| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <paul@********.demon.co.uk> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Killing in Shadowrun... |
| Date: | Fri, 24 May 1996 20:41:21 +0100 |
<topcat@******.net> writes
>At 02:14 PM 5/23/96 +0100, Paul wrote:
>>You have mages on salary earning you money. While they're throwing up
>>wards they're not earning money. It's not a cost of handing over cash,
>>it's a cost of lost opportunity.
>
>They aren't going to earn you money anyway other than by maybe putting on
>shows for people, most likely. They will represent quality assets by
>handling those wards for you as well as by doing astral recon and combat
>if/when needed. There is no opportunity lost there, it's just a question of
>one type of asset over another and which will be worth more to the corp in
>the long run.
Mages are useful for *far* more than just raising wards, and when
they're raising wards they're not doing anything else - even being
security, since they're rather distracted. Let's see...
Transport assistance (spirits/elementals with Movement power)
Construction work (Ram and Urban Renewal for situations where explosives
are inadvisable)
Pest control (area effect Slay Cockroach :) )
Major league medical work (paramedics able to use Sterilise spells
before field surgery, Treat and Heal spells immediately after surgery or
for casualties, Antidote Toxin/Cure Disease as alternatives to expensive
drug therapy...)
Lots of entertainment-related work, especially in simsense when magic
comes cheaper than some types of special effects
And that's a few minutes of thought. This all represents income. Turning
your back on income is never done lightly..
>>Except you could have sold it at a very high markup, by your statements,
>>so again you have an opportunity cost.
>
>Yes, but it will still be an asset because it will represent a portion of
>your security assets. Now if there's an item worth (market value) 5000
>nuyen that you build for 500 nuyen and you give to your guards, it still
>represents 5000 nuyen worth of equip (because that's what it'd cost if you
>bought a competitor's version). It only cost you 500 nuyen. Assets are
>raised considerably at little cost this way. Don't think in flat nuyen
>amounts, think in assets. Like a corp.
You had to make it, and you can't sell it. If you buy more assets than
you need, you're wasting money: all of this comes out of money that
could be profits, dividends or investment.
Unless you can point to quantifiable numbers, like proving that there is
a decrease in successful attacks on your facility whose net cost would
have exceeded the cost of the measures to prevent them, this stuff won't
happen.
>>And while they're doing this work, they aren't doing other jobs, aren't
>>subcontracting and pulling in cash, aren't training... Opportunity cost.
>
>You do both. Some people sit around the site doing their bits and you hire
>out consultants of your own. Easy to do and standard corporate practice
>even today. The corps play every market out there, to limit one's reach is
>to cripple the corp.
And you limit your reach by tying up large numbers of your best security
people in hunting shadowrunners.
>>And it depreciates year on year, needs maintenance, regular updates
>>(that computer system is two years old! It's an antique! I thought this
>>was meant to be a secure site!).
>
>But that's all handled and not as security costs. They go under MANY
>different headings in a balance sheet. Everything balances in it's own
>little way. Once again it isn't a matter of nuyen spent here so that
>checking account is lower, it's a matter of debiting accounts and crediting
>others, while a debit can be good in some and a credit can be bad in others.
>Accounting makes sense if you really look into it, but at a glance it is
>pretty confusing.
You don't have to tell me, I just costed a work package for the MoD.
This is why you have auditors and internal checks. Security goes under
security's costs, because other departments scream blue murder. "What do
you mean we have to fund the processor upgrade? The processor's fine!"
"But Security say they need to upgrade the IC-"
"Then Security can pay for it, it's their problem!"
When you have internal accounting systems, this is what happens. Or you
make security an overhead... in which case, they come under an entirely
different set of pressures.
>>But then you can't supply them to others and earn that contract money.
>
>You've got the manpower to do both, you're a megacorp.
But you have to feed, pay, clothe, train and equip that manpower, and
then the more of it you tie up internally the less profitable it
becomes. Of course, you could compromise and cut costs. Are all those
training exercises *strictly* necessary?
>>No, not "little to no" cost. The cost is what you could have sold it
>>for.
>
>The "cost" is nothing. It's a debit somewhere and a credit somewhere else.
>Everything balances, the basis of accounting. It may not balance in a
>checkbook balance way, but it will on a corporate balance sheet.
TopCat, you said we Europeans didn't understand American economics and I
guess you must be right. If you arm, train, equip, feed, house and pay a
man, he is a cost. If employees are effectively free, why did the US
invent the term "downsizing"?
>>On the other hand, you forget the opportunity costs, and that means his
>>estimate isn't as far adrift as you think. On manpower I think he's
>>being excessively conservative.
>
>There is no such thing as opportunity costs in accounting.
There's more to successful business than accounting: all an accountant
tells you is where the money is going, not how to make more of it.
Enterprise means seeing where you could be making money, and turning
possibile into actual profit.
And not considering opportunity cost damn near put my employer into
bankrupcy five years ago: we very nearly collapsed, as the meticulous
accounts proved. The accountants didn't help us get out of the situation
they caused and they had nothing to do with the subsequent recovery.
"There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
