Duke_Freedom

Did you actually sell one or know anyone who sold for that price? They never reached 1bil. Yes there have been a ton of people "trying to sell with autowins 1bil", but that doesn't mean the price ever reached 1bil... They never came much above 800mil, if they even reached that.

Blues are selling for as low as 370m, thats an 80m drop, if you didnt spend all your time illigally selling mils on [Censored] you would be able to pay more attention to the market. Santas were 26m in december, now they are 20m, couseing me a net loss of about 120m. If you actually kept track of the prices, then you would be able to know what you are talking about. Prices of santa's during december were around 23-24mil. And I see enough offers for blue phats on the official forums to say that their price is not 370mil and probably more towards 385-390mil at the moment. Rares did loose some ground over the past 6 months though. Their prices have probably mainly been unstable due to updates in the game. Crackers never reached 1bil. And the peak for santa's was way over the top anyway.

I said that you bring it up as an important reason (which you do) and I disagree with that. Yes - we were not talking about an increase of macroing though, but about an increase in the popularity of skills, which would mean an increased demand in materials and, by "constant" macroing, an increase in the price of materials. To my records they were 625 a year ago and if you really want to know, magic logs were sold in bulk at 1300 each too then - but I didn't really come here to discuss old prices... My point was that you are claiming way too quickly that these price rises are related to skill capes, while there can be loads of reasons for it and while the fluctuation is way too small to say it is caused by the skill capes. Skills have cost the same price for years now and this value tag doesn't "suddenly" influence the prices of rares now - it always did already.

Doesn't the fact that several skills cost near the amount of money of a phat nowadays (without skill capes in the game) in itself already influence the price of rares negatively? I think you're way too quick in your conclusion that specifically the skill capes have such an important effect, especially since rares were already going sideways in price long before the skill capes even came into the game. I mean, I'm sure that the fact that a purple phat can buy you 99 smithing effects the prices of rares, but I don't think skill capes had much influence in making that effect even larger. You're saying that the "amount of autoing" reacts on the demand? Sorry, no. If you actually kept track of material prices you'd have known that price changes of 10-20% over long time periods are not that uncommon and thus not that significant at all. Besides, it can be very hard to track what really causes such small changes in material prices in the first place anyway. You also claim strung yew longs are at a high price, yet their current price is still ~50gp below the price they had a year ago? I'm not seeing these "definite signs" at all.

A bit more time to reply now.. One failure in the whole arguement is that it doesn't adres that raw material prices never changed as a result of the update. Skill capes could have been introduced 2 years ago as well and the skill capes would have cost the same then too, while rares would have been much cheaper - would you have argued that materials should go down / rares go up then? I don't see why it suddenly matters that there are now skill capes as we haven't seen a change in price of materials as a result of the skill capes. Among all the various reasons one might bring up for rares sideways fluctuation (third age, lower player population growth, etc etc) I perceive it to be a rather unsignificant reason.

I don't think skill capes are a significant reason for why rares have been stagnant for so long now.

I am indeed looking at it both macro-economic as well as individual. I had to read over that part a few times so I hope I get it right. The lending of money of China to America does directly effect the standard of living in China because - if the money was not lend to America - the money could instead be used to increase the standard of living in China. Yes that's what I'm saying. China and other countries are mildly worried, otherwise they wouldn't have made various statements throughout the recent years that they seek to diversify their foreign currency reserves. Also note that I'm not saying that it is completely inevitable that the dollar crashes, although I do want to add that I think it will require some major changes in the current economic policies of America. As I also mentioned in an earlier post, the dollar has already lost significant ground (~33%) in the past years and if nothing changes I expect the near future to continue likewise. And there are other issues other then the budget deficit, trade deficit and future liabilities America has too. America has actually been printing (where printing shouldn't be taking as litteral as physical creation of bills) considerable amounts of $'s throughout the past decade. Interestingly, the Federal Reserve actually discontinued the publishment of the M3 money supply numbers - an act that is widely perceived as suspicious, to say the least. Basically, we can't even check the actual money supply numbers anymore. They have to pay the debt back sooner or later anyway. As a country they profit from a crashing dollar as they will 'make money' in the sense that they have to pay back a lot less then they used to owe. If the dollar collapses, the export position of America will evolve for the better. The effects of such a crash could stretch further then anyone can currently oversee though. So ofcourse it is in noone interest that a doomscenario for the dollar actually happens - an important reason why the existance of such a bubble is actually possible too. However using this as an arguement to continue the current situation is obviously not valid. Something has to be done, or it will eventually and inevitably go wrong. And no half-arsed measurements, but dedicated and consistent economic policies should be set in place to ensure this.

Hm, but especially the people in China are not that wealthy. Ofcourse the analogy shouldn't be taken as litteral in that people are starving because of it, but the point is that they are living below their standards to allow americans to live above their standards. Because they think it is good for them, which is what I am arguing against. The problem is that this lending of money goes on not in their own currency - which would be normal to hedge against the valuta risk - but in the foreign currency. I am not against world trade, I am against funding the overconsumption and "living above your standard" from americans and I say that it is very possible that non-americans will eventually pay the cost of that, because the money we lend out will be worth less when it is paid back. I am also saying that non-american countries as a result may not profit from this by artificial boost in their export at all in the end. Why don't you see the circular reasoning in this though? They are not solving the problem - which is that America is living above its standards - but only making the problem worse, by continuing to expand their dollar positions. America will care less than us if their dollar collapses, because it will both make their debt expressed in products smaller and because they know that it is very likely that the whole world will end up in a recession too. Reason enough to stop the process from getting worse and worse. Ofcourse this does not mean "all countries sell your dollar reserves today" with all the disastrous effects that would bring with itself.

It can be just as hard to prove that something is based on discrimination.

People can do the same if they are discriminated.

Which is mental harm, exactly the same as in the example you gave as that causes mental harm as well.

Then you would be ok with discrimination too as it doesn't cause any physical harm either.

I've read this arguement too often in all the articles that I have read about it and I personally believe it to be an extreme circular reasoning. In short the arguement states that it is best for everyone that the dollar does not crash because that will lead to a huge drop in the export of other countries. I've once heard a nice analogy to the situation which I find to be very applicable here: Assume we have 4 people on an island. An american, a chinese, an european and a japanese. Now they divided the tasks on the island: the japanese man catches fish, the european hunts wild beasts and the chinese man gathers wood for a fire to cook the food on. The american? His task is to eat the food that was gathered and to leave just enough food so that the others don't starve of hunger. Instead of arguing that the japanese, chinese and european wouldn't have a job without the american, the right conclusion would be that they should throw the american in the sea and consume their products themselves - they would be much better off in that case. The point is, money doesn't come out of nowhere. What noone really seems to realize that the deficits of America are eventually going being paid by someone - and probably not the Americans themselves. If the dollar does eventually crash, the huge loans that America has will be worth much less than what they were worth when we lend them the money. All of America's loans are noted in dollars - if the dollar price falls, the one who loaned the money will loose money when the loan is payed back. My opinion? Non-american countries have made (and are still making) a huge mistake by lending America more and more money, noted in it's own currency, the dollar. They are taking a huge and irresponsible valuta risk and will eventually pay the cost of doing so.

Ok having read through the pages a bit now it seems that Satenza does not believe in absolutes and you do believe in absolutes? How about, in a relativist society everything is neutral (as there will always be people believing that it's good and people believing that it is wrong). This means that discrimination is neutral and this is no longer considered discrimination anymore? Who says a democracy is the best governement type for a relativist society anyway? There will be people arguing that too? Why should every persons opinion "count just as much"? Who's to say that's "good" in a relativist society? I thought an objective "good" did not exist in a relativist society? As I said in my earlier post, there is no room for discussion if you don't believe in absolutes, because fundamentally people will be disagreeing no matter what - thus I'm really not understanding the use of this discussion.

Then why did your reply to me only state that my statement was only true if absolute truths / "better" exists? You basically admit that you weren't arguing anything now?

That's only if you believe in an absolute to define "better." Some people might think irrationality is better. Some people might believe discrimination is better. Unless there is an absolute good, "better" cannot exist absolutely as you suggest. By taking your stance, you are denying that there is a "better" in the first place and thus there is no use in discussion anything. You're just defying logic, not arguing.

The numbers above said 1 euro = $ 1.30 already. :P As BlueLancer said, Iran and various other oil countries have already been getting rid of their dollars and exchanging them for euro's. The effect of that is relatively small to the impact China would have though. It is not a joke that if China announced to not buy any new dollars (saying nothing about selling their current reserves yet) that would already have considerable consequences for the dollar. Japan holds similar huge dollar reserves as well by the way. Having seen and read a lot about this I would say the dollar has no other way to go then downwards in the long run though. As a result of the weakening dollar the past decade, things like oil and gold have been rising quite steadily too.

Investement / accomplishement are the major reasons why people buy rares.

Yes, a backing for a currency is not 'necessary' to keep the currency stable and printing money to a certain extend is even better if you want to keep a stable economy as well (as a "correction" for population growth and an increase in overall wealth). The most important of a currency remain the price stability, wide acceptance and easy tradability. The US still has some gold though. Not everyone is so sure about that. Either way, if the dollar collapses it won't end up in such extreme rises anyway. In a way, the dollar has already lost a lot of ground though: EUR/DOL 2001 = ~0.85 EUR/DOL now = ~1.30 Besides, America has a huge trade deficit that grew extremely throughout the past years. Not to mention the well-known debt clock and the future liabilities the government has with regards to the social security and medicare.

Ah that explains some. Discrimination can never be "better for the society" either as discrimination is not 'useful' in the first place. It's irrational, as simply follows from the definition of discrimination. Irrationality is not "better for the society" at all.

I don't know anything about the exact situation there ofcourse, but the scenario seems general enough to summarize it as follows: What you need to understand is that money itself, in essence, is worthless. Its paper value is worth next to nothing and it has no practical use other then the ability to buy and sell other products/services with it. This means that the value of money is completely based on the faith/trust people have in the currency. The faith in currency (and thus "the price" of the currency) comes from the widely acceptance of the currency in transaction, the price stability of the currency, the easy tradability of the currency and (possibly) a governmental "insurance" of the currency (like the old gold standard used to be for the dollar - but there are other sorts of "insurances" too). Printing money directly influences the price stability of a currency. Because money itself is worthless, the creation of new currency does not create any value at all. Now if a certain currency - let's call it X - is valued $1 right now and the governement prints so many new X bills that the total amount of currency X in the economy doubled then the value of one X is halved in terms of $'s. In other words, you could say that printing money is a direct tax on people who own the currency. Enforcing artificially low prices, price controls, imposing restrictions on the currency of people all break down the "easy tradability" of the currency. As a result of the money printing and the removal of the easy tradability, the acceptance of the currency disappears as well. Would you "buy" a currency with your product if you knew that within a few days it would only be worth 10% of what you "paid" for it? No. And then the faith is nearly completely gone and thus the "value" of the currency approaches its intrinsic value (which is next to zero) more and more. Bottom line is - printing money is an artificial way of funding your budget deficit and will ruin an economy if it is overdone.

Since when is discrimination subjective and why do so many debates in the off topic board seem to end up in discussions about "absolute truths"? Definition discrimination: An act based on prejudice. Definition prejudice: Preconceived judgment or opinion. I don't see where the subjective part comes into play? Discrimination is a completely well-defined objective concept. However, it is partly true that there have been times that people did not realize/consciously ignored that something was discrimination - that does not stop it from being discrimination though.

That's what you get when people who have no clue about economics are trying to run communist states. :roll:

Sell below average market price / high alch if you want cash only and fast trading.

I disagree with this already. In one sentence I could summarize that what I'm saying is that the simple act of informing young people about the existance of homosexuality can already influence them. Now I'm realistic, so I say we should be informing them about the existance of it and that people should not be discriminating others because of it, etc... However, I am strongly against over-informing people about it and, as a result, making it seem normal by doing so. Allowing same-sex couples to adopt children obviously goes under this too - it has too much negative effect on the child. If you don't see how this could have a negative effect on uncertain people then I don't think it is of much use discussing further about it though, because we'll keep on disagreeing anyway.