| From: | loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Money and ID (was building a SIN) (quite long) |
| Date: | Tue, 19 Nov 2002 19:41:36 +0000 |
<Snip>
>What do credsticks have to do with it?
>The credstick is your credit card, driver's license,
>and general identification. It is inextricably linked
>to your SIN. If you have one, you have the other.
Yeah, can't fault you there.
>Certified credsticks carry only a Bank
>identification number, an account number, and a
>balance. They are like debit cards that require no
>signature. The money is already set aside, linked to
>that credstick and no other. It is the closest thing
>to cash in the Sixth World. Anyone can use it, until
>the money runs out.
Now this bit I have issues with...
IMOSHO cash must be available on the streets of the sixth world. If nothing
else, Joe Public likes to open his wallet and see a wadge of greenbacks
there. How do 'runners pay their contacts, Lone Star pay their snitches,
corps pay couriers on deliveries that _MUST_ remain untracable.
If Registered and Certified credit are the only ways to move money then
that requires that every busker has a credstick verification reader and a
matrix hook-up, every bootblack must have the same and every single joygirl
must slot a credstick as well as everything else.
More importantly they must all have SINs; in order to receive credit other
than as an entire certified credstick requires a bank account, which
requires a SIN; as only the corps and major clearing banks can create
crertified credit. That means that (according to New Seattle 32% of the
3,000,000 Seattlites are below the poverty line, I'd guess that at _least_
an equal number are SINless) approximately one million people have
absolutely no way of exchanging "funds"...
How come the Barrens still exist? Everyone should have died of years ago,
there's no means for them to grow food, charity can be in no way sufficient
to feed all of them. they have little to trade, barter is virtually
pointless...
Cerified credit is almost as tracable as registered, the stick links to an
account, that account has records in the same way as any other. IMO a major
corp has its own Black Ops teams, the problem with them is that they're
tracable to the corp, they appear in personnel records (albeit very well
hidden) they're paid, their equipment is mostly purchased by the corp.
Deniable Assets must have no direct link to the corp if they're paid from a
corp's accounts (including via shell companies, holding companies... etc.)
Look at Blood in the Boardroom, Richard Villiers buys Fuchi holdings
through dozens of different holding companies and he's still traced.
Imagine some of the "bad" 'runs which I've heard described; building
demolitions with death tolls running into the thousands... If that sort of
thing was even remotely tracable exactly what would the Corporate Court do
to the corp which sent the 'runners? Yes the corps can, and often do pay
certified credit which has been "laundered" but a breifcase full of large,
unmarked, nonsequential bills still has to be the least tracable methods
around...
The elimination of cash would have a huge impact on crime, why mug a man if
there is no chance of taking anything you can use without a massive
criminal network to launder the money. But when you consider the savings
crime can result in for a corp (in the form of industrial espionage mostly
but where would Lone Star be without crime, how much does Ares save by
contracting out Knight Errant when they aren't doing Ares work?) it makes
less sense to eliminate the petty criminals, the big ones, the major
organisations will still be there.
I hope I haven't put anyone to sleep with that :-)
--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."
www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction
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