The Gold Standard

[montanakennedy]

One of the things I have always wondered about in T2K is "why would gold become the common currency?"

I can understand if a particular government came out and started to issue coins a la D&D, but in a post-apocalyptic world AU won't have an intrinsic value. No one will be able to go to the bank and trade it in for currency.

I can understand a barter system citing a value in dollars, Euros, credits, etc. - 20 rounds of 9mm = $5 = a carton of Marlboros (a completely made up example - don't holler at me for values). I just don't know if I think it is right to go with GP as a currency.

Thoughts?

Dave

 

[veltyen]

No one will be able to go to the bank and trade it in for currency.

No banks. Therefore nothing backing the probably counterfeit dollars you are carrying. No reason for anyone to honour them.

Throw away the money, the barter system you are proposing is the most likely outcome. Gold is easy to test that it is gold, has little useful worth and doesn't degrade very much over time. This makes it useful as currency.

Any coin or pig could be used as currency. Gold is just rarer and easier to carry then iron pigs.

Remember, coinage used to be made by the mines rather then any financial organisation. The stamp is the same thing as the stamp on any type of ingot, certifying that the ingot is of a certain weight and quality. If you want to barter, knowing that a 50kg marked lump of iron is of a certain weight and quality comes in handy.

Dollars, especially fiat dollars, are valued by the confidence in the issueing government. Think of them as share issues in the issueing corporation. Post apocalyptic governements would not have much confidence.

 

[GJD]

Gold is easy to test that it is gold, has little useful worth and doesn't degrade very much over time. This makes it useful as currency.
[/QB]

Its also rare - which means its difficult to get enough together to counterfiet.

T2000 had ther beginnings of a return to paper money oin the Poland campaign, where towards the end the Krakow ration chit was being used elswhere (outside of Krakow, that is) as a form of currency.

G.

 

[TKalbfus]

What about Swiss currency? The world blew up around them, but they weren't affected directly, only through their trading partners. How would World War III affect the Swiss currency? Alot of their external investments would go "kapoof!" I think. Swiss citizens who held stock in foreign companies would see their values plummet. I think their banking industry would survive, they'll hold many accounts of people who are no longer alive, just live those of holocaust victims during World War II. Foreign currency reserves would have no value. I think there would be inflation since there are fewer countries to import goods and services from. The Swiss would have to be more self reliant. Switzerland has no oil reserves and neither does France, but the North Sea Oil Deposits would remain intact, drilling could continue there, and oil could be shipped to France and transported through that country to Switzerland. Of interest to the PCs is that the International Red Cross is based in Switzerland and would still be up and running in the T2000 World. Of course volunteers from Switerland would find it difficult to get help to people who need it since they must travel through no-man's lands and not everybody will necessarily respect the international symbol of the Red Cross.

 

[montanakennedy]

Sorry, Tom, but I don't buy the "Switzerland is a going concern" argument. While I agree that Switzerland would have been pretty much left alone, they would have started to fall apart within a couple of years.

Regardless of whether or not the computers would have been fried by an EMP, virus, or any other issue, the computers would have been useless as soon as the power grid went down. Take out the computers, there go the banks. Also, with nothing to back the Swiss Franc (see the ration chit, above), why would the people use it?

NGOs like the Red Cross would have lost the "International" shortly after the loss of worldwide comms. I can see individual offices doing what they could, but the effect of any "international" organization would be nil within a few years.

The oil reserves (whether underground or in nice, happy storage tanks) would have questionable value depending on available refining capacity and replacement parts. Self-reliance only goes so far.

Lastly, I don't imagine that the Swiss government would appreciate wandering refugees/soldiers/etc. traipsing across their border, especially heavily armed (Similar to how the French/Belgian border had a no-man's-land surrounding it in V.1.0 and later). Yes, they are a caring nation. Yes, they support all in need. But, no, I do not think it would be the promised land you expect it to become.

Dave

PS - Carriage returns are always helpful when writing posts.

 

[PBI]

I can't see the Swiss currency as being any more stable than anyone else. The one thing the Swiss might have going for them, apart from not being as heavily damaged as the rest of Europe, is that they might have more reserves of gold than most other places, but they'd still more than likely go to a gold currency for the same reasons that have been already stated earlier in the thread.

I could see the Swiss as being one of the leaders in re-establishing some form of paper currency, either right around the time the Krakow ration chit or slightly after, for all the same reasons that the Krakow chit started becoming valuable.

 

[GJD]

The north sea oil reserves are also being guarded by the remains of the Royal Navy (a rowboat and a small fishing trawler, perhaps), as the remaining British government sees them as a key national resource. There is more detail in the Guide to the UK, but I don't have it to hand just now, I'm afraid.

G.

 

[imported_Sgt_Biggles]

I tend to agree that gold would be an unlikely medium of exchange. It would play a part in some economic circles, certainly as a hook to send the characters chasing after, but just where does the average world citizen come up with enough gold to use.

In Ver 1, gold included jewelry, silver, gems, anything which has, or had, a perceived value on its own. The T20 Ver of Twilight is going slightly a different route. Items for sell or trade will be rated in Trade Points. Most common items will be listed with a base Trade Point value, but a lot will depend upon the referee's determination of need.

A farmer who managed to acquire half a dozen mortar rounds really doesn't have any use for them. He couldn't trade them to another farmer for seed or live stock so their value is almost zero. On the other hand, a small militia squad who has the correct launcher would see them as a very valuable. The farmer needs a good rifle and some ammo, the militia squad wants the mortar and has several extra AK47's and a couple 100 rounds of spare ammo, now you have a trade. Regardless of the actual value of the items traded, both sides consider it a fair trade.

For those referees who don’t want the hassle, a trade point will have a value of about $10.

Thoughts? Easier? Harder?

Craig

 

[imported_Sgt_Biggles]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
What about Swiss currency? The world blew up around them, but they weren't affected directly in the T2000 World.

While the war never touched Switzerland directly, they were still hit hard enough for their economy to collapse and chaos to break out. Switzerland depends on imports. Once the transportation grid broke down, they became isolated and the need for everything from food to medicine to household goods sky-rocket. Riots break out, what little industry there is gets attacked by radicals; hunger, disease, cold, all play a part in bringing the Swiss to their knees.

Even if the financial institutions where able to protect their gold and silver stores from looters, they wouldn't be able to circulate it. The Swiss never manage to rise again. {sigh} No more swiss cheese.

Craig

 

[TKalbfus]

The Swiss can trade with France, which is right on their border, and through France they have access to the sea. France also has a Navy and plenty of nuclear reactors, it could easily sell electricity to Switzerland and it could take over the North Sea Oil fields without the British being able to do much about it.

 

[imported_Sgt_Biggles]

The French nuclear reactors would have been early targets of the Twilight war, but that aside, France closed its borders and severed relations with everyone prior to 2000.

France was the first country to emerge from the Twilight War with technology equal to or better than 1995.

With their power base secure, they became the first nation to enter deep space, ala 2330 A.D.

I'm afraid the Swiss just aren't going to make too much of an impact. However, since I don’t know a lot about the Swiss economy, you have given me an interest in digging a little deeper.

Should be interesting.

 

[montanakennedy]

Originally posted by Sgt_Biggles:
Thoughts? Easier? Harder?

Craig

Sounds good - a lot of this will depend on decisions made by the GM, but it seems like it should work out.

Dave

 

[PBI]

Originally posted by Sgt_Biggles:Thoughts? Easier? Harder?

Craig [/QB]

No change, really. More realistic, perhaps, but there's very little change in game effect. The bartering you describe was going on all the time in 2.0, at least in my games.

I rather liked how 2.0 handled the issue of gold as a currency when they pointed out quite forcefully that gold was mostly of value in larger population centres like cities or the larger towns but that barter was most likely the way to go in the smaller places, for the very reasons illustrated in your example.

I think it's a mistake, a big mistake, to abstract things down to something like a Trade Point. Leave things as they are in 2.0 (and/or 2.2; don't have that so can't speak for the econ system in that version) and leave it up to the GM to decide if he wants to go with a barter system, a gold standard, or a combination.

By introducing a Trade Point system, you're adding an unnecessary layer to the process. As a GM or player, I know I wouldn't be terribly immersed in a game where I was talking about how many Trade Points that LMG will cost, but if I was talking (and thinking) in monetary terms, that goes a lot further towards establish an atmosphere that seems more real. If a Trade Point is equivalent to some sort of monetary value, I'd bet that what will happen is that most people who play the game will end up converting TPs to curreny values anyway, because people like to think of the cost of things in those terms. So why not just get rid of the intermediate step that a TP will be, because there is no need for it, as items are already given a value relative to one another, and that's all a TP really does. Why re-invent the wheel?

 

[jcrocker]

If the new version book had Trade Points, I would not use that system. I'd look for a cost and use common sense. Farmer Braun really isn't interested in paying $50 000 worth of grain for an old tank, no matter if its gold or barter.

 

[kaladorn]

Trade Points? Count me as a downcheck on that idea too.

 

[imported_Sgt_Biggles]

Originally posted by PBI:

By introducing a Trade Point system...

You make good points, Thank you.

Craig

 

[TKalbfus]

I'm not a fan of trade points or wealth checks, they seem so silly. At one point in time you try to buy something and you can't, so you wait an hour and you roll you dice again and suddenly you can. Twilight 2000 is all about keeping careful inventory of what you have, and all the sudden you whip out your credit card and ask "how's my credit rating?"

 

[Maynard]

Sooner or later, business people agree on a common exchange medium, whether it be certain colors of seashells or beaver pelts or gold. Gold happens to be very portable, and had already been accepted worldwide as a common global specie. yes, it's value will fluctuate between one area or another,but as recovery rolls along, it will get very inconvenient to lug around dozens or hundreds of bushels of grain or huge tanks of fuel to make purchases with, especially for fledgling governments trying to supply militaries and municipalities. during the Depression, many banks collapsed and left large areas of the U.S. without paper currency, so some towns, some businesses and companies and a few banks printed their own scrip and currencies; it's a natural and practical phenomenon throughout history, so no reason for it not to happen in TW 2000's mileu, whatever the flaws and disadvantages.

It happens simply because it becomes necessary, and it happens first in the larger villages and towns. The U.S. hasn't been off the gold standard very long, and may well have to go back to it, if it begins defaulting on the huge trade deficits it's running up.