Death and Taxes: An Economics Mafia
Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 9:57 pm
Long ago, two cavepeople, Ug and Ack, were sitting in the sunshine on a rock by a pond on a spring day not too unlike this one. Ug had two animal furs and was very, very warm, but very hungry. Ack had two sharpened sticks and had caught a pile of fish, but shivered in the breeze off the water. Ug looked at Ack's sharpened sticks, then down at her furs. At that time, you had to kill someone to get something you wanted from them, but Ack had sharpened sticks so she didn't like her chances there. Slowly the glimmer of an idea began to dance in her head. Ug placed a fingertip on her lower lip, and then lifted it in the air triumphantly. Then she began to hoot and holler and point from her fur to one of Ack's sticks. Ack had been very busy looking for fish to spear, but eventually he looked up and cottoned on to the idea. Trade was born! Soon both were sitting contentedly in the sun, full of fish and warm.
Soon, people realized you could "trade" all sorts of things! Everyone began carrying around as many objects as they could hold in the hopes of coming across someone to trade with (since they didn't have Netflix yet). This got very cumbersome, and remained so until the greatest of the Egyptian kings, Ankhahotep, one day got tired of carrying the royal throne on his back. "Enough!" he cried, but in Egyptian. "From now on, we're only trading things for gold!" Gold, of course, was still very heavy, so this was only a marginal improvement. Ankahotep decided to ease his subjects' burdens by taking half of everything they traded for the government. This was the first tax.
However, no one could think of a solution to the problem for a very, very long time. Eventually they just started handing out paper, and imagining that gold was attached to it. The economy was born! Eventually, an American president by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, took the revolutionary idea one step further. He was at a great disadvantage in trading, because he had never seen gold and couldn't imagine it very well, so his money was worth less than other people's. Frustrated by never being able to trade properly (there was still no Netflix), he had the idea of just making the value of the paper up entirely! Now people make up all sorts of wonderful numbers, driven by "invisible hands", "animal spirits", "stocks", "inflation", and plenty of other made-up things that make it all very exciting but of course don't really exist.
Of course, ever since Ankhahotep introduced the idea, governments have been taxing as often and as much as possible. This is one way to get something you want without doing or giving anything in exchange. The other is murder. Which brings us to the pinnacle of human history....
Adam Smith - Invisible hand - Can direct action from behind the scenes (takes another player's power nightly)
Jean-Babtiste Say - Supply creates its own demand - Selling 2 or more of anything makes them worth $2 each, regardless of what others sell.
Carl Menger - Founder of the Austrian School/Marginal revolution - knows that every little bit helps, and has an extra vote for just that reason
Ludwig von Mises - Human Action - holds highly-attended lectures nightly (BTSC with one player every Night)
F. A. Hayek - Competing currencies - Makes his own currency, and yours doesn't count - Prevents a player from buying or using any items once per Night, and sells his items for untaxable Bollars instead of normal dollars.
Joseph Schumpeter - Creative destruction - Can destroy an item in his possession to get something better
John Nash - Game Theory - Make two players play a game of your choosing each night
Vilfredo Pareto - Pareto efficiency - Prevent target player from being made worse off at night
Paul Samuelson - Public Goods - Can share the use of another player’s item
Ronald Coase - Coasian bargaining/Property Rights - May not be stolen from/share his items
Milton Friedman - Monetarism - Can alter the money supply, doubling what the government pays for guns and butter once per 4 booms.
Murray Rothbard - Enemy of the state - Prevent redistributive actions.
Arthur Pigou - externalities - His votes also spill over onto the player to each side of the one he votes.
George Akerlof - asymmetric information - Role check
Mafia:
John Maynard Keynes - In the long run, we’re all dead - Kills nightly
Karl Marx - Dictatorship of the proletariat - Once per Night, chooses to target a player and destroy a random item (Kapital) they are holding, or to redistribute one dollar from a player of his choice to another.
David Ricardo - Ricardian equivalence - Prevents tax cuts
Robert Solow - Convergence/growth theory - uses technology to improve his items
Serial Killer:
Thomas Malthus - Malthusian population model - Is worried the population will outstrip humans' ability to supply themselves with food, so he keeps the population under control by killing nightly. If his victim has any Butter, he takes one from them.
The Economy:
Guns - takes one Night to produce. May be sold to the government on subsequent Nights. The value it sells for is determined by the supply; if more players sell Guns than Butter on a given Night, it is worth $1, but if more Butter than Guns are sold, Guns are worth $2. If both sell equally, they are worth $1.50 apiece.
Butter - Same as Guns, but vice versa.
Dollars - earned by producing and selling Guns and Butter.
Items:
1 Gun = Extra lynch vote
1 Butter = Remove a lynch vote from yourself.
1 Gun + 1 Butter + 1 Dollar = NK protect for tonight only
5 Dollars = Bribe someone's vote.
4 Guns + 1 Dollar = Extra kill
4 Butter + 1 Dollar = Lynch stop
4 Butter + 5 Dollars = Resurrect
Events:
Booms - triggered when more players produce than sell.
Busts - triggered when more players sell than produce.
Taxes - occur every 3rd day. Because llama is a co-host, it is flat and each player pays $1. Taxes are eliminated if Ricardo dies and Rothbard is still alive. If llama dies and Russti is still alive, we move to a proportional tax system and tax 30% of all earnings instead.
Soon, people realized you could "trade" all sorts of things! Everyone began carrying around as many objects as they could hold in the hopes of coming across someone to trade with (since they didn't have Netflix yet). This got very cumbersome, and remained so until the greatest of the Egyptian kings, Ankhahotep, one day got tired of carrying the royal throne on his back. "Enough!" he cried, but in Egyptian. "From now on, we're only trading things for gold!" Gold, of course, was still very heavy, so this was only a marginal improvement. Ankahotep decided to ease his subjects' burdens by taking half of everything they traded for the government. This was the first tax.
However, no one could think of a solution to the problem for a very, very long time. Eventually they just started handing out paper, and imagining that gold was attached to it. The economy was born! Eventually, an American president by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, took the revolutionary idea one step further. He was at a great disadvantage in trading, because he had never seen gold and couldn't imagine it very well, so his money was worth less than other people's. Frustrated by never being able to trade properly (there was still no Netflix), he had the idea of just making the value of the paper up entirely! Now people make up all sorts of wonderful numbers, driven by "invisible hands", "animal spirits", "stocks", "inflation", and plenty of other made-up things that make it all very exciting but of course don't really exist.
Of course, ever since Ankhahotep introduced the idea, governments have been taxing as often and as much as possible. This is one way to get something you want without doing or giving anything in exchange. The other is murder. Which brings us to the pinnacle of human history....
Death and Taxes: an Economics Mafia
Brought to you by Russtifinko and thellama73
Roles:Brought to you by Russtifinko and thellama73
Adam Smith - Invisible hand - Can direct action from behind the scenes (takes another player's power nightly)
Jean-Babtiste Say - Supply creates its own demand - Selling 2 or more of anything makes them worth $2 each, regardless of what others sell.
Carl Menger - Founder of the Austrian School/Marginal revolution - knows that every little bit helps, and has an extra vote for just that reason
Ludwig von Mises - Human Action - holds highly-attended lectures nightly (BTSC with one player every Night)
F. A. Hayek - Competing currencies - Makes his own currency, and yours doesn't count - Prevents a player from buying or using any items once per Night, and sells his items for untaxable Bollars instead of normal dollars.
Joseph Schumpeter - Creative destruction - Can destroy an item in his possession to get something better
John Nash - Game Theory - Make two players play a game of your choosing each night
Vilfredo Pareto - Pareto efficiency - Prevent target player from being made worse off at night
Paul Samuelson - Public Goods - Can share the use of another player’s item
Ronald Coase - Coasian bargaining/Property Rights - May not be stolen from/share his items
Milton Friedman - Monetarism - Can alter the money supply, doubling what the government pays for guns and butter once per 4 booms.
Murray Rothbard - Enemy of the state - Prevent redistributive actions.
Arthur Pigou - externalities - His votes also spill over onto the player to each side of the one he votes.
George Akerlof - asymmetric information - Role check
Mafia:
John Maynard Keynes - In the long run, we’re all dead - Kills nightly
Karl Marx - Dictatorship of the proletariat - Once per Night, chooses to target a player and destroy a random item (Kapital) they are holding, or to redistribute one dollar from a player of his choice to another.
David Ricardo - Ricardian equivalence - Prevents tax cuts
Robert Solow - Convergence/growth theory - uses technology to improve his items
Serial Killer:
Thomas Malthus - Malthusian population model - Is worried the population will outstrip humans' ability to supply themselves with food, so he keeps the population under control by killing nightly. If his victim has any Butter, he takes one from them.
The Economy:
Guns - takes one Night to produce. May be sold to the government on subsequent Nights. The value it sells for is determined by the supply; if more players sell Guns than Butter on a given Night, it is worth $1, but if more Butter than Guns are sold, Guns are worth $2. If both sell equally, they are worth $1.50 apiece.
Butter - Same as Guns, but vice versa.
Dollars - earned by producing and selling Guns and Butter.
Items:
1 Gun = Extra lynch vote
1 Butter = Remove a lynch vote from yourself.
1 Gun + 1 Butter + 1 Dollar = NK protect for tonight only
5 Dollars = Bribe someone's vote.
4 Guns + 1 Dollar = Extra kill
4 Butter + 1 Dollar = Lynch stop
4 Butter + 5 Dollars = Resurrect
Events:
Booms - triggered when more players produce than sell.
Busts - triggered when more players sell than produce.
Taxes - occur every 3rd day. Because llama is a co-host, it is flat and each player pays $1. Taxes are eliminated if Ricardo dies and Rothbard is still alive. If llama dies and Russti is still alive, we move to a proportional tax system and tax 30% of all earnings instead.
There! now you have an incentive to keep your trap shut. 
