PayDay Tuesday - L$ Going Down

I really -should- sell my stipend. i mean.. I can get a whole cookie!

EITHER WAY I PAID for it so its not welfare.

cookie and a soda, or new stuff on sl..hmmm

What a good idea for a thread! Thanks, Jonas!

You are most welcome.

Think I'll make it a snickerdoodle and root beer.

You were saying something Siggy? Looks like a Down Day To Me.
Kneel To Thy Master...


Daily Summary:
Best buying rate: L$280 / US$1.00
Last trade: L$280 / US$1.00
Last close: L$279 / US$1.00
Change: +L$1 / US$1.00
Today's volume: L$1,086,292
Today's open: L$279 / US$1.00
Today's high: L$281 / US$1.00
Today's low: L$278 / US$1.00
Today's average: L$278.92 / US$1.00

Yet there is still no inflation...

prices in world remain stable

oh my

I suspect that the Linden tends to fall on payday because of the lack of buyers more than because of the extra sellers. Siggy has a point, though; the world has gotten too big for the currency exchange rates to be moved by any but the very biggest players, and they usually have the smarts not to fight the market. Of course, payday is a unique event in that it hits everyone at once.

Except that I've seen no data to support that the Linden falls on payday. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Does the volume go up on Tuesdays? Often the volume is better than on Mondays.

Economic causation is never as simple as X causes Y.

Members get their stipend on Tuesday. They have less need to buy lindens. Hmm... maybe for some.

What else does the stipend stimulate? Shopping! People go out and buy a new outfit or vehicle or gun. While they are out shopping they see other things they would like to get but can't afford without buying more Lindens. So they go to Lindex and buy. That happens too on payday.

For the 20th time, Inflation in SL does not appear in the
form of rising prices for widgets. The reason is because
there is no original cost to sellers for the widgets they
created. They receive 100% profit, regardless. There is
no incentive for merchants to raise prices. Unlike in
the real world, where rising raw material cost translates
into rising prices on produced goods.

In SL, inflation exist in the ever increasing supply of
Linden Dollars in circulation. This in turn creates more
dollars being sold on the LindenX. Pushing down the
valuation of the Linden Dollar.

And the leading cause of this problem is the weekly
payment of stipends. End The Stipends...

that does it, Im going to the Ivory Tower and fling my poor soul out of a window.

http://m-w.com/dictionary/inflation


So.. RBD, is not entirely off base. The volume of money in SL does increase each week. But there are two conditions in order for inflation to exist:

1. an increase in the volume of money and credit relative to available goods and services - well, the money supply is certainly increasing, but so are the available goods and services. The number of new products that come out on a weekly basis is staggering. We are a very productive population, camping chairs notwithstanding. So I'm not sure what's happening in SL meets the first part of the definition.
   
2. resulting in a continuing rise in the general price level - as far as I know, no one has been able to present evidence that prices are rising in SL.

In other words, just because you repeat it often, doesn't make it so.

Keiki:

I don't think you understood what I was trying to get at.
Lets say a player in SL creates a widget and decides to sell it
for L$100. If the value of the Linden Dollar drops to zero,
that player has no incentive to reprice their widget, because
it cost them nothing to product it in the first place.

So your quotes of Real World causes of inflation don't apply
in Second Life. Now if my recommendation of turning prims into
a commodity was put forward, then every manufacturer of
widgets in SL would have a cost basis. Which in turn would
force widget makers to adjust their prices accordingly. Otherwise
they risk losing their initial investment in creating the widget.

Now since LL doesn't have commodities and widgets have prices
which are arbitrarily set, there is no motivating factor which
forces the hand of the sellers to adjust their pricing. This is why
you don't see any price changes and can "claim" there is no
inflation.

What I'm saying is that inflation exist in terms of a growing
money supply. Every week "New" Linden Dollars are created by
LL and given to all the players. Either L$50 or L$500. These means
more and more L$ is floating around in the economy. And since
the amount of Linden Dollar denominated assets are few, you get
more people selling L$ for US$ then holding them, which would
dry up the available supply. There might be "New Products", but
you are still giving those L$ dollars to people who will sell them for
USDs.

And remember, you need USDs to hold up the valuation of the L$.
If supply of L$ continues to increase, its unavoidable the
valuation will continue to decline. Look at what has happen to the Linden
Dollar since Oct '2005 (5/months) since LindenX became operational.
Its been nothing by a cronic decline, down some 12% in that time period.
If your theory was right about products and such, then explain the decline
over the last 5 months?

I believe my theory of a Linden Dollar Glut due to Stipends is a very valid
theory on why the L$ continues to fall with no end in sight. And I've yet to
see anybody prove my theory wrong and point to a sustained rise in the
Linden Dollar since LindenX began trading. Or even as far back as when
L$ was traded on GOM. Even there it was in cronic decline.

I understand what you are saying. I don't agree with a lot of it. But honestly, my time is worth too much to respond to this point by point.

charging to rez a prim was tried, it was an abysmal failure. Check on the history of SL sometime.

if that were the case then you would see for every 50000 - 500 sellers.. which again, doesn't appear to be happening.

I love payday and I don't consider it welfare in any way. It's not new money at all -- it's a little back and forth game LL and I play: they "give" me $500L each week -- I "give" them at least all of that back (probably more) in image upload fees, snapshot fees, fees to include our business in "Places." (Actually, all those little $10L bills are getting a bit tatty around the edges from so much back and forth!)

I pay my subscription fee and in my mind in a four week month, I'm getting a percentage of my US$ converted to L$ for me to use in the game, and the rest goes to back-end administration. If I opt to import content into the system then the L$/US$ payment is also going towards supporting the game. I don't know this as a fact, but if I were to design something like this, this is how I would do it (I worked with a team back in 1993/4 spec'ing out a similar type on-line concept to SL but using dailups to servers physically based in various cities and connected via Telex links, but the project fizzled out due to financing).

As for your content doesn't cost anything to make comment. That's absolute BS. At the minimum we have the creative time needed for authors to physically import content into the world and implement it's presentation with prims, etc... that's not to consider the time (and possible physical RL resources) used to create the content before it is imported into SL.

If anything could be considered welfare in this entire system, it would be the insignificant stipend paid to Basic users who put no money into the game. But the effect of that stipend on "inflation" really would be based entirely on how that money is derived. Is it just printed off the press with no backing? Or is it something like US$1 of my Premium subscription is subsidizing the 10 Basic players? If it's the later, then we don't have a problem. I guess the answer to this would have to come from the Lindens in an explanation about the process.

I'll be honest, if you get rid of the L$500 stipend, then you need to drop the subscription price for SL. Then I guess that if you wanted to buy something, you would need to manually put US$ in for conversion, which in the end has the same result.

Personally I find current arrangement acceptable and convenient and after reading ReserveBank Division's comments, I think he needs to either quit bitching about a non issue, or go find some other game to play.

But in the effort of fairness, I would like to reply to each of his statements

>Originally Posted by ReserveBank Division
>
>I don't think you understood what I was trying to get at.
>Lets say a player in SL creates a widget and decides to sell it
>for L$100. If the value of the Linden Dollar drops to zero,
>that player has no incentive to reprice their widget, because
>it cost them nothing to product it in the first place.

See my comment above, it took *time* for them to create it. In the RL
I live in, *time* has a value. Maybe you live in some Socialist/Communist
utopia where time has no value. Then you might have a point. When I
am thinking of a price to set, I look at how much time it took me to make
the item. Then, estimating how much money an individual may have
without putting extra cash into the system, I try to value my objects so
that the most number of users will feel the L$ spent got them something
for their money to give me the longterm return payment for my time.

Beyond that, I know that if I price something to high, then either nobody
will buy it, or only people who put extra, non-subscription $s into SL will
buy it... which has the potential to make pricing an possible exclusionary tool.

This dynamic in and of itself caps pricing.

>So your quotes of Real World causes of inflation don't apply
>in Second Life. Now if my recommendation of turning prims into
>a commodity was put forward, then every manufacturer of
>widgets in SL would have a cost basis. Which in turn would
>force widget makers to adjust their prices accordingly. Otherwise
>they risk losing their initial investment in creating the widget.

No, that's just retarded. The current system already caps prices
accordingly, and besides that, it would appear (based on previous
comments) that this was tried before and failed.

>Now since LL doesn't have commodities and widgets have prices
>which are arbitrarily set, there is no motivating factor which
>forces the hand of the sellers to adjust their pricing. This is why
>you don't see any price changes and can "claim" there is no
>inflation.

Your logic is suspicious. LL does have a very real commodity.
* time *

There is no motivation to change pricing because a majority of...
1) buyers are apparently happy with the value of what they are buying,
otherwise they wouldn't be buying.

and

2) sellers are happy with the the amount of income they are making
from their sales in relation to the time they spend creating content,
otherwise they would raise their prices.

>What I'm saying is that inflation exist in terms of a growing
>money supply. Every week "New" Linden Dollars are created by
>LL and given to all the players. Either L$50 or L$500. These means
>more and more L$ is floating around in the economy. And since
>the amount of Linden Dollar denominated assets are few, you get
>more people selling L$ for US$ then holding them, which would
>dry up the available supply. There might be "New Products", but
>you are still giving those L$ dollars to people who will sell them for
>USDs.

There is a growing money supply just as there is a growing population.
There are more L$ in the game because there are more users putting
US$ into the game... also as users cash out their L$ for US$, they are
taking L$ back out of the economy, off-setting the infusion of cash
into the world. This even works with realistate brokers. For instance
I bought FirstLand recently, but wanted an adjacent plot. My persistance
paid off and I was able to buy that land from a broker who had just
scooped it up. I had to put US$ into the game to make that purchase
and I'm betting he's going to take US$ out of the game as payment
for his time in mitigating that transaction.

Your argument would make sense if there were no US$ coming into
the world. Since there are... see my opening statement.

>And remember, you need USDs to hold up the valuation of the L$.
>If supply of L$ continues to increase, its unavoidable the
>valuation will continue to decline. Look at what has happen to the Linden
>Dollar since Oct '2005 (5/months) since LindenX became operational.
>Its been nothing by a cronic decline, down some 12% in that time period.
>If your theory was right about products and such, then explain the decline
>over the last 5 months?

While I don't have these figures before me, I can easily assume that that
a drop in the value of the Linden may be due to more Preimum players
joining the system. This puts more money in play and puts more content
into the system for buyers to discriminate against, which in turn reduces the
value of an object versus the US$. When 2 people are selling 3 foot long,
realistic phaluses for X number of L, they can ask X number of L and get it
because of scarecity and perceived value of the creators time. When 100 people
are selling the same thing then the price needs to adjust as the
perceived value decreases. This is the world of micropayments and it
plays out as expected.

>I believe my theory of a Linden Dollar Glut due to Stipends is a very valid
>theory on why the L$ continues to fall with no end in sight. And I've yet to
>see anybody prove my theory wrong and point to a sustained rise in the
>Linden Dollar since LindenX began trading. Or even as far back as when
>L$ was traded on GOM. Even there it was in cronic decline.

I don't believe there is a "Glut" and would like to see your empiracle proof of
such a thing and that better include real world US$ valuation against goods
and services as a factor. The only way in SL that I could see you truely have
a collapse of the economy outside of the current system would be if all users
quit putting in money into the game and converted their accounts to basic
subscriptions or all content in the game became free (like beer).

If anything is devaluing here, it's the US$ which is one oops away from
complete collapse (eg, China decides to tell us to go F ourself and cashes
in all of their bonds). If I were to do anything in this game I would suggest
the Lindens convert to a more stable currency... but given that the majority
of players are US based, that probably isn't feasable for any number
of reasons.

So ReserveBank Division, please take your flame bait someplace else.

Whew...

I don't know. I looked at the chart since it started and it looks to me like it has found a good location right now. I'm not even sure that it comes out to 12%. Can someone figure this out? There was a one month span where it was in the 250s. Since right before then and since then it has been mainly 260s and 270s. If you slice a line through the graph, it looks to me like it would come out to 270 for an average.

If Linden labs stopped the stipends, where are we going to get money from then? It would dry up. Myself for example. I pay many money holes each week far a above the 500 stipend. First its the 30L directory fee. Maybe about 200 to 250L in uploeads, a 1000L classified fee and this comes out to about 1300L. I'm sure there are many, many other players that have higher fees than this. Check out the classified as I'm sure the top payer is over 6000L. Then Then you have newer players on basic stipends that need more than the 50L each week.

It all equals out somehow. Linden labs knows why I'm sure. They have all the data that we don't have.

Ok I check Lindex from work - the first thing I do when I get into work.

Yesterday - Monday - 2:30 pm

Rate: 277
Sellers: 22
Amount: 549,185


Today - Tuesday - 2:30pm

Rate: 278
Sellers: 33
Amount 628,537

So... did that massive increase thats destroying our economy (consisting of 100k, 11 sellers and one L$ difference) occur solely due to it being Tuesday and Stipends...

OMFGZ THE SKY IS FALLING.

Come back when you do some kind of conclusive study and have something in the way of facts, data, and not just wild speculation pulled outta your arse please... this chicken little shit is getting old.

And after all this blustering, the Linden looks like it will gain value today. There is about 1.5 million less Linden for sale at or above 275 then there was at 6:30am (PST) this morning, and it's very likely that it will hit 276 before the night is done.

Siggy... that is supposed to be
OMFGZ THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!11!
carry on

I'm not talking about charging per prim rez.. I'm talking about
making you pay to aquire a finite amount of prims. If you want to
make a widget that is 50 prims, then you buy 50 prims. Which then
means that whatever you paid for those 50 prims is the intrinsic
value of the widget you just made.

Unlike the current system, you can create 10,000 widgets which
are 50 prims and not pay a dime. You only concern is if the land
you stand on can support 10,000 rez'd copies...

You would either buy it off LindenX from those
who are selling. Or you would earn it in game.

The days of Mudflation would be over.

Throw out some stats for the last 5 months, not the last two days...
It will be obvious, the Linden Dollar has declined in value...

Look at LL's own charts...

http://secondlife.com/currency/graph-price.php


A graph which is rising means it takes more L$
to buy one USD. Net Result, a declining value.


If everything LL is doing and the world is so perfect,
then explain this continued downward trend in the
value of the Linden Dollar?

Otherwise, I believe my theory stands. Too Many
Linden Dollars being printed via weekly stipends is
leading to a glut of L$. This in turn creates the issue
we see now of a declining valuation based on the
laws of supply and demand.

Or as I like to call it: Mudflation

This still doesn't support your original supposition:

People will be cashing out stipends tomorrow and this will cause the decline..

I've shown several things that show that your original statement to be utterly false.

What your doing is picking your prefered cause 'I don't like stipends' and using false statement to back up why your cause is a good idea.

When the L$ still hasn't found a steady value its hard to say its grossly inflating or deflating... and thats what happens with Mudflation, an infinitely expanding spiral upwards of ever more expensive and powerful items and the monsters and treasures that supply to gold to get them.

So you can call it mudflation - but in the true sense of the word, you'd be wrong.