The Purchase DC of the National Debt

[Umbran]

What´s "leftpondian" about that? What does a left-wing, right-wing or tea-party windows dressing...

Pssst! Dude, he's not talking left-wing/right/wing. "Leftpondian" is "left side of the pond", meaning the USA, as opposed to Europe. He's saying it is only "our" national debt if you happen to be an American, which some of our users aren't!

 

[Coldwyn]

Pssst! Dude, he's not talking left-wing/right/wing. "Leftpondian" is "left side of the pond", meaning the USA, as opposed to Europe. He's saying it is only "our" national debt if you happen to be an American, which some of our users aren't!

Good to know. That really isn´t self-explaining, espacially if you´re really not used in thinking in either left or right nor in nautical borders

 

[Umbran]

The circulation of bank notes by far exeeds its backing, so it is enterily impossible for the US to fullfill its side of the promise.

Technically, the US hasn't promised convertibility for a long time. I'm pretty sure the same is true for most of Europe, and most major modern economies. So, no need to single out the USA, there. You can pull the same trick with most "1st World" countries.

This leads back to the topic: Who, in his right mind, would actually try to aquire a pill of unfullfillable promises with no chance to ever make money from it?

The promise cannot be immediately fulfilled, no. You've no chance to get rich quick on it. But US bonds are still today considered a solid conservative long-term investment.

Let's assume you're a villain with oodles of cash. Or, more plausibly, you're a villain that can make a whole mess of banks believe that you're actually a whole lot of people with good credit, so that you take several trillions out in loans, and with those you buy up the US National debt.

(Never mind for the moment that large amounts of that paper is in the hands of folk that are sitting on it as long-term investment - you cannot buy what is not being sold.)

But say you have done this. You then default on all those loans, and the banks get your assets. The banks still have value (those assets are still considered solid in the long term), but they've just lost liquidity, massively. We've recently seen what happens in that sort of situation. Banks stop loaning out money, and you get something between a recession and a depression.

If you, as a villain, have something to gain from economic depression - say, you want to rabble-rouse and take over countries - you have now set the stage for your real goals.

 

[Coldwyn]

[MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]:

I didn´t single out the US or obfuscate what the end of the bretton-woods-agreement really meant for the currencies. But I began my post with stating that I´ll keep it simple and I don´t see a way to tell a layman anything about dynamic exchange rates and internal fiscal politics.

 

[Storminator]

I roll to aid another...

PS

 

[ourchair]

This isn't so hard to do, and it would be easier if you used the Resources ability from Marvel Super Heroes.

Just find a guy with Unearthly (100) Resources and spend a great big chunk of karma on a Resources FEAT roll to get the Red success and you're done.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

When you bomb your creditor, you don't need to pay back the debt. I'm pretty sure that's actually happened in history (although you might need to replace bombing with invasion or assassination). It certainly cropped up in the Discworld novel Jingo.

Bombing the creditor is immaterial unless the creditor is another sovereign and in that case you need to win the subsequent war.
Although removal of the people to whom you owe money was essentially what Philip IV of France did to the Templars.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Ngangmuru bruhaya lel brumazik Achan hiArusa.

"The" and "Our" is stricly leftpondian and most leftpondian in usage!

Offered in all humilty as a consideration for your noble self. Even Dra could not restrain my fingers on this occasion.

Kotaru hiTankolen

Thank you. I love the world, wrote a conversion, and have ran two sessions, but I've never learned the language.