Undertowers - Monetary Speculation

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Undertowers will one day be free. But that day is not today, nor a long way off. I am talking the political basics - security depends upon admins, and we have no Undertowers admins, therefore we cannot be autonomous. The most we can hope for is the state of innocence of the Shire Hobbits towards the end of the Third Age - protected by hidden guardians (Rangers, aka @Arnyn & Co.) and blissfully unaware that without them they would be eaten alive by the wargs and goblins of the wider world beyond. But we can still dream! This thread is for anyone who believes that floating our own Undertowers currency might provide an initial road to eventual full political independence.

The nuplaza has no money; therefore all trade is conducted by barter and, over time, certain commodities have naturally become the ready medium of exchange in the different regions - silver pennies in Bree, for example, rocks on the head in Mordor, old stone in Gondor, and so on. The Undertowers unit of exchange is of course the egg.*

*One Undertowers Egg = the index egg, Ei, a basket vector or matrix of all huorn-egg types, weighted by frequency and nutritional value.

The basic idea is that all Undertowers eggs are stored in the central Elf-tower (the one that is neither west nor east) and (virtual) paper notes substituted for hand to hand daily transactions. This way we will have evolved an Undertowers currency without circumventing the nuplaza's righteous decision not to introduce money.

Naturally, the system works only because there is a strict one-to-one correspondence between the paper notes promising payment of any one actual egg and the eggs that are stored in the central tower. Were a nefarious Undertowers adminstration to issue more paper currency than there are eggs the whole credit system would of course collapse. Thankfully, the EP (Egg-Paper) ratio is strictly supervised by yours truly, Hill (sole senior partner of Hill, Hill, & Hill) and so there is absolutely nothing for anyone to worry about.

Contributions on both theoretical and practical issues welcome. I am aware that there is a lot more to this currency thing and would appreciate help. Also any reports on actual button-egg exchange rates would be very helpful.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Naturally, while the paper currency is strictly tied to the Egg-standard, the Undertowers central tower does issue bonds on the expectation of future egg yields. More details soon.

Anyone interested in purchasing Undertowers future bonds should let me know below. Offer an initial bid in buttons or Tea or whathaveyou and we can barter some mutually agreable transaction. :)

Also, any design ideas for our Undertowers paper wealth would be most welcome. Remember, our paper wealth comes in two forms that must be visibly distinct: (a) currency (backed by a present egg) and (b) bonds (backed by a future egg).

[Chrysophylax Dives]

This thread is when I knew that Undertowers was in trouble. It was only a question of time. And yes, of course, the bubble burst - or rather I should say, the egg cracked. A run on the Undertowers central tower as panic spread among currency holders and Hill was nowhere to be found. Today one cannot give away an Undertowers future. And Huorn eggs have been declared illegal in most of the regions of Middle-earth (some obscure DEI regulations are violated, apparently). And the lesson of all this is that monetary theory is very real - the egg fell and the entire Hobbit project crashed.

Undertowers is in ruins.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

To those who accuse Hill of ruining Undertowers with 'Humpty-Dumpty economics' I ask: why did you not speak up before the great central tower bank run and Egg-crash of Easter 2024? The doom of the colony was already written on the wall in the days of the covid-plague by the seer of the burned hand (me), and long ago read by the Dwarf who always guesses.

No doors, hidden or otherwise in this one.

mene mene tekel upharsin
That was my position too,
Though rather perched above,
Balancing as it were on a knife edge:
Sway but a fraction, and all is lost…
A doom like the first couple, who
Enchanted by the wormtongue,
Ate the bitter fruit.

The muster of Rohan stood with the King,
Aye, and all the brave men of Gondor.
But the miracle of Mithrandir was not for me.
No red dawn that day;
'Twas a golden sun that broke in a white sky.
O women of Gondor, will you pick up the pieces?