NES Economics Thread

[Masada]

Downright theft is the answer for most of history to hyper inflation and even now

But yeah it all feeds back to the fact that most mods are ignorant of the mechanisms which might lead to hyperinflation, hence my attempt to educate people.

I think I've made progress, I have Das hooked on Malthus or at least aware of why countries in pre-industrial societies should be wretchedly poor in varying degrees

 

[fantasmo]

So what kind of hyperinflation would result from directing the nation's entire budget towards turning a merely sexy messiah into a very sexy one?

I will have you know that I directed at most one sixth of my economy towards making myself sexier in GoobNES, which is hardly enough to cause hyperinflation...

But I can only assume that as it generated some form of "sexy-race", the burgeoning sexy-industrial complex would have caused large amounts of growth, eventually underpinning the health of my economy, and as the sexy equivalent of the Cold War came to a close, the very same sexy-industrial complex that had for so long held my nation together would instead become a political albatross, as I needed it less and less, but due to it's large size and strength in economic terms, I would be unable to reduce my dealings with it substantially without a sizable backlash.

On a slightly more serious note: would you perhaps be able to explain to me, Dearest Masada, the upsides and downsides of my beloved home nation (Australia, for the dimwitted folks at home) having a growing CAD?

 

[Masada]

Well the key point I'd like to make is that its a growing Current Account Deficit (CAD) really plumped up by investment borrowing (Australia has one of the worst saving habits in the world). It's not a consumption driven CAD, ie. we are not borrowing money to finance the purchase of consumption goods (TV's and the like). Australia also has had a persistant deficit... from sometime in the fifties 54 I think from memory. So we know that the CAD is primarily driven by borrowing to finance borrowing (to expand the economy), we know that Australia has had a persistent CAD since the fifties and has had since at least the seventies a terrible saving regime. Calling it growing is also a touch dodgy, the CAD has increased for a number of years before our current mineral boom, because there was alot of borrowing to build new projects, but that has narrowed with the corresponding increase in exports, Australia is also a small nation so our current account tends to move around quite abit, any big project tends to tip it upwards measurably, something that does not happen in bigger countries. Some other problems are the attractiveness of Australia for the overnight money trade, Japan loved us to bits as did many other countries, before the credit crisis and after simply because we offered higher returns, due to our relatively higher interest rates and our secure banking sector. Another fun little fact is that Australia's housing boom (prices grew significantly up to a 100%+ in many cities) was financed with primarily foreign $. That just a general hash of the context.

Do I see it as a problem, no. It's being used for investment in industry, and has actively fueled our economic growth. We are not at the stage of borrowing to finance imports, and our net exports has been growing at a rate faster than our net imports for quite awhile... convergence is however unlikely because we are cripe savers. Its also unlikely to be a problem for much longer... Australia isn't borrowing as much and won't till the credit problems end and the banks begin being able to solicit funds (call it 2 years), minerals prices are going to steady soon, the Chinese are just sitting on big inventories... but there will be significantly decreased demand. I also suspect that China is harboring some zombie banks because I doubt highly they were not involved in buying up some of the delightful garbage the Yanks were selling. I also suspect the Eurozone is going to pay harder than America in the coming problems... Britain will pay in blood for its high indebtedness in terms of both government and private debt. I honestly think that more European banks are going to go down than America, the writing is on the wall for proper banks in Europe (supposedly they are heavily regulated... and thus invulnerable to bad things... but they bought up more securities than the Yanks some of them) whereas the Yanks are just feeling the bite in Investment banks with perhaps peripheral chances of banks proper going down (they won't be allowed to fall... and nobody is silly enough to allow Citibank etc to go down... least of all anyone who profits selling to the states). Australia will suffer... but our CAD will go down it's not all that worrying atm with some caveats.

Note: At this stage I'm not functioning very well... a long week, long hours, and little sleep. So forgive me any poorly put together sentences etc.

 

[Masada]

Of interest:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.c...ects-for-a-stimulus-package/?apage=1#comments

 

[The Strategos]

Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity seems to be fairly well priced.

I have an access to a copy of this book right now if you need a review for it.



-International Relations in the Ancient Near East, 1600-1100 BC by Mario Liverani. Pricy, but my favorite non-primary text reference for the time period. Of specific application to what I think you want is the discussion how the politics of the day influenced nations’ worldviews and economy, especially with regards to trade.

Spoiler Table of Contents :

Introduction
Part I: Territory and Borders
* Inner vs. Outer Territory
* Universal Control
* The Boundaries of the World
* Symbolic Attainment of the World Border
* The Coexistence of Different States
* Moving Borders
* The Boundary as a Watershed for Taxation
* The Boundary as a Watershed for Responsibilities
* Runaways and Extradition
* Messengers and "Ambassadors"
Part II: War And Alliance
* The One against Many
* War as Elimination of the Rebels
* Conquest as a Cosmic Organization
* Peace as Submission
* Ordeal by War
* The Rules of War
* The Battle of Megiddo
* Peace as Mutual Recognition
* The Ideology of Protection
* The Ideology of Brotherhood
Part III: Circulation of Goods
* Priority and Continuity of the Redistributive Pattern
* Intervention of the Reciprocal Pattern
* Accumulation vs. Circulation
* Self-sufficiency vs. Interdependence
* The Ideology of Life
* Hatshepsut and Punt: Trade or Tribute?
* Wen-Amun and Zakar-Ba`al: Gift or Trade?
* The Annals of Tuthmosis III: Tribute or Gift?
* The Origins of Tribute
* Equal vs. Unequal Marriages

Economies Beyond Agriculture in the Classical World Edited by David Mattingly and John Salmon. Never used it, but have access to a copy right now and wouldn't mind browsing it for you.

Spoiler :

Part 1: Introduction
*The Productive Past: Economies beyond Agriculture
Part 2: Modelling the Ancient Economy
*Productive to some purpose? The problem of ancient economy growth
*Regional productions in early Roman Gaul
*Leptiminus (Tunisia): a ‘producer’ city?
*The fourth factor: managing non-agricultural production in the Roman world
Part 3: Extraction
*Making money in classical Athens
*Stone quarrying in the Eastern Desert with particular reference to Mons Claudianus and Mons Porphyrites
*Who bore the burden? The organization of stone transport in Roman Egypt
Part 4: Construction
*Temples the measures of men: public building in the Greek economy
*Rebuilding the temple: the economic effects of piety
*Bricks and mortar: exploring the economics of building techniques at Rome and Ostia
Part 5: Textile Production
*Timgad and Textile Production
*The Gallo-Roman woolen industry and the great debate: the Igel column revisited

A History of Money: From Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies. Another book I have access to right now but have never used. The peer reviewed reviews from Amazon seem to like it. Chapters 2 and 3 seem to be the significant ones for this

Spoiler :

Chapter 2
*Pre-metallic money
*Fijian whales’ teeth and Yap stones
*Wampum: The favourite American-Indian money
*Cattle: man’s first working-capital asset
*Pre-coinage metallic money
*Money and banking in Mesopotamia
*Girobanking in early Egypt
*Coin and cash in early China
*Coinage and the change from primitive to modern economies
*The invention of coinage in Lydia and Ionian Greece
Chapter 3
*The widening circulation of coins
*Laurion silver and Athenian coinage
*Greek and metic private bankers
*The attic money standard
*Banking in Delos
*Macedonian money and hegemony
*The financial consequences of Alexander the Great
*Money and the rise of Rome
*Roman finance, Augustus to Aurelian, 14 BC-AD 275
*Diocletian and the world’s first budget 284-305
*Finance from Constantine to the Fall of Rome
*The nature of Graeco-Roman monetary expansion

I should also mention that I have full access to JSTOR, which carries full text journal articles. After looking at its “Terms and Conditions of Use” policy, I can safely say that I am permitted to distribute the full text articles to a non-member “for the purposes of collaboration, comment, or the scholarly exchange of ideas.”

In just a brief search of their database, some articles which seem promising:

“The Agricultural Base of the pre-Incan Andean Civilizations” Arthur Morris The Geographic Journal 165, (1999).

“Believing the Ancients: Quantitative and Qualitative Dimensions of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Later Prehistoric Eurasia” Timothy Taylor World Archaeology 33 (2001)

“Regional Survey, Demography, and the Rise of Complex Societies in the Ancient Aegean: Core-Periphery, Neo-Malthusian, and Other Interpretive Models” John Bintliff Journal of Field Archaeology 24 (1997)

“Machines, Power, and the Ancient Economy” Andrew Wilson The Journal of Roman Studies 92, (2002)

“Political Economy in Early Mesopotamian States” Norman Yofee, Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995)

 

[Masada]

Thanks Strategos. Have a look for me if you can of all those you haven't had a look at.

I'm fairly sure I have access to JSTOR but I can't remember my access, and I can't really be bothered going into Uni to find out. Propagate that knowledge!

 

[The Strategos]

Thanks Strategos. Have a look for me if you can of all those you haven't had a look at.

I will once I turn in my master's thesis in a week. These presents should keep you busy until then.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Thanks Strategos!

 

[Immaculate]

Q:
In reference to ancient or classical times, was there a practice of allowing individual cities a large degree of economic independence or did the capitals force other cities to 'tow the company line'.
What were the affects?
What was it called if it had a real name?

i.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Q:
In reference to ancient or classical times, was there a practice of allowing individual cities a large degree of economic independence or did the capitals force other cities to 'tow the company line'.
What were the affects?
What was it called if it had a real name?

i.

In ancient times the primary goal of any city was to have enough food. Trade consisted of some combination of imported food and other goods not produced locally or exported food and goods needed elsewhere. Convenient stopover points between city A and city B could prosper because of trade between A & B. I do not believe that there was control over a cities trade, unless a more powerful city demanded or bought up all the goods it needed or wanted.

Rome needed Egypts grain and much of it was shipped to Rome. Did rome control Egypt's trade? Yes, but that was the reason Rome conquered Egypt.

 

[BananaLee]

I will once I turn in my master's thesis in a week. These presents should keep you busy until then.

I've got access to JSTOR and a whole pile of other databases as well so shoot me a PM and I'll upload them if you need me to

 

[Masada]

In reference to ancient or classical times, was there a practice of allowing individual cities a large degree of economic independence or did the capitals force other cities to 'tow the company line'.

Define independence. You could be talking about freedom to pursue their own trade, or freedom to work within a prescribed 'state' level trade framework, or having their entire economic policy controlled by a central polity. You can end up with all three.

 

[Immaculate]

Lets say fairly independent- as independent as would be realistic in classical times. Trade and production may even compete between cities of the nation.

 

[das]

Way to dodge the question. "Were the cities economically independent in classical times as would be realistic in classical times?" Also, I presume you are mostly talking about the Roman Empire, because the standard policy of the Greek city-states towards other cities within their states was to pretty much stomp them into the ground as far as economy was concerned (and Eastern economy/politics is a different story entirely from what I recall, though I suppose that later Mesopotamia (and Persia?) was not without some similarities).

 

[Dachs]

the standard policy of the Greek city-states towards other cities within their states was to pretty much stomp them into the ground as far as economy was concerned

Eh? Clarify, please.

 

[das]

I'm not sure if it ever happened in practice, since most cities were either too weak to dominate their regions or too powerful (and prosperous) to even have such problems. But if there ever was the threat of another city in Attica becoming a commercial center to surpass Athens, would the Athenians have reacted in any other way but to curb it brutally inasmuch as it was in their power? What I am saying is that Greek cities did not like competition and so were opposed to letting their subject settlements become such.

 

[Dachs]

I'm not sure if it ever happened in practice, since most cities were either too weak to dominate their regions or too powerful (and prosperous) to even have such problems. But if there ever was the threat of another city in Attica becoming a commercial center to surpass Athens, would the Athenians have reacted in any other way but to curb it brutally inasmuch as it was in their power? What I am saying is that Greek cities did not like competition and so were opposed to letting their subject settlements become such.

Ah, I was thinking about something else, more Hellenistic and further east. Yeah, the Athenians especially were into mercantilistic practices (see, for example, the Megarian Decree and their tireless efforts to secure the slave mart at Delos), and most of the poleis pretty jealously guarded their markets. Rhodes was particularly bad about this in the Hellenistic era, especially after they took over the Ptolemaic League of Islanders.

 

[das]

I did specifically say city-states, right? Yes, the Hellenistic states were obviously different, and perhaps most interesting in this regard, since unlike Rome they were not as obviously centered on one city's interests and elites.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

Out of curiousity, what are the worst typical economics errors in NESing?

 

[bombshoo]

Out of curiousity, what are the worst typical economics errors in NESing?

As in errors in the rule set or errors made by players?