I don't get it...

You, of course, are entitled to your opinion. But your account is one in 190,000+ accounts in SL.

The fact that you are holding your $100k in your account, does nothing to nullify the fact that others are buying, and more than likely spending, six to ten million linden PER DAY in SL.

I know one thing ... I would certainly find something to spend your $100k on

To accept it as fact that "there isn't anything to spend linden on in SL" simply because your not spending your linden, is to accept a narrow point of view without taking the time to consider the larger picture supporting all of the other economic numbers before you.

I can tell you that I, my friends, and everybody else I know in SL, are spending gobs of linden and going broke if not already there, by simply shopping in SL. We love to shop for the varying fashions that SL designers are providing for us.

Having said that, if you are one that doesn't enjoy shopping for fashions, then I can see your point. Outside of shopping for clothing, shoes, hair or the occasional odd end item, I have rarely purchased anything else in SL. So if you are one that does not enjoy shopping for fashions, then I can understand why you are finding nothing to buy in SL.

It's interesting to note however, that it seems that most of the people complaining about nothing to buy in SL are the guys. Maybe you all should take a step back, and take a breather from designing all of the hoochie wear you would like to see us in, and begin concentrating on creating things that you yourselves would find interesting and worth buying.

Maybe then you'd have something to spend your linden on.

I like the Hoochie Mamma clothing the ladies wear. Without that
eye candy, I don't think I could take being around SL for very long.

I forsee a line in prim and proper dresses coming soon from Jolie Femme!

Not sure if it would have the results you expect. But the point you might be missing is that it's not for LL to set up. That is one of the things they'd expect in-world players to develop.

Of course not just anyone could do it. It would have to be supported by one of the more well known in-world firms that have established trust with the community since the land would probably have to go into some kind of escrow. If there were money to be made, certain famous well known investment groups would already be doing it I suspect.

Likewise. Still thinking about getting one of Starax's magic wands.

RBD- Ah... the rare times when there is thoughtful content yes. Most of the type the style is just annoying. Fortunately he makes enough easy to poke at gaffs that as a troll he's effective at eliciting some humorous retaliation.

Lewis- Charity is fine and good for some people... but not when more than 5% of a person's net worth is going into charity then one has to wonder what it is they're really trying to buy. And on the receiving side, easy come, easy go. I live in an urban area with a lot of transients, I know if I give them money they'll be drinking it soon and so I choose not to.

Someone else read this book?

People of the Wind, The Earthbook of Stormgate, as well as just about every other story in Anderson's Polysotechnic League universe. Just thinking about coming up with a realistic Ythrian makes my head hurt... you'd need custom anims for everything.

Understandable. A trusted 3rd party or some oversight
committee chartered by LL would manage the sale of defaulted land.

The problem isn't with hammering out the details of making this a reality.
The problem is getting LL to throw us a couple bones to get it started.
Just like LL has to code in the ability to transport everywhere without
telehubs. They also need to code in the ability to sell bonds backed by
land. Then let the free market run the show.

Lewis - I agree and do many of the fun, charitable things you describe.

Cheyenne - I suppose to clarify my point it is if there are too many people with $Linden suplus to their requirement sitting in their account this may be hiding the size of an imbalance in the economy.

I was trying to assess whether others thought I was weird (a good thing for the economy) or if significant numbers have similar thoughts (concerning).

I'm sorry but in a land with no contracts, no regulartory oversight and debt instruments collateralized by virtual land you don't really own, 8% comes nowhere near the risk premium I'd require to give an investment like that any money. You want all the benefits of a market based economy while blithely ignoring the fact that there's no infrastructure here to support it and there's very little LL can do to make it so. I mean when they were looking for a cash infusion, oddly enough they decided to do that in the real world...

The simple minds just cannot see the forest for the trees..

No Contracts: Issuing a Bond with your land as collateral is the contract.
If you default on a scheduled payment, your land is revoked. Boom, the
contract has been enforced. 8% was an "example" not a hardcoded policy
recommendation. In fact, the yield on the bond should be the choice of
the bond issuer. So if you don't like 8%, wait for the 15% bonds to appear.
Gezzz.... Does anybody have visionary abilities around here? Or is everybody
so inept that you must draw pictures and spell out every idea with a novel
of detail and explaination?


No Regulartory: Something which ALWAYS follows the market in an attempt
to place boundries on its limits. Not the other way around. Which came first,
the NYSE or the SEC?


1st: Create the Monster
2nd: Try to Control the Monster
3rd: Utilize the Monster to the benefit of all


Open your mind.....

Actually you did say:



See, you clearly said that Anshe's sell off is "thre reason the rates are what they are today." That's pretty clearly "directly the cause" don't yah think?

I had some extra troll food lying around or I'm procrastinating hard.

Significant regulation went along with all sorts of markets from at least 1602 onward. The trouble of starting an unregulated market in 2006 is that people have spent a few centuries inventing ways to "game" the markets: knowledge that is still present and still practiced and sometimes punished.

Prior to formal regulation, there were reputations and personal recognizence and the threat of physical harm to those who would scam others in commerce. None of these exist in SL. So in answer to your rephrased question "which came first, commerce or cheaters?", the answer is they co-evolved.

Your reach seems to have outstripped your grasp here. Open a book...

Actually the problem is that LL hasn't set up any infrastructure that would enable investment. There has to be a way to incorporate a business and buy shares in it. It has to be built into the system. Otherwise who in their right mind would invest with an anonymous partner? It won't happen.

It's not your land. If you issue bonds with your land as collateral, and then you choose not to pay your tier, do your investors get the land? Nope. LL takes it. Your investors loose their shirts and you create an alt and do it all again. Investing real money with anonymous partners is silly.

Buttonwood came first. Gould and Fisk came second.
Lets get the market going, correct the mistakes as they happen.

A wise man once said, "The person who ponders the first step, spends a
lifetime on one foot."

LL Gets nothing. If you front a Bond with the promise to pay
a certain amount over a period of time with your land as insurance
against you defaulting (or being a crook), then investors will flock.
If you fail, you gambled your land away. If you pay up, the investors
Win, Your Win, and the Economy Wins.

Much like what happens in Real Life. You need a Home Equity Loan,
you put up your house as insurance for the bank. If you default,
they take your home. If you pay up, the bank gets its cut, you got
your money to invest and grow a business, and everybody wins.

Someone else once said "If you quote a post in full and then reply as if you paid no attention at all to the quoted post or are incapable of sorting two 4-digit numbers then you look like an trolling ideologue".

I guess I'm just not a visionary then. Michael is exactly right - it's not your land. We all like to claim that we own it but we don't. Go try getting a mortgage on the apartment that you rent.

But let me be blunt here RBD. You like to throw your little financial plans around like you understand them (I'm still waiting to hear how your plan to short the Linden would really work). Congrats - you have a vague notion what a bond is. What you clearly lack is the slightest conception how a market works, what makes it efficient, how its instruments are valued. So you want to play financier on here? Go ahead - you can be whatever you want in SL including a pirate, a giant rabbit, whatever. Just don't pretend it bears the slightest resemblence to real life or it even makes sense.. "Investing" with people you don't know in ventures that are impossible to value in a world with no enforcement isn't business however. It's just pretend and if you start using real money to do it, you'd probably get better odds at the craps table.

And who's going to come take your land? LL? I'm sure they're not going to get involved. The parties who loaned you the money? Well, uh how? But of course we don't need regulations. Let's just start a market...

Funny. People buy virtual land with virtual dollars which in truth
have no value at all. Kinda of funny, considering you are harping
about:

"Investing with people you don't know in ventures that are impossible"

What would you call being a Land Baron is all about? ... Just goes to show
you who around here really understands markets and who is just talking
out the side of their neck.

So Teazle, you can pretend like you know something, but its obvious that
you missed the Elephant in the living room.

As usual you either completely miss my point or simply choose to ignore it. I never said you couldn't be a land baron on here. You own land. You sell it to someone in exchange for lindens. That's a very simple transaction that occurs at exactly one point in time. The seller's obligation is done exactly at the point the lindens change hands and LL switches the ownership.

What you are advocating is a transaction that stretches over a certain amount of time. Person 1 exchanges lindens with person 2 in exchange for a promise to do something at a later date. Person 2 retains ownership of land. Do I really need to draw you a picture of why that's very much different than buying and selling land? Person 1 comes back in a month and says where's my interest payment. Person 2 has either long since left the game selling the initial lindens and probably the land as well because that's the profit maximizing option and removing ethics from the equation the best move.

Who is going to prevent that from happenning? Linden Labs? I can guarantee you they will want nothing to do with any such scheme nor should they. A third party that holds the land in escrow? Yeah - good luck with that. And anyway what's to prevent said third party from collecting a vast amount of land, selling it and leaving the game. NOTHING - don't you see that? There is nothing because none of this is real. Do it in real life you get arrested. Do it here and LL says well we told you to be careful but we can't do anything. Contracts work in real life because there is a vast amount of law covering it. At the end of the day there are always legal remedies available to someone should someone else fail to live up to their end of the contract. There isn't on here.

Anyone who enters into a contract with someone else when there is absolutely no way to enforce it and the best possible return is from blatantly violating it, well then that person is a fool. Something tells me that's what you're hoping for. No better way to make money than being willing to take advantage of the naiveté and gullibility of people.

You are just wrong in this suggestion. Ther eis no mechanism of enforcing the bond. There is no way to reclaim your land. Secondly there is no way to define default. If you give me land as a collateral, and hand be the title to it, you could pay me off, and ther is no way to foce me to turn the land over. In SL once land transfers, land transfers. Every market in history has evolved under some form of dispute resolution. Period. End of story. SL has no rule of law, and therefore no way to enforce a contract. By definition a contract is a legally binding promise. SL has no law, and no contracts.

Excellent summary.

This is the core of a huge number of problems in SL.

Private islands actually make some of this possible. Neualtenburg has established a mechanism for in world incorporation and escrow deposits., for example.

If the land is on a PI, and you trust the island owner to pay the $195 US per month, this can work. A copy of your bond is given to the island owner. If you default, the island owner transfers your land to the creditor. Who decides and how? The island owner.