If the Lindens want some economic reforms, lets see some real reforms to make this a better game for everyone:
1. Zoning. There's a reason most cities have zoning regulations. Do you want to purchase land for your house, and suddenly have a mall shoved up your ass? Or a club, packed every night and causing so much lag that your home is useless for doing anything but standing and IMing to people? We need to have sims zoned as residential or commercial. The current system just doesn't work. It's frustrating to buy land, spend time building and developing it, only to have it made useless by changes around you that could be controlled.
2. Land Barons. We all are annoyed by them. New land becomes available and they snap it up as quickly as they can. I'm not saying all land barons are evil scum either. I happen to know some that are good decent people who's company I enjoy. But I think the situation that allows land barons to develop should be changed. I propose a limit on the amount of land one person, or a group, can own. Land should be for development and use by an individual or group, whether for homes, a business, or clubs, but not as a means of economic speculation.
3. Money. I like money. Wish I had more SL and RL both. But there's no reason that SL should have the same problems that RL has with it. Besides the weekly stipend, we can earn it. I don't begrudge the clothing designers, scripters, builders, etc. one cent of what they earn. I admire people with talent, and think they should be rewarded. In that at least, SL has an edge on RL. It's the artisans and craftsmen that directly benefit from their efforts, not the corporate beancounters like in the RL. And yet, not everyone has the artistic talent, or software talent, to design textures, clothing, etc. Hell, if you're a woman in SL and you don't have the time or creativity to be able to create any of those products you're pretty much relegated to prostitution to make money. One thing that allows people to have more money without any talent or abilities is simply buying lindens on GOM. Most everyone has done it, even myself when necesary, but this creates another inequality, where those with more dollars can buy more lindens and have more power and choices in the game. Sorry folks, just because you have more dollars doesn't mean you have an inherent right to more participation in SL. Yeah, i know, that's captalism in action, etc. Well, capitalism isn't perfect and isn't necessarilly the best model for the SL community. For all Adam Smith's rantings about the "invisible hand" it didn't take into account human greed and selfishness, and the rl concept of contervailing forces became doomed when large corporate interests took control of the government.
If the Lindens really want to control inflation, rather than dicking around with weekly stipends, event support, etc. they should consider eliminating the trading of lindens on the market, i.e. ban GOM and similar outside sources from SL. As long as outside sources of cash are available, they will be unable to effectively control the economy. Sure, cutting stipends and such can cause vendors to lower prices, but that gives an unfair economic advantage to those who just buy their way through SL using dollars. As such, it creates a more powerful monied class based on RL economic resources. For myself, I don't think someone deserves more power and enjoyment of SL just because they have more RL money. I'd much rather see a meritocracy than one based on how much RL money you had to bring into the game.
Chrystin Hathor
(who's not quite as much of a Socialist as she comes off in this post, but certainly not a blind adherent to free-market Capitalism without social responsibility either)