Welcome Back! ► The GCD's Inflation Recap (v.3)

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[BabyKiwii]

AnnaBella Nishimura

BabyKiwii

AnnaBella Nishimura

BabyKiwii

it's really hard to make gold on gaia now, and it's kind of awkward, because to have a really nice avi you have to invest real money now, so you can tell when someone doesn't have billions or trillions in items that they're poor in real life. that's not cool. sad

what was gaia thinking when they did this, wheres the fun in spending real money on a pixel??

srsly, back when I had a job I spent hundred if not thousands of dollars are pixelated pictures of things. Then I got banned, never found out why. To this day it's one of my most embarresing memories. Don't spend money on pictures of things. Because that's CRAZY.

why cant they put a limit on the market prices? wouldnt that make the inflation go down?

If I read the first post right, they used to have a limit on the market prices. But then decided they didn't care and removed it. sad well thats dumb, i guess gaia turned greedy sad

[sterek]

AnnaBella Nishimura

sterek

AnnaBella Nishimura

I find something else you said interesting though. (forgive me if I'm misquoting) You said that to help the inflation prices to buy from the stores (pure gold sink) or to buy from the marketplace (5 percent gold sink)... but that's the only two options, right? what other way is there to get items?

In the Exchange subforum, you can "buy" and "sell" items. Users agree on a price and make the transaction via Trades, in which case they bypass the 5% sales tax of the Marketplace.

It's important to mention that the sales tax is taken out of the listed priced; in the Marketplace, an item listed at 100 gold will still only cost 100 gold to the buyer. The seller, however, will get 95 gold for their item. Sellers use the Exchange to be able to offer the lowest possible price while keeping all the profit, which is useless in the long run because their smaller profit would be worth more if everyone sunk gold in the Marketplace.

You'll have to help me with my ignorance here, surely it's against gaia rules to bypass the marketplace and just trade items, because, you know.... it would mess up the economy?
Does gaia really just not care? I am depressed now. sad

It's not against the rules at all. It's not necessarily terrible either, though! Suppose you have an arrangement with someone, they're questing an item and you're cool with selling it to them at a 50% discount: that would have to be done through Trades so you can be sure the item won't be bought by someone else. Same goes for people who want to sell multiple items at once to a single users; they generally discount the lot so they can quickly sell everything, and that has to be done through a trade (because it's more efficient that way). Bypassing the sales tax doesn't mess up the economy. It doesn't affect it--which is kind of a problem in our situation, because it's something Gaia as implemented specifically to reduce the inflation.

Look at it this way: it's like badly tipping a waiter. It's not illegal. There are situations where it's understandable and appropriate. But if it's something you do regularly because you care too much about your own money, then you're kind of an a*****e.

[AnnaBella Nishimura]

sterek

AnnaBella Nishimura

sterek

AnnaBella Nishimura

I find something else you said interesting though. (forgive me if I'm misquoting) You said that to help the inflation prices to buy from the stores (pure gold sink) or to buy from the marketplace (5 percent gold sink)... but that's the only two options, right? what other way is there to get items?

In the Exchange subforum, you can "buy" and "sell" items. Users agree on a price and make the transaction via Trades, in which case they bypass the 5% sales tax of the Marketplace.

It's important to mention that the sales tax is taken out of the listed priced; in the Marketplace, an item listed at 100 gold will still only cost 100 gold to the buyer. The seller, however, will get 95 gold for their item. Sellers use the Exchange to be able to offer the lowest possible price while keeping all the profit, which is useless in the long run because their smaller profit would be worth more if everyone sunk gold in the Marketplace.

You'll have to help me with my ignorance here, surely it's against gaia rules to bypass the marketplace and just trade items, because, you know.... it would mess up the economy?
Does gaia really just not care? I am depressed now. sad

It's not against the rules at all. It's not necessarily terrible either, though! Suppose you have an arrangement with someone, they're questing an item and you're cool with selling it to them at a 50% discount: that would have to be done through Trades so you can be sure the item won't be bought by someone else. Same goes for people who want to sell multiple items at once to a single users; they generally discount the lot so they can quickly sell everything, and that has to be done through a trade (because it's more efficient that way). Bypassing the sales tax doesn't mess up the economy. It doesn't affect it--which is kind of a problem in our situation, because it's something Gaia as implemented specifically to reduce the inflation.

Look at it this way: it's like badly tipping a waiter. It's not illegal. There are situations where it's understandable and appropriate. But if it's something you do regularly because you care too much about your own money, then you're kind of an a*****e.

So wait, bare with me on this one, i'm not super smart. Doesn't that mean we could bypass the economy entirely by just trading amongst ourselves? If we got all the items, and kept them amongst users, refused to acknowledge inflation, and just trade amongst ourselves at reasonable prices, surely that would fix the problem? I feel like I've forgotten something important. What do you think?

[sterek]

AnnaBella Nishimura

So wait, bare with me on this one, i'm not super smart. Doesn't that mean we could bypass the economy entirely by just trading amongst ourselves? If we got all the items, and kept them amongst users, refused to acknowledge inflation, and just trade amongst ourselves at reasonable prices, surely that would fix the problem? I feel like I've forgotten something important. What do you think?

Haha, you have. First, offer and demand. Certain items are ultra-rare (25 copies of custom SDPlus dolls), others are hoarded for status (Angelic Halo), and certain vary in rarity over a few weeks (new RIG items can go from 100 billions to 5 billions within two weeks). You'd have to establish a relative price scale for everything while keeping in mind that worth fluctuates. Right now, worth in gold is how we calculate this.

Second, you can't have a user-regulated micro-economy within a larger community. Say I have a Halo, which is worth roughly 6.4 trillion on the Marketplace right now. Before the inflation, it was worth about 7 billion. Following your idea, I could just let someone buy the Halo for 7 billion and trust them to keep it within this tiny trade-only, no-inflation economy. What's keeping them from putting that Halo in the Marketplace and making a 6.393 trillion profit? I would. That's how vending (buying low, selling high) works.

Third, certain items are only attainable by purchasing them directly from the Cash Shop, or purchasing them from someone who bought them in the Cash Shop. GC has a steady conversion rate ($10 is always worth 1,000 GC), so the more gold inflates, the more gold $10 will get you. What you can purchase with that $10 will always more or less stay the same, but the quantity (not the worth) of gold keeps increasing. I personally spend GC sometimes. Since it's real money, I want it to be worth as much as possible on the largest scale possible, which is the regular site-wide economy. If $2 gets you one pack of gum in a local store but ten packs of gum in a supermarket, where do you spend your $2? Do you encourage the local business, or do you spend your money wisely?

[AnnaBella Nishimura]

sterek

AnnaBella Nishimura

So wait, bare with me on this one, i'm not super smart. Doesn't that mean we could bypass the economy entirely by just trading amongst ourselves? If we got all the items, and kept them amongst users, refused to acknowledge inflation, and just trade amongst ourselves at reasonable prices, surely that would fix the problem? I feel like I've forgotten something important. What do you think?

Haha, you have. First, offer and demand. Certain items are ultra-rare (25 copies of custom SDPlus dolls), others are hoarded for status (Angelic Halo), and certain vary in rarity over a few weeks (new RIG items can go from 100 billions to 5 billions within two weeks). You'd have to establish a relative price scale for everything while keeping in mind that worth fluctuates. Right now, worth in gold is how we calculate this.

Second, you can't have a user-regulated micro-economy within a larger community. Say I have a Halo, which is worth roughly 6.4 trillion on the Marketplace right now. Before the inflation, it was worth about 7 billion. Following your idea, I could just let someone buy the Halo for 7 billion and trust them to keep it within this tiny trade-only, no-inflation economy. What's keeping them from putting that Halo in the Marketplace and making a 6.393 trillion profit? I would. That's how vending (buying low, selling high) works.

Third, certain items are only attainable by purchasing them directly from the Cash Shop, or purchasing them from someone who bought them in the Cash Shop. GC has a steady conversion rate ($10 is always worth 1,000 GC), so the more gold inflates, the more gold $10 will get you. What you can purchase with that $10 will always more or less stay the same, but the quantity (not the worth) of gold keeps increasing. I personally spend GC sometimes. Since it's real money, I want it to be worth as much as possible on the largest scale possible, which is the regular site-wide economy. If $2 gets you one pack of gum in a local store but ten packs of gum in a supermarket, where do you spend your $2? Do you encourage the local business, or do you spend your money wisely?

I have an idea! I know it's idealistic at best, but you seem alot smarter then me, so I'm going to keep throwing things at you, that on the off chance I come up with something that could actually work, it could help us all. Let say we did make a micro-economy. But not all of Gaia. Just those who participate, and it would a strictly monitored membership-only group, like Costco. It would have rules, like no item can be above a certain price, say 5,000 gold. Now you can get awesome items for really cheap here, BUT, if you EVER trade in the marketplace, your membership is revoked. (I suppose it would be hard to monitor private trades though, wahhh.) If we could find a way to monitor it, it could be successful and beneficial to those participating, inspiring change gaia-wide when they see how succesful and wonderful and steady our lives have become by not encouraging inflation, while the rest of gaia burns into ashes and decays from it's own decadence as people are shocked as the marketplace prices go into the multiple-zillions. What do you think?

[sterek]

AnnaBella Nishimura

sterek

AnnaBella Nishimura

So wait, bare with me on this one, i'm not super smart. Doesn't that mean we could bypass the economy entirely by just trading amongst ourselves? If we got all the items, and kept them amongst users, refused to acknowledge inflation, and just trade amongst ourselves at reasonable prices, surely that would fix the problem? I feel like I've forgotten something important. What do you think?

Haha, you have. First, offer and demand. Certain items are ultra-rare (25 copies of custom SDPlus dolls), others are hoarded for status (Angelic Halo), and certain vary in rarity over a few weeks (new RIG items can go from 100 billions to 5 billions within two weeks). You'd have to establish a relative price scale for everything while keeping in mind that worth fluctuates. Right now, worth in gold is how we calculate this.

Second, you can't have a user-regulated micro-economy within a larger community. Say I have a Halo, which is worth roughly 6.4 trillion on the Marketplace right now. Before the inflation, it was worth about 7 billion. Following your idea, I could just let someone buy the Halo for 7 billion and trust them to keep it within this tiny trade-only, no-inflation economy. What's keeping them from putting that Halo in the Marketplace and making a 6.393 trillion profit? I would. That's how vending (buying low, selling high) works.

Third, certain items are only attainable by purchasing them directly from the Cash Shop, or purchasing them from someone who bought them in the Cash Shop. GC has a steady conversion rate ($10 is always worth 1,000 GC), so the more gold inflates, the more gold $10 will get you. What you can purchase with that $10 will always more or less stay the same, but the quantity (not the worth) of gold keeps increasing. I personally spend GC sometimes. Since it's real money, I want it to be worth as much as possible on the largest scale possible, which is the regular site-wide economy. If $2 gets you one pack of gum in a local store but ten packs of gum in a supermarket, where do you spend your $2? Do you encourage the local business, or do you spend your money wisely?

I have an idea! I know it's idealistic at best, but you seem alot smarter then me, so I'm going to keep throwing things at you, that on the off chance I come up with something that could actually work, it could help us all. Let say we did make a micro-economy. But not all of Gaia. Just those who participate, and it would a strictly monitored membership-only group, like Costco. It would have rules, like no item can be above a certain price, say 5,000 gold. Now you can get awesome items for really cheap here, BUT, if you EVER trade in the marketplace, your membership is revoked. (I suppose it would be hard to monitor private trades though, wahhh.) If we could find a way to monitor it, it could be successful and beneficial to those participating, inspiring change gaia-wide when they see how succesful and wonderful and steady our lives have become by not encouraging inflation, while the rest of gaia burns into ashes and decays from it's own decadence as people are shocked as the marketplace prices go into the multiple-zillions. What do you think?

It's not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, I think it's been done before in the form of a Guild, though I can't remember the name. The problem is that having a micro-economy means the pool of items is greatly reduced. What happens if you want an item and none of the people in the group has it? You haven't been making any profit (in fact, you've been losing gold) in your little community, so you're unlikely to ever be able to purchase it. The richest users have 50%+ of their wealth in items, and if they need gold, they can just sell a few items to make trillions in a day. (It's how people can keep up with the inflation, by the way: invest in the right items, only sell when you need gold.) Your micro-economy is appealing to the lower/middle class of Gaia because it theoretically means you'll get better items for less gold...but the lower/middle class doesn't have those "better items", or doesn't want to part with them.

Besides, I think that's just avoiding the problem. I'm gonna get a bit political for a second: I'm from Quebec. A lot of people in Quebec want our province to be independent from Canada because recently, Canada has been sucking majorly. Personally, I think it's stupid to solve country-wide issues by bailing on everyone and building a new country that's barely (if at all) self-sustainable. Instead, we should do our job as Canadian citizens and make Canada a better country, together. The situation in Gaia is similar. Even if you do manage to build a micro-economy on the site and manage it adequately, it's going to be limited and flawed, and the consequences for everyone involved would be really bad if it didn't last (zero buying power elsewhere). Overall, I think it's a lot better to focus on what we can do to help the entire site, which is--literally--as simple as to stop the release/purchase of gold generators in the Cash Shop. Once that happens, the economy will regulate itself with all the existing gold sinks in place, even if they're used moderately.

[AnnaBella Nishimura]

sterek

AnnaBella Nishimura

sterek

AnnaBella Nishimura

So wait, bare with me on this one, i'm not super smart. Doesn't that mean we could bypass the economy entirely by just trading amongst ourselves? If we got all the items, and kept them amongst users, refused to acknowledge inflation, and just trade amongst ourselves at reasonable prices, surely that would fix the problem? I feel like I've forgotten something important. What do you think?

Haha, you have. First, offer and demand. Certain items are ultra-rare (25 copies of custom SDPlus dolls), others are hoarded for status (Angelic Halo), and certain vary in rarity over a few weeks (new RIG items can go from 100 billions to 5 billions within two weeks). You'd have to establish a relative price scale for everything while keeping in mind that worth fluctuates. Right now, worth in gold is how we calculate this.

Second, you can't have a user-regulated micro-economy within a larger community. Say I have a Halo, which is worth roughly 6.4 trillion on the Marketplace right now. Before the inflation, it was worth about 7 billion. Following your idea, I could just let someone buy the Halo for 7 billion and trust them to keep it within this tiny trade-only, no-inflation economy. What's keeping them from putting that Halo in the Marketplace and making a 6.393 trillion profit? I would. That's how vending (buying low, selling high) works.

Third, certain items are only attainable by purchasing them directly from the Cash Shop, or purchasing them from someone who bought them in the Cash Shop. GC has a steady conversion rate ($10 is always worth 1,000 GC), so the more gold inflates, the more gold $10 will get you. What you can purchase with that $10 will always more or less stay the same, but the quantity (not the worth) of gold keeps increasing. I personally spend GC sometimes. Since it's real money, I want it to be worth as much as possible on the largest scale possible, which is the regular site-wide economy. If $2 gets you one pack of gum in a local store but ten packs of gum in a supermarket, where do you spend your $2? Do you encourage the local business, or do you spend your money wisely?

I have an idea! I know it's idealistic at best, but you seem alot smarter then me, so I'm going to keep throwing things at you, that on the off chance I come up with something that could actually work, it could help us all. Let say we did make a micro-economy. But not all of Gaia. Just those who participate, and it would a strictly monitored membership-only group, like Costco. It would have rules, like no item can be above a certain price, say 5,000 gold. Now you can get awesome items for really cheap here, BUT, if you EVER trade in the marketplace, your membership is revoked. (I suppose it would be hard to monitor private trades though, wahhh.) If we could find a way to monitor it, it could be successful and beneficial to those participating, inspiring change gaia-wide when they see how succesful and wonderful and steady our lives have become by not encouraging inflation, while the rest of gaia burns into ashes and decays from it's own decadence as people are shocked as the marketplace prices go into the multiple-zillions. What do you think?

It's not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, I think it's been done before in the form of a Guild, though I can't remember the name. The problem is that having a micro-economy means the pool of items is greatly reduced. What happens if you want an item and none of the people in the group has it? You haven't been making any profit (in fact, you've been losing gold) in your little community, so you're unlikely to ever be able to purchase it. The richest users have 50%+ of their wealth in items, and if they need gold, they can just sell a few items to make trillions in a day. (It's how people can keep up with the inflation, by the way: invest in the right items, only sell when you need gold.) Your micro-economy is appealing to the lower/middle class of Gaia because it theoretically means you'll get better items for less gold...but the lower/middle class doesn't have those "better items", or doesn't want to part with them.

Besides, I think that's just avoiding the problem. I'm gonna get a bit political for a second: I'm from Quebec. A lot of people in Quebec want our province to be independent from Canada because recently, Canada has been sucking majorly. Personally, I think it's stupid to solve country-wide issues by bailing on everyone and building a new country that's barely (if at all) self-sustainable. Instead, we should do our job as Canadian citizens and make Canada a better country, together. The situation in Gaia is similar. Even if you do manage to build a micro-economy on the site and manage it adequately, it's going to be limited and flawed, and the consequences for everyone involved would be really bad if it didn't last (zero buying power elsewhere). Overall, I think it's a lot better to focus on what we can do to help the entire site, which is--literally--as simple as to stop the release/purchase of gold generators in the Cash Shop. Once that happens, the economy will regulate itself with all the existing gold sinks in place, even if they're used moderately.

Oh, no, please do get political! One of the main reasons I'm so interested in the gaia inflation and how to fix it, is having to deal with real world inflation. Surely there's some kind of fix? The prices of food at the grocery store just doubled, again. But unlike gaia, there is no daily grant to help even out inflation, no gold sinks in the market place. We brought over a steak to my Aunts birthday and she was horrified, said that we shouldn't spend so much money.
On a steak! When they said a few years back that people would only eat steak on their birthdays I laughed. We're upper middle class and sometimes we turn down bacon because we can't afford it. Inflation is terrifying. I feel genuine sorrow for the lower-middle class, poverty people.
And I know a few who say the food banks are just giving out inedible bloody chicken parts.
What's going to happen to us if this doesn't stop? Starvation? Riots?

When the tiny one bedroom shack down the street sold for 1 million dollars I knew we were in trouble. People are shocked that we managed to find a three bedroom apartment for a thousand a month. These days three bedrooms can go for as much as four thousand dollars a month. The government isn't going to save us, it's the people that need to do something. If we can find a way to create a micro-economy on gaia maybe it would have some real life applications. But maybe not. Maybe they'res no way to save us now.

I live in toronto btw, I heard on the news that this is now the most expensive city to live in, in the entire world. They sounded proud. How depressing.

How are things in Quebec? I also heard they passed that assisted suicide law there. Is that true? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Let me know if you would just talk about gaia though, you're really smart and I like hearing your opinion on things. 3nodding

[sterek]

AnnaBella Nishimura

Oh, no, please do get political! One of the main reasons I'm so interested in the gaia inflation and how to fix it, is having to deal with real world inflation. Surely there's some kind of fix? The prices of food at the grocery store just doubled, again. But unlike gaia, there is no daily grant to help even out inflation, no gold sinks in the market place. We brought over a steak to my Aunts birthday and she was horrified, said that we shouldn't spend so much money.
On a steak! When they said a few years back that people would only eat steak on their birthdays I laughed. We're upper middle class and sometimes we turn down bacon because we can't afford it. Inflation is terrifying. I feel genuine sorrow for the lower-middle class, poverty people.
And I know a few who say the food banks are just giving out inedible bloody chicken parts.
What's going to happen to us if this doesn't stop? Starvation? Riots?

When the tiny one bedroom shack down the street sold for 1 million dollars I knew we were in trouble. People are shocked that we managed to find a three bedroom apartment for a thousand a month. These days three bedrooms can go for as much as four thousand dollars a month. The government isn't going to save us, it's the people that need to do something. If we can find a way to create a micro-economy on gaia maybe it would have some real life applications. But maybe not. Maybe they'res no way to save us now.

I live in toronto btw, I heard on the news that this is now the most expensive city to live in, in the entire world. They sounded proud. How depressing.

How are things in Quebec? I also heard they passed that assisted suicide law there. Is that true? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Let me know if you would just talk about gaia though, you're really smart and I like hearing your opinion on things. 3nodding

Yikes, I knew Toronto was bad with the price of housing in the metropolitan area, but that's just...scary. The price of apartments doesn't surprise me; I had a friend with a $450/month apartment in downtown Montreal and it was just...a room. A sink, a single mattress, a desk, a mini-fridge with a portable stove on top, and the bathroom was a closet-sized toilet and sink combo that fit one person as long as the door was closed. Of course, only the hot water + electricity were included. It was ridiculous. So 3 bedrooms for $1,000, that sounds like a GREAT deal to me now. (Luckily, I still live at home in the suburbs, and our mortgage has been paid off for a while.)

Yes, they allowed assisted suicide (or rather, ruled against the 1993 ban). It seems like it's going to be well regulated on a medical level, so I have no problem with it. A lot of people in my family have degenerative diseases (and I'm at risk for them too) so it's a discussion I've had with them many times, and the consensus is "if I reach a point where I lose all autonomy, it's the option I'd choose". I can respect that. I wouldn't be fine with it, obviously, but I think that a person should have the right to choose to die with dignity and on their own terms when they have a terminal illness that makes the suffer.

Anyway, you should totally friend me, and we can keep discussing via PM!

[esoteric conception]

Thanks for making this thread - the vocabularity used is verbose, and the concepts covered are elucidating for those ignorant to basic economics. I particularly enjoyed your discourse with Vampire_Hunter_CJ (complete with epic ms paint market graphs). Leaning something unintentionally is quite possibly the most satisfying surprise without getting under the sheets. +1

[hito_ritabi]

I'm interested to see if you take the chance to update this thread since there have been gold sinks and more gold generators since Aug'14.

[Vampire_Hunter_CJ]

Submission Control

Thanks for making this thread - the vocabularity used is verbose, and the concepts covered are elucidating for those ignorant to basic economics. I particularly enjoyed your discourse with Vampire_Hunter_CJ (complete with epic ms paint market graphs). Leaning something unintentionally is quite possibly the most satisfying surprise without getting under the sheets. +1

Y'know, if I had known that people would be reading my posts from this thread so many months later, I probably would have put a bit more effort into my visuals. sweatdrop

[Taspira_Ash]

"I breathe you in again just to feel you
underneath my skin, holding on to the
sweet escape is always laced with a familiar
taste of poison.." ~ Halestorm

Thank you for making this thread. I've been a member since '07 and left the site for an extended period of time and recently re-activated my account. I've noticed quite a few changes, especially the ridiculous price changes in the marketplace. Some lovely members of gaia forwarded me to this thread which has been very useful and informative :3

[itzapizzaghost]

bump for support heart

[astromatical]

who the ******** would dislike this thread

he tryna help u out

[Orgasmic Cloud]

Denham

Seriously, this is needed.

I really didnt understand what happened with the gold... That sums it up GG