Fees are too high!(?)

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

ALL fiat currencies are similes, if you will. Or, as I see them, collective illusions.

Don't take away my Monopoly Money!

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

The reason LL insists Ls are not real money.

Oh for ...

The IRS has had ample time to come after Linden Lab and each and every Second Life account holder. The L$ is not even treated as in the same classification as Cryptocurrency.

Until that changes, the reality is that they're nothing more than glorified Chuck-E-Cheese tokens.

That's it. That's all.

Not going to go back and forth with anyone over this.

If the tax codes and such ever change to make L$ taxable/treat them in the same category as actual currency or cryptocurrency ... What anyone says to back the idea that they're more than tokens means nothing.

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Here we go ... again ...

Along with the same tired "argument" ...

Is not arguing! Is just disgusting! I mean, discussing!

[Silent Mistwalker]

Not my fault I'm an accountant and understand these things while others are not and don't have the first clue on how to keep a set of books much less abide by all the laws and regulations while doing so. People don't want to listen, so I'm done talking to brick walls.

[Coffee Pancake]

20 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

This is one reason why, IMO, we should have kept dollars pegged to gold, something that has actual value in and of itself.

Pegging the money to some natural "precious" elemental resource is a really bad idea.

You end up with an economy who's stability depends on digging gold out of one hole only to store it safely in another and that stability is entirely dependent on it being a steady accumulative process. Someone suddenly finds a lot of gold, and we're all broke ... and the moment someone captures a single asteroid, the entire economy crashes and they're our gods now.

(asteroid capture is very doable with current technology, it's impractical due to the expense .. but when the prize is a rock that gives you control over the bulk of a national or global economy, it's suddenly worth it .. even if everyone else ends up living under that rock. Right now the prize is abundance that crashes commodity prices, which isn't so lucrative to the money motivated)

Edited June 15, 2022 by Coffee Pancake
curse you auto carrot

[Rolig Loon]

49 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It is a simile, nothing more.

I like metaphors better, then we can say "it is money" (metaphor) not "it is like money" (simile) and still be..meta(!)-phorical.

Simile and the word simile's with you.  😎 🎵

[Gabriele Graves]

10 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Not my fault I'm an accountant and understand these things while others are not and don't have the first clue on how to keep a set of books much less abide by all the laws and regulations while doing so. People don't want to listen, so I'm done talking to brick walls.

And yet here we are, nobody is taxed on L$ and LL gets to decide how to manage the price of their tokens using the Lindex for SL and when they were operating Sansar they decided on a fixed exchange rate there.  Sure looks like LL get to make their own decisions about their tokens to me.  Just like all those game companies who decide how to manage the price of their game tokens too.

All else is a hot puff pastry pie with no filling unless the above is shown to be false.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 minute ago, Gabriele Graves said:

And yet here we are, nobody is taxed on L$ and LL gets to decide how to manage the price of their tokens using the Lindex for SL and when they were operating Sansar they decided on a fixed exchange rate there.  Sure looks like LL get to make their own decisions about their tokens to me.  Just like all those game companies who decide how to manage the price of their game tokens too.

All else is a puff pastry pie with no filling unless the above is shown to be false.

I wasn't talking about whether or not LL gets to decide anything. 

My point is obviously going over everyone's heads so like I said before, I'm done.

[Lindal Kidd]

25 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

That and gold is at an all-time high. 

Think of it the other way around. The dollar, compared to gold, is at an all time LOW. Speculative spikes and dips aside, gold will buy approximately the same amount of goods and services as it did in 1850.

[Gabriele Graves]

Just now, Silent Mistwalker said:

I wasn't talking about whether or not LL gets to decide anything. 

My point is obviously going over everyone's heads so like I said before, I'm done.

That's what I was taking about when you first responded to me though.

[StarlanderGoods]

Isnt it like a bad moment to try and peddle crypto? From what I heard their whole scamm is crumbling and people are jumping ship so they are not left holding the bag.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, StarlanderGoods said:

Isnt it like a bad moment to try and peddle crypto? From what I heard their whole scamm is crumbling and people are jumping ship so they are not left holding the bag.

 

Yes. Do they think we.'re dumb? Or...

[Gabriele Graves]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes. Do they think we.'re dumb? Or...

"They" think that there are definitely dumb people out there and they're right, in droves it seems.

Some people never let the opportunity for a good grift go by.

[Love Zhaoying]

38 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Simile and the word simile's with you.  😎 🎵

But, it's just not the same!

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Gabriele Graves said:

"They" think that there are definitely dumb people out there and they're right, in droves it seems.

Some people never let the opportunity for a good grift go by.

The "or.." was, "or are they dumb?"

[Rolig Loon]

13 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But, it's just not the same!

Like it or not, a simile's still a simile.   ( and I never meta simile I didn't like.  🤓) 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Rolig Loon
Cleaner wording

[Rowan Amore]

Lindens seemed to be viewed more as property as opposed to actual currency.  If you sell your 'property' for RL $s, THAT is taxable as any income would be.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Rowan Amore

[Persephone Emerald]

56 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Nodnods. Yes. But...the government (any government) also has the power to issue, destroy, repudiate, or revalue their fiat currencies.

ALL fiat currencies are similes, if you will. Or, as I see them, collective illusions. We all agree that dollars have value, and are a legitimate medium of exchange. But a dollar, per se, has no value. It is a colored piece of paper. If our collective illusion ever breaks, they become no more than waste paper.

This is one reason why, IMO, we should have kept dollars pegged to gold, something that has actual value in and of itself.

We're either ascribing value to pieces of paper, to pieces of metal, to shiny rocks, or to digital tokens. Everything with real value is either too cumbersome to carry or non-physical, so we've invented easier ways of bartering with tokens. 

On a side note, RL currencies fluctuate in value, but linden dollars are pretty stable. Linden Lab operates as if it were the government of it's virtual world. It's not a democracy, but that's fine because it's relatively stable and just. I think linden dollars are effectively a micro currency, but legally - in relation to RL governments - they're simply game tokens. When SL eventually goes down the drain, LL is not obligated to let us cash in our lindens for a RL currency. When a RL government goes down the drain, people may have a hard time cashing in their money for a different currency too, so it could end up as just pieces of paper for them.

[Quistess Alpha]

56 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Think of it the other way around. The dollar, compared to gold, is at an all time LOW. Speculative spikes and dips aside, gold will buy approximately the same amount of goods and services as it did in 1850.

I was curious and did some "research" comparing

https://nma.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/historic_gold_prices_1833_pres.pdf

and https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hl4p9r&view=1up&seq=722

With respect to gold, eggs (and presumably most other farm goods) are way less expensive; in 1860~80 an ounce of gold would buy you 63~126 dozen eggs. Today, 500~1000. Rent is a bit more expensive, in 1860~80 an ounce of gold could pay 2~3 months rent, today only about 1.

It's all relative; you'd have to take "approximately" with a pretty wide margin.

ETA: if you look at the numbers, everything got more expensive around 1870, which checks out historically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression

Edited June 15, 2022 by Quistess Alpha

[Sid Nagy]

Try to buy a pound of minced meat at your rl butcher and find out how much L$ are worth.
They are only tokens, worth something inside SL and for the SL residents.
Just like the tokens used during festivals and large parties. Only valid on the premises as long as the activity lasts.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Persephone Emerald]

On a side note, English is weird. 

According to the Cambridge Dictionary online, to Cash in means:

to exchange something such as an investment for cash:

cash in shares/bonds. These bonds can be cashed in at any time.

If you own a with-profits policy, you're likely to have to pay an adjustment if you ever want to cash it in.

You should regularly review your securities; it may be time to cash in and look for another opportunity.

 

Also according to the Cambridge Dictionary online, to Cash out means:

to sell an investment:

Many of these vendors jumped into the market and are now looking to cash out.

cash out of something. They cashed out of the stock market on worries about a possible fall in share prices.

 

To cash in one's chips refers to exchanging gambling tokens for currency, also with the metaphorical meaning of being close to death, as in being done with the game of life and ready to quit. Since linden dollars are virtual tokens, rather like gambling chips, I like this analogy for when SL eventually ends.

[Love Zhaoying]

30 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Like it or not, a simile's still a simile.   ( and I never meta simile I didn't like.  🤓) 

Was wordplay..because..a simile is literally not.."the same". (Reason for wink.)

[Persephone Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Try to buy a pound of minced meat at your rl butcher and find out how much L$ are worth.
They are only tokens, worth something inside SL.
Just like the tokens used during festivals and large parties. Only valid on the premises as long as it lasts.

I bet if your local butcher were an avid user of SL they might be willing to barter linden dollars for a pound of hamburger, but you'd have to be willing to trust each other on following through on each person's end of the deal.

[Rolig Loon]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

33 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Like it or not, a simile's still a simile.   ( and I never meta simile I didn't like.  🤓) 

Was wordplay..because..a simile is literally not.."the same". (Reason for wink.)

Was double wordplay.  Like it?  🤡

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I bet if your local butcher were an avid user of SL they might be willing to barter linden dollars for a pound of hamburger, but you'd have to be willing to trust each other on following through on each person's end of the deal.

And then you'd both be in technical violation of the TOS. 🙄