MrNewOrleans [2103158] —
Original article
Points prices have dropped to their lowest monthly average in seven years. But why is this happening? And what can be done to help?
The price of points is falling. Of this there can be no doubt. They have been ever since 2015, but in recent months the deflation of the points market has been more pronounced than usual. And this drop affects everyone. The travelers who bring back flowers and plushies aren't making as much as they used to. Those who buy points exclusively to exchange for refills are winning out. But what are the long-term effects of a continuous fall in points prices? And why exactly is this drop happening now?
In the coming weeks we've been promised an interview with Torn's economist which will hopefully illuminate us on the various factors which affect point prices. But for now, we're going to conduct our own in-depth look at the situation to see if we can't figure out the issue ourselves. First, let's look at the recent trends we've just mentioned.
The price of a single point stabilised around $52,000 during the holidays, but in recent weeks, their value has slid as low as $49,900. As a result, the average price of some plushies and flowers - which are exchanged for points - have dropped in tandem. For example, the Dahlia flower brought back from Mexico used to sell for $3,200 apiece. They now sell for less than $2,800. Likewise, the Wolverine plushie was once worth nearly $9,400, but has seen just under $600 wiped off its value since Christmas.
As the value of these items has fallen, many in Torn have looked to other income streams. My wife BlacKitten and I subsidize our travel profits with junk trading using new players as suppliers. We've also begun to lean heavily on buying donator packs to exchange at the pawnshop - an income source which is hardly sustainable unless you want to risk your real life earnings. Other ways we've earned include market reselling and slutting medical cooldowns on games of Russian Roulette, with our travel now limited to once or twice per day.
Yet despite the decrease in travel profitability, the number of people flying abroad has not decreased, and actually seems to be on the up. Most travelers and traders are therefore blaming inflation for the decline in plushy and flower prices, with the reason the prices have dropped being that supply has outstretched demand.
Torn's population has been rising for several years now, and the release of the mobile Torn app has increased our daily population by more than 1,000 to the point where we've almost hit 30,000 active daily players. When these new players reach level fifteen - the level at which you can travel - they are flooding the market with more plushies and flowers than there is demand for. Since flowers and plushies respawn at the rate of half the time they take to sellout, more travelers mean the items sell out and respawn faster, causing their circulation levels to rise exponentially.
Another factor in the price drop could be the recent implementation of the new museum mechanic which allows users to exchange vast quantities of flowers and plushies for points in one simple transaction. The ease at which one can now swap large numbers of imported items for points means more points are now in circulation. This supply increase could've been offset if there was a comparable increase in demand for points - perhaps by making one or two new upgrades available - but nothing of the sort occurred.
Some observers claim that the points traders themselves are to blame for the deflated cost of their wares. It hasn't gone unnoticed that many people are now choosing to sell points in large blocks of 500, 1,000 and 2,000 - or if you're Iribuya, 45,000! These blocks often offer a cheaper per-point price than smaller blocks, and since they also often remain on the market for some time, those two factors combine to lower the price at which new sellers are able to sell their own small blocks of points.
The third and final major factor in the points price drop is the war between Torn United Nations and the Insurgency. Many established players are still engaged in one of the largest wars in Torn history, and between them, they have a combined net worth exceeding many trillions of dollars. Their vast purchasing power means that their fortunes and activities affect the rest of us. And with much of their cash now being consumed by war materials and revives, that means less money is being invested in points.
An increase in supply and a decrease in demand will have an effect on any market economy in this way. But to what extent these issues are to blame for our current point devaluation is a question that our city's economist is most qualified to answer. There are some who have argued that deliberate deflation is the root cause of the recent devaluations.
In an artificial economy like Torn, it is essential that money has ways to leave and be taken out of the system when needed, as this helps to prevent hyper-inflation. But money can also leave the economy in other unforeseen ways too, and when a city is too cash-poor because of a drastic decrease in the money supply, the price of all major consumables can begin to fall - a trend we have witnessed here in Torn City.
This morning,I woke up and purchased Xanax for $835,000 per unit, when months earlier I would be paying about $843,000. A year ago, big boxes of chocolate would sell for $3,900 dollars a unit, and their price has plummeted to $3,200 or less. Despite the war, which should have caused the price of energy drinks and feathery hotel coupons to rise, the prices of those items have remained lower as well, and have not dramatically increased since their annual drop around Christmas Town.
However, BeerDrinker points out that the value of consumables can be quite fickle, and not necessarily an indicator of a lowered money supply. Xanax often shifts its price on a daily basis due to its high popularity, and energy drinks always have a quiet time in spring after the Christmas Town giveaways have ended. BD also notes that FHCs have regained their pre-elimination price of $14.7-14.9 million too.
An alternate theory states that the money supply hasn't been lowered artificially, but it was raised artificially in the past due to the illegal acts of some players. Since the fedding of Reformer and Kapten_Klitioris for illegal Donator Pack duplication, billions of dollars of illegally gained cash has been rooted out of the Torn economy. Many billions more have also likely been removed from the game when less prominent individuals were caught too.
BeerDrinker doubts that Reformer and KK could've shifted the points market in such a heavy fashion that it would cause a $3,000 drop per point, though, as this represents almost 10% of a point's entire value. And without detailed records from the authorities, it isn't easy to discern whether other federal cases - such as multiple account users - were numerous enough to cause a mass reduction in the points price by themselves.
Pictured: Unless the entirety of Malaysia was in on it, of course.
But the question remains, can it be half a dozen of one, and six of the other? I have been around the block enough to know that micro and macroeconomics are interlinked. Economies are complex, and you can have deflation in one sector and inflation in the other. Could we have inflation in the plushies and flowers market, and a contraction in the money supply? Could both sides be wrong, and could another market force be at play, such as the monopolization of Torn's markets by a few large traders?
Until Torn's foremost economist takes a look under the hood and crunches the data for us, we will not know. Hopefully, the forthcoming interview with our city's financial puppetmaster will enable traders and the like to plan more thoroughly for the future.
If you have any questions regarding the economy you'd like us to put to the economist, please send them to Sugarvalves with the title ECONOMIST by Friday the 29th of March.
In the coming weeks we've been promised an interview with Torn's economist which will hopefully illuminate us on the various factors which affect point prices. But for now, we're going to conduct our own in-depth look at the situation to see if we can't figure out the issue ourselves. First, let's look at the recent trends we've just mentioned.
The price of a single point stabilised around $52,000 during the holidays, but in recent weeks, their value has slid as low as $49,900. As a result, the average price of some plushies and flowers - which are exchanged for points - have dropped in tandem. For example, the Dahlia flower brought back from Mexico used to sell for $3,200 apiece. They now sell for less than $2,800. Likewise, the Wolverine plushie was once worth nearly $9,400, but has seen just under $600 wiped off its value since Christmas.
As the value of these items has fallen, many in Torn have looked to other income streams. My wife BlacKitten and I subsidize our travel profits with junk trading using new players as suppliers. We've also begun to lean heavily on buying donator packs to exchange at the pawnshop - an income source which is hardly sustainable unless you want to risk your real life earnings. Other ways we've earned include market reselling and slutting medical cooldowns on games of Russian Roulette, with our travel now limited to once or twice per day.
Yet despite the decrease in travel profitability, the number of people flying abroad has not decreased, and actually seems to be on the up. Most travelers and traders are therefore blaming inflation for the decline in plushy and flower prices, with the reason the prices have dropped being that supply has outstretched demand.
Torn's population has been rising for several years now, and the release of the mobile Torn app has increased our daily population by more than 1,000 to the point where we've almost hit 30,000 active daily players. When these new players reach level fifteen - the level at which you can travel - they are flooding the market with more plushies and flowers than there is demand for. Since flowers and plushies respawn at the rate of half the time they take to sellout, more travelers mean the items sell out and respawn faster, causing their circulation levels to rise exponentially.
Another factor in the price drop could be the recent implementation of the new museum mechanic which allows users to exchange vast quantities of flowers and plushies for points in one simple transaction. The ease at which one can now swap large numbers of imported items for points means more points are now in circulation. This supply increase could've been offset if there was a comparable increase in demand for points - perhaps by making one or two new upgrades available - but nothing of the sort occurred.
Some observers claim that the points traders themselves are to blame for the deflated cost of their wares. It hasn't gone unnoticed that many people are now choosing to sell points in large blocks of 500, 1,000 and 2,000 - or if you're Iribuya, 45,000! These blocks often offer a cheaper per-point price than smaller blocks, and since they also often remain on the market for some time, those two factors combine to lower the price at which new sellers are able to sell their own small blocks of points.
The third and final major factor in the points price drop is the war between Torn United Nations and the Insurgency. Many established players are still engaged in one of the largest wars in Torn history, and between them, they have a combined net worth exceeding many trillions of dollars. Their vast purchasing power means that their fortunes and activities affect the rest of us. And with much of their cash now being consumed by war materials and revives, that means less money is being invested in points.
An increase in supply and a decrease in demand will have an effect on any market economy in this way. But to what extent these issues are to blame for our current point devaluation is a question that our city's economist is most qualified to answer. There are some who have argued that deliberate deflation is the root cause of the recent devaluations.
In an artificial economy like Torn, it is essential that money has ways to leave and be taken out of the system when needed, as this helps to prevent hyper-inflation. But money can also leave the economy in other unforeseen ways too, and when a city is too cash-poor because of a drastic decrease in the money supply, the price of all major consumables can begin to fall - a trend we have witnessed here in Torn City.
This morning,I woke up and purchased Xanax for $835,000 per unit, when months earlier I would be paying about $843,000. A year ago, big boxes of chocolate would sell for $3,900 dollars a unit, and their price has plummeted to $3,200 or less. Despite the war, which should have caused the price of energy drinks and feathery hotel coupons to rise, the prices of those items have remained lower as well, and have not dramatically increased since their annual drop around Christmas Town.
However, BeerDrinker points out that the value of consumables can be quite fickle, and not necessarily an indicator of a lowered money supply. Xanax often shifts its price on a daily basis due to its high popularity, and energy drinks always have a quiet time in spring after the Christmas Town giveaways have ended. BD also notes that FHCs have regained their pre-elimination price of $14.7-14.9 million too.
An alternate theory states that the money supply hasn't been lowered artificially, but it was raised artificially in the past due to the illegal acts of some players. Since the fedding of Reformer and Kapten_Klitioris for illegal Donator Pack duplication, billions of dollars of illegally gained cash has been rooted out of the Torn economy. Many billions more have also likely been removed from the game when less prominent individuals were caught too.
BeerDrinker doubts that Reformer and KK could've shifted the points market in such a heavy fashion that it would cause a $3,000 drop per point, though, as this represents almost 10% of a point's entire value. And without detailed records from the authorities, it isn't easy to discern whether other federal cases - such as multiple account users - were numerous enough to cause a mass reduction in the points price by themselves.
Pictured: Unless the entirety of Malaysia was in on it, of course.
But the question remains, can it be half a dozen of one, and six of the other? I have been around the block enough to know that micro and macroeconomics are interlinked. Economies are complex, and you can have deflation in one sector and inflation in the other. Could we have inflation in the plushies and flowers market, and a contraction in the money supply? Could both sides be wrong, and could another market force be at play, such as the monopolization of Torn's markets by a few large traders?
Until Torn's foremost economist takes a look under the hood and crunches the data for us, we will not know. Hopefully, the forthcoming interview with our city's financial puppetmaster will enable traders and the like to plan more thoroughly for the future.
If you have any questions regarding the economy you'd like us to put to the economist, please send them to Sugarvalves with the title ECONOMIST by Friday the 29th of March.
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