If LL did anything wrong today..

Cristiano...your trust is meaningless to those who are skeptics, established player or not. Likewise, your belief that LL knows what they are doing is no more an incentive to many to believe the same thing than a Jew telling a Muslim, trust me, convert to Judaism and you'll be saved.

That you believe that LL is not given enough credit for whatever smacks, somewhat, of boosterism - something that also does little to engender any real support for your argument -- at least for me. You are presenting your opinion as argument, not something that can be weighed and measured any differently than anyone else's.

This is not a personal attack. This is merely a quiet observation that boosterism is often the equivalent to hiding one's head in the sand when viewed from the perspectice of those starting from a different belief system. I happen to believe that LL is floundering around in response to a few very vocal people. I personally don't believe the system is broken. Flawed, maybe. Broken, no. Could it be or have been better designed? Yes. Is LL's solution one I support as it is being presented and forced upon us? No. Do I have an alternate solution? --- Well, like I said, I don't think there is necessarily a problem to be solved.

I think that, if left as it is, SL would putter along just fine economy-wise. Of course, my opinion is just that. An opinion.

If you know anything about me at all, I have never been a Linden apologist, nor a booster. Just a level person not prone to ranting and raving about changes without seeing their effects. I happen to believe that Linden Lab has always monitored the economy very closely, and taken small and large steps when needed. Earlier this year, when the land market spiraled out of control and we were paying $20-30/m for land, they released a large amount of land at a steady pace to help the economy rebalance itself at reasonable levels. What possible incentive would they have for cutting financial support (support that costs them nothing other than any administrative time needed to process requests for play money that they can create out of thin air), other than to protect what has remained a very steady economy overall, even with a shift from taxes to no taxes, stipends cut in half, event funding cut in half, etc. You are only seeing the tail end of this from the past 6 months - but it is a cycle that has occured more than once.

As far as my presentation, I have posted several long posts of why I think the changes are for the best financially for all of us. I just didn't feel like repeating it again in this thread, since honestly that was not the focal point of this thread. If you think my giving Linden Lab and those involved with it some benefit of the doubt and credit as boosterism. I could say that raking them over the coals just smacks of petty cyncism, and all of this wailing over halving of the stipend bonus and event support that was already halved once this year (with claims that there would be no more events, yet they flourished) is much ado about absolutely nothing. Both are an opinion, as you stated.

I don't know you. I made no attack. I simply responded to your post as it was written and without foreknowledge or bias about or against you.

I don't feel there is a problem. You argue that you believe, along with LL, there is. That is the core difference between our posts.

High prices are not necessarily a problem - either in reality or one that needs to be solved. Market forces, either here or in the real world, are not always quantifiable. And not all variables in the SL economy are known. So, that LL has "watched" the economy through spreasheet this or that doesn't mean they actually know any more than you or I do as far as "problem solving" goes - IF there is a problem

I was here during the summer. I chose to own very little land and own none now. Players always have a choice to buy or not. So, high prices are essentially a moot point to me. The economy is a moot point to me in that if I want something, I have alternatives to obtaining the money to buy it or to make it myself. Consequently, I don't see a problem.

Boosterism, while sounding like an attack, was merely the term I used to describe aligning behind LL (especially in this case) or any other entity without actual knowledge of the situation (including all factors involved, all possible solutions, the solutions that have been discussed, those actually given consideration, those rejected and those ignored, and the biases of the "players"/entities involved). I don't see that any non-Linden alt-resident (and even darn few of them if any) really has anything near that understanding of the current situation. So, failing another term, boosterism seemed to be the most appropriate to encapsulate what appears to me to be blindly following LL's lead in this case.

If you are offended, sorry. Not my intent.

This is not completely true, many content creators i know are completely in favor of clubs and linden support to events, I for one, a dersigner, know full well what an important drive for economy clubs and events are.
Thinking manufacture industry and entertainment industry belong to totally separate economies and treating them as such is unbelievably short sighted. The economy is a big whole, and if tou remove a part of it the whole will suffer. If a plane has two engines and you remove one it will most likely stagger a few miles more and then crash into the ground.

Thanks, Cris. As always, you present your views in a cogent and reasonable manner. After my earlier post, I thought of the following analogy.

One day, the venerable Alan Greenspan decides that the US money supply is too great. He convenes a special meeting with the FRB and governmental regulators, and they collectively decide to take 5% of the currency out of circulation. Almost immediately, the value of the dollar sky-rockets to unprecedented levels, simply as a by-product of supply vs. demand. Due to the decrease in money supply, interest rates immediately jump a full percentage point. An inflationary trend rapidly emerges, and the FRB raises interest rates once, twice, three more times in as many months. The various markets resist inflationary pressures at first, but with dire predictions of stagflation, markets begin scaling back. Home prices drop as fewer buyers are able to qualify for higher rate mortgages. Global ramifications begin to emerge, and talk of a global inflationary recession becomes commonplace.

I know that the above is so much rhetorical hyperbole, but there are correlations that can be drawn between a RW scenario like this and the actions being taken by LL.

Lastly, I actually think you are pretty much on track with your assessment of LL's intentions. However, as any Wall Street trader will tell you, markets are driven by rumor and innuendo. That's really my only point - LL would have taken far less flack had it chosen to open this up for discussion for ~ a month prior to taking action.

*Edit: Adding moral to the Greenspan story: Small, calculated steps phased in gradually over time reduce market hysteria.

I like Sicilian girls.... big tits. Lol.

That'll teach you to post your feelings in a forum. LOVE YOU SY I think some of us are just not meant to be forum posters. I prefer talking to people calmly in game (okay maybe not so calmly lol)

I like big tits... doesn't matter who the girl is...

Amen Sistah!!! Brotha?

Whatever.

Oh.. I'm female. But I prefer to stay an only child! I get more Christmas presents that way! hehe