) the payment of tithes in bullion.

In addition, other governments which want bullion to back their own currency may want to buy gold if they cannot produce enough in their own borders.

niethil wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Back in the first books, we had the Church using paper money (Was it Corisande where they used the Church's credit to finance the artillery build up and wondered if people would accept it even without Zion's seal due to delays ?).

Remember all the soul-searching Rhobair Duchairn did when he was issuing notes that he knew the Church would not be able to honor ? Or when he considered adulterating the church currency ? Clearly the Church does not have a purely paper money, or he (or Clyntahn, if Duchairn hesitated) would just have printed as much money as he wanted. Yes, I know it's a very bad idea in the long term, but would Clyntahn care ?

In fact, the impression I have is that they don't even have a paper currency backed by gold (as in, fully convertible into gold on presentation of the note), but a purely gold-based currency, with various promissory notes (basically I.O.U.s) circulating. While those might be traded around, and even be canceled against each other, eventually the underlying gold will have to be sent.

And if, like the Church, you are spending a lot more than you are bringing money in, that means you have to arrange for a lot of gold to be shipped off...

My guess is they are on a gold standard, and that he who has the ACTUAL gold, holds the power. Kind of like when all the other nations gave the US their gold to back a stable US dollar. Yea that one didn't work out to hot but still, the initial idea sound, follow up politicians were corrupt. Paper is only worth something as long as people agree it is, gold has its intrinsic value. Gold being gold, and humans being humans that tends to be rather high.

Merlin could potentially arrange for stores of the church money to be found to be adulterated. If no one trusts their money, easier to shatter it. also, their remotes would allow priesty corrupt and greedy enough to potentially commit the crime.
I wonder if any priests attempted to taint secular currencies, that could be known to the inquisition, great target.

After re-reading some chapters, I have come to the following conclusions :

1 - There are no banknotes. I am guessing they are proscribed.

2 - There are sovereign bonds and Church bonds for sure.

3 - There are probably corporate bonds, but I don't think there is a corporate bond exchange.

4 - Corporate finance works mainly by direct investment or loans from associated businessmen or the Church or the state. If banks exist, we have not seen anything about them. I deem this very unlikely with all this "how are we going to finance all this" talks. I suspect Langhorn might have thought that proscribing banking would greatly impair development. I am also suspecting that wealthy individuals play the part of investment banks and it's only the deposit part that is a problem.

5 - There doesn't seem to be stock exchanges. Maybe it means that companies' shares are not tradable, or they are traded over the counter or ... they don't exist in the first place.

6 - I haven't been able to determine whether limited responsability exists. If I were Langhorn, I would have proscribed it though. It's an interesting point, because the risks Howsmynn and others will have to shoulder to launch and develop new companies depends on it.

7 - Bullions do get shipped around ... but until now I believe the Church is the only one we've seen doing it.

8 - Bullions shipping might be explained by proscriptions that we don't know about.

9 - Trade can probably be financed by letters of credit.

10 - There cannot not be insurance companies.

Which leaves me with a lot of questions :
How is the monetary system organised ?
How do Safeholdian businesses operate ?
What part of the financial system does the Church controls ?
What are the Proscriptions concerning finance ?
More broadly : we have seen Proscriptions against technology, what about proscriptions against innovations in organisation and institutions ?

I am using the french edition, which only has the first three volumes. So I am missing a lot of references (and the most interesting ones at that).

I think I might be lacking in Subtle-Extraction-of-Explanations-out-of-Secretive-Authors Wizardry skills too.

niethil wrote:After re-reading some chapters, I have come to the following conclusions :

1 - There are no banknotes. I am guessing they are proscribed.

2 - There are sovereign bonds and Church bonds for sure.

3 - There are probably corporate bonds, but I don't think there is a corporate bond exchange.

4 - Corporate finance works mainly by direct investment or loans from associated businessmen or the Church or the state. If banks exist, we have not seen anything about them. I deem this very unlikely with all this "how are we going to finance all this" talks. I suspect Langhorn might have thought that proscribing banking would greatly impair development. I am also suspecting that wealthy individuals play the part of investment banks and it's only the deposit part that is a problem.

5 - There doesn't seem to be stock exchanges. Maybe it means that companies' shares are not tradable, or they are traded over the counter or ... they don't exist in the first place.

6 - I haven't been able to determine whether limited responsability exists. If I were Langhorn, I would have proscribed it though. It's an interesting point, because the risks Howsmynn and others will have to shoulder to launch and develop new companies depends on it.

7 - Bullions do get shipped around ... but until now I believe the Church is the only one we've seen doing it.

8 - Bullions shipping might be explained by proscriptions that we don't know about.

9 - Trade can probably be financed by letters of credit.

10 - There cannot not be insurance companies.

Which leaves me with a lot of questions :
How is the monetary system organised ?
How do Safeholdian businesses operate ?
What part of the financial system does the Church controls ?
What are the Proscriptions concerning finance ?
More broadly : we have seen Proscriptions against technology, what about proscriptions against innovations in organisation and institutions ?

I am using the french edition, which only has the first three volumes. So I am missing a lot of references (and the most interesting ones at that).

I think I might be lacking in Subtle-Extraction-of-Explanations-out-of-Secretive-Authors Wizardry skills too.

Wern't the Quentens in Siddamark running a bank or something very similar to it? As I recall, Aivah had some of her money there and she was depositing, withdrawing and investing. Sounds like banking to me. If it quacks and waddles like a duck, it probably is a duck!

Don