IC -- A Personal Digression Upon Investment

[sythyry]

[I personally don't agree with Sythyry on this, and didn't much want zir to write it, but zie insisted. -bb]

I find I have no great desire to set my money whirling around the tree, even if it should, in time, come back doubled and redoubled. 

First of all, it seems to me that money should be a reward for honest effort.  I am properly paid -- and paid well! -- for enchantments, for healings, and (paid poorly! I am not that good!) for embroidery and smithwork.    More money, I suppose, is deserved for risky endeavours, such as adventuring: but the risk multiplies the reward due to the effort; it does not add it it.  Pure investments of money, such as giving a wine-trader ten thousand lozens for a long trading trip and hoping that my share after it is done is eleven thousand, are no significant effort on my part, and do not particularly fit my dignity as a noble of sorts. 

Second: Nor even my convenience.  I do not wish to be forever fussing to find good merchants to invest in, fretting about how their commerce is going, losing money when I guess wrongly, gleefully noting a few more lozens when I guess rightly.  Bankers do this sort of thing, which is why banks and bankers are wealthy.  It is not how I wish to spend my time... and, though time is plentiful, my special tricks with time will not help much for this.  

Third: La!  Which is to say, my primary concerns are, I think, the safety of prime civilization from Vae; my friends and companions; enchantment; the cause of transaffection.  Perhaps I am missing something, and probably I should count fine dining among them.  These are enough for a somewhat over-full life (and, with fine dining, an over-full belly as well).  Fussing about money and investments is none of these; money is a means to an end, and, as an enchanter, I generally can earn more, honestly, at need.

Besides, I dread to imagine what sorts of Doom I could get in, if I indulged in investing.

Comments

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

Indeed. You could truly buy the farm that way.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

I am not surprised you feel this way. There are even monster cultures that feel that being a merchant is lower in status than being a farmer because the merchant does not actually create anything - they only move things around. (My own culture ranks bankers as highest in status and farmers amongst the lowest - my culture is really backwards)

You might ponder ways beyond the running of Castle Wrong to monetarily support the cause of transaffection, but honestly you're not really the activist type (it's almost a variant on adventurer, but you're dealing with other primes rather than monsters so the tactics/strategies are completely different) and I've no idea where/who you'd go to figure such a thing out.

Sounds like ~mother~ was actually right on this one - land is a good way of holding money you don't need/want right now without paying for it and without requiring an apprenticeship with a banker (*shudder*) to understand. The simple rule would be "bank for spending money, land for spare money".

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

There are even monster cultures that feel that being a merchant is lower in status than being a farmer because the merchant does not actually create anything

Merchants create the most valuable thing of all: time. Imagine what life would be like if you had to individual approach every farmer and manufacturer of the things you use in life and arrange for their purpose and transportation. Thankfully we have people who deal with all that for us so unstead we can just go to one convenient location and get what we want in one trip.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[I really didn't want to forward that to the time-mage... -bb]

They don't create time. They may let one use one's ordinary allotment of time more efficiently -- which is all to the good! and worth paying them for! -- but they do not create it the way I do.

However, I don't think anyone was suggesting I be a merchant. They suggested that I invest in merchants. Now, I understand that investing in a merchant is, in effect, helping people in distant countries save time (and, more relevantly, get goods that they could not get from nearby), but it doesn't feel like I'm doing very much, because I am simply sitting at home fretting.

So I shan't be doing that.

I shall fret about other things, like what to do about Feralan, and how to fix my skyboat. These frets seem more consequential somehow.

[Sythyry sometimes does pick up new ideas, but they take a while to get into zir head, and zie's a bit pompous about refusing before that. Better than many WTfolk, who don't even think about them; but certainly not fast. -bb]

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Your ~Mother~'s distrust of banks is I can only assume well earned. There are several large dragony types I can think of, who, fully anticipating living many many centuries, don't place much trust in the financial institutions of short-lived species, as you may pop off for a nap and wake up several centuries later wondering where the Bank of So&So has gone, when they, and in fact their entire civilization was wiped out by a neighbor several decades ago, and their conquerors were not too particular about maintaining financial record.

I don't assume this sort of thing happens often on the Tree though, and I haven't seen Zi ri to be terribly deep sleepers.

To whit: it is difficult for a servant to embezzle your bed (provided your bed is a vast collection of coinage and gems), holdings, and large heavy treasures. Even more difficult if you conveniently fail to inform said servant of the location and composition of the vast majority of your hoard investments. It is a lesson well learned, I think, not to place more trust/responsibility in any one servant than you can write off without much anguish.

[rowyn]

Thanks for sticking up for the usefulness of merchants. :)

[rowyn]

# 2 and #3 are, truly, quite good reasons for not wanting to spend one's time fussing over investments or, indeed, money. If you like your job and earn plenty enough money for your purposes at it already, there's no particular need to struggle to get even more money by other methods. Money is a means, not an end.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Even the culture in question was glad to have merchants around. They just weren't accorded as much status based on their profession as guildsmen, farmers, or scholars/generals (nobility), who were accorded more status in roughly that order. Honestly, we don't like our own traveling salesmen much more than they did.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you could show off your wisdom and judgment of character by being able to pick the business ventures with a high chance of success. And you could do it by mysterious and flashy means.

Isn't Castle Wrong an investment in every sense but the expectation of lozens pouring out?

[redbird]

Emotionally, I agree with your number 1. Intellectually, I realize that the kind of culture I live in (and I like important aspects of this) requires the ability to lend and borrow money.

As for the convenience, it may come down to figuring out which of finding good merchants; finding a trustworthy bank and accountant (or three and dividing the risk but increasing the work); and selecting and buying suitable land, emeralds, and so on is the least hassle for you. And that's a lot more about what kind of zi ri you are than about any easily measurable thing: your mother clearly prefers to spend zir time selecting land rather than accountants.

I suppose you could take the long view, put some of it in land or gems for now, and look for a young, trustworthy traff person who would be willing to go to accounting school and work for you afterwards. That expands your pool of candidates, and "trustworthy person willing to be an accountant and okay with numbers" is likely to be a larger group than "trustworthy unemployed accountants."

[zeeth_kyrah]

Ah, but social improvements are of greater value than money. Some mistake money for value, but it is merely a placeholder after all.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I think I would be better off trying to keep my wisdom and judgment of character hidden! I do not think much of either one.

My translator translates "investment" as "An asset or item that is purchased with the hope that it will generate income or appreciate in the future." If we are not mistaken about your use of the term -- and I believe that my translator is mistaken -- then, yes, Castle Wrong is an investment in every sense but the financial. So too is the bun I bought last week, or, indeed, anything purchased. Perhaps you could explain in a more easily translated way, for my translator is being unusually dense today.

[rowyn]

I think "investment" here was used in the more general sense of "spending a resource now in the hopes of later rewards". The resources do not have to be monetary: one can invest time in a project, for example, or invest emotions in a relationship. The rewards do not have to be monetary either: one could hope for one's invested feelings to be rewarded with loyalty and/or devotion. Or time to be rewarded with pleasure.

Or one's house open to traff people to be rewarded with happy traff people and greater social acceptance of transaffection.

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Of course, assuming we are speaking of the same culture, it could be attributed to sour grapes. Our traveling salesmen can be pushy and annoying, while their merchants were frequently (or at least apparently) more wealthy then near everyone else, ruling caste aside.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I continue to be perplexed by the term. Generally, when I buy something, I expect to get some form of goodness from it. Oh, there are exceptions; when I accidentally burn a hat in a milliner's shop, I buy it out of a sense of obligation. Similarly with other expenditures of resources.

So, does the word simply mean, "Something which one buys (for some currency) hoping to get good from it (of some form)?"

Have you another translator for sale? This one is not doing a very good job today.

[rowyn]

I am inordinately fond of your translator, Sythyry. I would take it as a great favor if you would see your way to treating your translator kindly.

"Investing" has the connotation of "future value" rather than immediate use. So you're using a resource now in an effort to secure something which you believe will be of more value to you in the future. There is generally some risk or uncertainty in the process: you won't know for sure that your investment is as rewarding as you hoped it would be until that time of payoff has arrived.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possible, but I feel like I've already assumed too much understanding of a culture based on different values and worldviews than my own. I am comfortable saying that merchants would send their brightest children to school so they could become scholars (and therefore nobility) and thus increase the prestige of the family.

(the culture in question is China, particularly during the Han dynasty, although some aspects of this status assessment can be seen even to today)

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Sythyry could become a sort of Venitian patron sponsoring a city district's worth of public works. It's odd to imagine a classic Venice without heavy merchant activity though. It'd probably be a lot less vibrant, with most of the people working token jobs for the grand patron who supplies all the wealth through zir magic. More of a "bread and circuses" situation, which historically didn't go well.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting puzzle trying to convey the idea to you. It seems like your world sees wealth fairly strictly in terms of material goods like a poptaloop or a unique metal trowel. Even some of the most useful knowledge is in the form of spells that can literally be put in a box and jealously guarded by a guild.

Historically, our world ended up with new levels of wealth when people moved toward a broader understanding of it. First from portable things like spears and pelts to immobile things like farms and houses. Then to the idea of individuals having fairly secure generations-long ownership of land, which encouraged them to build for the future. Then to abstract ideas of shared, partial ownership in business ventures, so that one person could own 1/19th of a ship and a warehouse and a trade contract. The idea growing out of those changes was that voluntary cooperation plus a stable legal backing would let people create new kinds of property, not just more pelts and spears. Maybe your world is actually hampered in some ways by the gods' help, since they encouraged the creation of divinely backed guilds (like the smiths') and stagnant rituals. The world's magic system seems designed to discourage cooperation that could, say, give everyone a magic super-horse, so those more abstract organizations didn't happen much.

What if you could hire a dozen mages to work together and invent a new type of enchantment? Or a dozen skyboat designers to invent a more efficient trading vessel? That would be an expenditure of money with the chance of producing something more valuable in the future, right? It'd be the same general idea as planting a seed and tending it for a season, but would require more careful and abstract planning (preferably with legal protection) to profit from that.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

That "stable legal backing" would seem to be a substantial difference between our worlds. When the Choinxeian League was very strong, one could count on the laws of its cities not being ridiculously incompatible. Not so any more. Stability in time is even more challenging.

Yes, cooperation on magical working is not particularly useful. Cooperation on magical research is, and we (which is to say, my famous grandparent) do that sort of thing a good deal.

But we are far afield from what I can do with my money! I cannot found a research institute, for many reasons.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

What makes it an investment is that the value of the reward:
1. grows over time
2. is ultimately much larger than the value of the resources put into obtaining it

To use your bun example, the bun will quickly grow stale, and thus there is little point keeping it around. And even if you preserved it, if you paid three terch for it, it is unlikey that in several years it would be worth more than three terch.

[rowyn]

Strictly speaking, one hopes that the value of an investment will grow in time and exceed the value of the resources invested into it. Not all investments are actually profitable. :)

[zeeth_kyrah]

I think you're also mistaking capital improvements for social improvements...

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

[Ah, that fits then; I was thinking pre-rail Japan; the two held similar, but not identical, castes in this respect]

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Sythyry, I'm... wow, really proud and astonished with you. Though I don't agree with your conclusions, the fact that you took a series look at ideas that was completely foreign to your values, culture, and upbringing, looked at the merits of them, realized that the merits we mentioned were probably true, and that there probably were other merits that we couldn't adequately convey to you because of distances in culture and language, and then made an intentional decision to not partake in our ideas and suggestions not because you felt the ideas were bad ideas, but because they didn't involve you acting in a way that you can see yourself acting, and would encourage you to worry in a way that you didn't feel healthy was, wow, really impressive!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

*serious

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Once in a while I achieve a modicum of understanding and/or sensibility. Relish it! It may not occur again within your lifetime, or mine.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

When you buy something to consume, you are paying what you believe will give you immediate use in an equitable amount of the money you paid.

When you invest in something, you invest input, like money, in the hopes of a possible FUTURE return greater than what you put in, with inherent risk involved, as you might not ever see that with any one investment, monetary or otherwise.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

One thing I would suggest to you, though. Keep on the lookout for, sometime in your lifetime, a city-state or a group of city states or even a NATION (which your world seems set up to discourage the production of, so just consider it a style of governance that hasn't been managed really well in the World Tree, but if they do...) who, as a people and culture, DOES realize this and other ideas that seem to be familiar because we talk about these sorts of things all the time, because if they DO...

Well let's put it this way. Imagine the single most powerful city state you can think of. Imagine they were surrounded by relatively backward other cities and groups. Then imagine if this place is the only place where people can bind spells, and if anyone else in the entire World Tree wants to bind spells, they would have to act in the (to everyone else, very confusing) ways this city state does, and be more like them, but this place has a very big head start...

That is the level of change and shakeup and such that these sorts of ideas are capable of... Our world had been the same in very profound ways for several thousands of years, until things like the development of the Nation, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of Capitalism completely and utterly changed the face of basically everything in our world in what you would, as an immortal, consider the blink of an eye.