Fallout:Money is fucked up.

[Kashluk]

But the money still IS backed up by national property, right?

Or is it just some "throw the dices"-play in the stock market?

[VasikkA]

Backing the money becomes more difficult when money is a number on a paper or on your screen. Who the hell backs up the 'money' in your PayPal account?

[Bulldog]

Backing the money becomes more difficult when money is a number on a paper or on your screen. Who the hell backs up the 'money' in your PayPal account?

PayPal. You pay them to hold the movey for you, and when you "send" it, PayPal just sends the money out of thier accounts.

[Blacken]

Wrong. U.S. dollars are backed up with...



wait for it...


...NOTHING. A hundred dollars is just the U.S. throwing its weight around. "This is worth THIS much because WE say so." There is no gold backing up money anymore, and hasn't been for at least forty years, which was about when it was figured out that the government didn't have the gold supply to back it up - and probably goes back farther.

SHUT UP!
GOD, HOW IGNORANT ARE YOU?

Obviously a lot less ignorant than you. Especially since you've been proven wrong. Now back to your dumpster village!

[Big Davey Havok]

Ive allways presumed *wrongly* that the wastelands inhabitants were trying to rebuild their lives. And money is a way of doing that.

Heres a thought tho.

When you buy a bottle of Cola, is it 1 cap cheaper than it would usually be?

[VasikkA]

When you buy a bottle of Cola, is it 1 cap cheaper than it would usually be?

1 cap more expensive I assume, because you get the cap on the bottle which costs extra. But on the other hand, I wouldn't buy Nuka Cola because it's probably a pre-war product, which is, very old. And most nuka cola machines don't work anyway.

[Fang_Teng]

I think it's a possibility perhaps that the Hub designated values for certain caps. I.e. 3 Sprite caps are worth 1 Pepsi cap. Also the Hub may have designated certain caps to be worth something (i.e. beer caps are no good or only caps the Hub marked are any good), to prevent this wanton use of any cap. At the same time, money's good because of liquidity. It's much easier to trade something when you have a basic single unit of money and also have common ground to trade things.

[Radoteur]

Paper money is good because the US government says it's good. I've heard that American dollars are the strongest, most trusted currency in the world. America is/or was maybe, the most secure country in the world. If any country were to be obliterated, I would imagine America would be the last. Yes, it can been attacked, but it has the resources to survive.
Only way I could think of America falling would be a "Great Depression" which would also devalue the rest of the world's currency, or a widescale coordinated attack designed to completely destroy America, which would be difficult, if not impossible.

The Hub was the center for trade and commerce in FO1, so what the Hub merchants say is money would probably be money. If a man told you that if you had a certain type of rock or paper or metal, he would give you something that you needed or wanted, you would probably want that item.

I'm sure there were skilled economists surviving after the war.
I'd also imagine that there would be some of America's best and brightest hidden away in vaults, since a stay in a vault wouldn't be the cheapest thing.

[Aegeri]

(Last time we had an intresting discussion about oxygen and lack of trees in fallout)

Actually a lot of Oxygen could still be made from bacteria in the sea and other places. In fact it is believed that Bacteria actually produce more oxygen than the trees on earth do (And considering that oxygen evolving bacteria are found world wide...). Incidently, they use CO2 in ocean and atmosphere (similar way to plants).

[Kashluk]

Paper money is good because the US government says it's good. I've heard that American dollars are the strongest

Actually, Euro has passed US Dollar aeons ago.

At the moment 1 € = 1.08 $

[VasikkA]

Paper money is not very useful in a post-apocalyptic world. Because there's no functioning trade system(cept for maybe the Hub), people rather trade goods and items with eachother. The bartering aspect should be emphasized in the Fallout universe but some sort of 'currency' is not out of the question, especially in more civilized towns. Using paper money within the whole game area sounds a bit illogical(and boring) to me.

This would effectively eliminate the advantage of gambling all money you need.

[Fang_Teng]

I'm working on a fan fic, and I've been trying to come up with a money system that isn't caps (because the Hub ain't there), but that is plausible.

Basically for a currency to function it needs to:

1) Not be readily available on the ground

2) Easy to care

3) Be able to easily be divided into parts

[Red]

Although I agree with the whole trading idealogy you have it's an incredibly bad game design decision to exclude money - specially since Fallout's inventory system isn't all that great.

[Cerberus]

Well the primitive economy IS bartering, but because the Hub is an important economical center, similar to the US on a much a smaller scale, they are able to back the currency because they use it.

Just like the US which backs its own currency. If the US would suddenly dissapear off the face of the earth, would 100$ be worth 100$? No, it would be toilet paper. Because the Hug is economically stable, their currency works. Thats why the caps make sense.

Now who backs the currency in Fallout 2? Does it support itself because its gold?

[Red]

Screw Fallout 2, it's story is so full of holes you couldn't use it as a strainer for fettuccini, it'd just pass right through...

[Strap]

Actually, Euro has passed US Dollar aeons ago.

At the moment 1 € = 1.08 $

yea? does that really matter? a pound used to be like 1.5 us dollars or something. doesnt really mean that us dollars are crappyer, if thats what youre getting at.

and in fallout, i think that more material system of money would have been more likely, like, in FO2, Gold coins... but i guess thats a bad example because gold wouldnt really matter, the econemy didnt really need it. i guess some other raw metal, that was actually used could be made into "chits" like coins, that could be melted down for guns/bullets/tools if youwanted.

btw, kashluk whats that avatar? looks like misfits :o

[Kashluk]

yea? does that really matter?

Yes, it does. It proves again that Europe is far more superiour than US by all means.

btw, kashluk whats that avatar? looks like misfits :o

NO!!! It's no filthy punk band, no, not in seven hells! It's called "PERKELE". Check it out on Google.com ;)

[Fang_Teng]

Kashluk, that doesn't exactly prove the superiority of Europe. A weaker currency only signifies that the US economy is in recession going into growth, if I remember my Economics correctly. A weaker US dollar is more conducive to exporting because our goods will be cheaper. This will allow more people to work at home, and thus our currency will become stronger as an indication that we've reached another saturation point in trade. This keeps going until the currencies are balancing.

As always, a good rough measure of superiority is through a country (or in this case, a IO's) GDP.

[Red]

You're right about your "theory" (ie the US dollar being lower often means it's chepaer to buy stuff from outside cheaper), but this doesn't mean the economy's growing because of this change...

[Kashluk]

And dude, I was trying to be funny. I know it doesn't show the nation's superiority in any way if it's currency is a bit powerful than the other. Again, I was just trying to be funnn-eeeh!