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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Todd Montgomery <tmont@****.WVU.EDU>
Subject: Scrip again
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 09:50:24 -0400
According to CSF (Corp ShadowFiles) the corps. require employee ID
with any transactions using scrip within there grounds. This I have
no problem with. The problem I have is the assumption that because
of this no one out side of the corp. will accept the money. They
say this happens anyway, but it is illegal. This promotes just what
J has said. The corp is sticking their "head in the sand". The advantages
for a corp to produce its own money and promote a healthy market
IMO outweigh the loss in product. From the corps point of view the
transaction of money does nothing. It does not directly affect them.
Only when it occurs with their products or items does it affect them
and this only legally happens in the corp. ANd then the money is in
corp. hands.


-- Quiktek
-- Todd Montgomery
tmont@****.wvu.edu
tmont@***.wvu.edu
un032507@*******.wvnet.edu
Message no. 2
From: Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@***.NEU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Scrip again
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 12:04:23 EDT
I think people are forgetting the real purpose behind corp scrip.
Scrip is normally issued to an employee as part of their salary. This
has two major effects from the perspective of the corp:

1: It limits the quantity of liquid assets the employee has, which
limits how much he can spend outside the corp. This is desirable
because of #2:

2: It makes up the difference in "corporate credit" that can only be
spent on corporate merchandise, incentive to keep the employee within
corporate bounds.

Furthermore, the corp really pays nothing to the emplyoee when they
pay in scrip; the corp will recoup it all, at the minor expense of
giving their employees some niceties.

In other words, corps issue scrip because it's a hell of a lot less
costly than paying in real money.

Rat <ratinox@***.neu.edu> Northeastern's Stainless Steel Rat
PGP Public Key Block available upon request Ask about rat-pgp.el v1.61
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--Metallica, Of Wolf and Man
Message no. 3
From: Chris Siebenmann <cks@********.UTCS.TORONTO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Scrip again
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 11:56:56 -0400
Corporate-issue script represents a debt that the corp may be called on
to redeem. As such, it makes a great deal of sense for the the corp to
want to control this, so it can control its debt obligation to random
strangers. At the same time, making corp script only accepted from
employees provides you with a stronger control over them; if they hold
substantial amounts of corp script, they have an incentive to stay with
you.

Trading in corp script by non-corpers is not technically illegal except
in the corp extraterritoriality zones. It's just not accepted outside them
in situations where it would be too much of a hassle to redeem, and it will
be accepted for less than its nominal true value, since it has to be fenced
to be worth anything.

Corps can issue true currency if they want to; they're called 'stocks'
and 'bonds'.

- cks

Further Reading

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Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!