 November 24, 2017 - 2:14pm | Mash them togehter and run with it. Expanding Clarion Station in one issue would be much better than two conflicting ariticles in successive issues. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 November 27, 2017 - 2:59pm | Streel offices should be removed from section 13. WOWL says they are prohibited from unloading cargo on the station. Not sure if that means financial transactions as well, but best to just think of it as all commerce if prohibited. No need for them to have an office. |
November 27, 2017 - 4:38pm | Could do that but while they can not import or export things the listing in Zeb's says they do not actually manufacture anything. Streel is a banking, real estate, research, savings and loan and agricultural investment group. Yes Zeb's was written after WoWL and the details do not match up but I am going with offices on Clarion Station were allowed so that the many investments and banking customers were not suddenly cut off but no new financial dealings are allowed. Their is also the subsidiaries of Streel which while independent would be close to the mother company. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 December 22, 2017 - 9:39am | I was asked to look over the most recent edit of this submission and notice something I did not notice before (how it didn't register is beyond me), but in the submission was Clarion High Intensity Pogs or poker chips or probably the way they are referred to in setting Chips. Love this detail as it becomes a treasure item in game. PCs search the pockets of the mook they just fought and find a 1000 Cr chip. They cant cash it till they go back to Clarion station. Another possible twist: they try to cash it in and Royal Marines security show up asking/ordiering them to "Come with us." as it seems this is a conterfiet chip and there has been a rash of them lately. Anternately, the PCs have done a job and the employer is a little cash strapped. He'll pay them now double in chips or they can wait a week and a half for straight credits? It begs for us to create Star Play Resort Pogs as well. No doubt some people like to get paid this way to avoid the records of electronic transfer of funds. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 22, 2017 - 10:18am | No doubt some people like to get paid this way to avoid the records of electronic transfer of funds.
Allow me to weigh in on this. Back in the 1980's it was common practice to use casino chips as payment here in Las Vegas (and from what I hear, Reno as well). Tourists would use them to pay their bills at restaraunts & room service etc, locals would recycle them at grocery stores & retail outlets etc, and the businesses receiving these chips as payment would periodically take them to the closest casino to cash them in. That all came to an end when the US Treasury Department rolled into town on a sting mission to proudly proclaim "let's just see about that." Because retailers were willfully accepting non-US legal tender payment forms, they were fined and fined heavily. Ultimately a ruling was passed that casino chips could be used for gratuities but never for payment. While there has not been a high profile investigation since then, folks here are wise to decline that form of payment just in case the payor happens to be an off duty Treasurey Dept worker here on vacation...granted modern bartering rulings could probably overcome the issue these days. As such these off-the-books transactions would have to be limited to private party vs private party, and even then discretion might be shown becaue the UPF would really be interested in businesses that are accepting non-Frontier legal tender as payment. |
December 22, 2017 - 10:32am | Just for my clarification, if a person cashes in more than $600 in casino chips are they issued a W-2G form or is there a system to differentiate between gambling winnings and chips used for tipping? If there is how does the casino handle the Social Security taxes on tips if the employee is turning in large amounts of chips and claiming none gambling source? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 22, 2017 - 10:35am | But UPF is a treaty organization not a government so...could or would they care that non UPF tender is being traded? Is the credit actually UPF tender? Who from the UPF will roll into town to prosecute the crime? Star Law- interstellar criminals and sathar agents are their province. unless illegal tender transactions somehow is construed to be interstellar crime. or is this a Royal Marine matter? Great input Shadow. I still think it should be allowed. but the idea of someone rolling into town to shut it down could certainly be explored in game after the PCs are already involved in carrying Chips as treasure. EDIT: And just what courts are criminals prosecuted in once arrested by Star Law deputies? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 22, 2017 - 10:52am | A currency has to have a backer and a standard that determines its value. Look at the current discussions about Bitcoin as to whether it is a currency or an investment option. Funy thing is that the credit in the Frontier was created by PGC to standardize transactions across the Frontier. Never really explained how it became the currency of Frontier is not detailed too much but at this time PGC was the one and only Super Megacorp so they could do this. Once the other megacorps were added the credit was not given any explanation as to how and why it continued to be the standard except it is just one of those things we are just supposed to accept and play the game. I could be wrong, any details I missed? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 22, 2017 - 11:08am | I beleive there was a discussion about the credit being backed by energy in these forums but I'm off to work in a snow storm so cant check. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 22, 2017 - 6:05pm | Just for my clarification, if a person cashes in more than $600 in casino chips are they issued a W-2G form Last I heard it was $1200 where you have to claim winnings for taxes.
or is there a system to differentiate between gambling winnings and chips used for tipping? If there is how does the casino handle the Social Security taxes on tips if the employee is turning in large amounts of chips and claiming none gambling source? For tip earners the only way to track is from charged tips (meaning credit card charges paid out to the employee), cash is untraceable much like chips.
However...by the mid-90's the IRS initiated a "tip compliance" stating a tipped employee has to pay taxes based on X dollars per hour worked, with X being an average of all reported tips for that particular shift in that particular department (established by the business). For example, if X equates to $5 then the employee is going to have tax taken out for $40 during an eight hour shift on top of the usual taxes already being deducted.
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December 22, 2017 - 6:14pm | But UPF is a treaty organization not a government so...could or would they care that non UPF tender is being traded? Is the credit actually UPF tender? I always presumed it was a federation currency, but as Rattraveller says there isn't much in the way of canon text to explain it. I do recall a discussion here a while back detailing what each denomination of a physical credit you held in your hand would/should be and it was a UPF-sided conversation with "official" UPF color codes and what not. Who from the UPF will roll into town to prosecute the crime? Assuming it's a Federation affair, I would guess the Council of Worlds would have a designated department to carry out such a task. Lest we forget, the US pre-9/11 Secret Service operated under the Dept of Treasury so it stands to reason any CoW protection service would be operating under one of their bureaucratic platforms. And just what courts are criminals prosecuted in once arrested by Star Law deputies? IIRC counterfeiting is prosecuted in the State courts so based on that I would say it should fall under the specific governing world's court the offense was committed under. Anything happening in space (or even a space station) would end up being a Federation affair and handled under the CoW court system. |
December 22, 2017 - 8:13pm | According to their website the Secret Service is still a part of the Treasury Department and still handles both Protection of Individuals and Protection of the US Financial Systems. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 23, 2017 - 12:59am | I thought I'd read somewhere that the Secret Service moved to the Dept of Homeland Security shortly after it was introduced. With so much fake news being circulated it's tough to weed through the real and farcical... |
December 23, 2017 - 5:38am | In Maine its $600 or more form lottery tickets is reported for taxes. Dad just hit for 3 numbers plus the mega ball on the lottery so payout was $600. Tried to collect at local grocery store and was forced to drive to Augusta since it was over the $599 limit for unreported lottery winnings. Which becames an occassion for him to complain about the drivers on the road and having the $600 reported as income- trails and tribulations of winning money. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 23, 2017 - 5:56am | I thought I'd read somewhere that the Secret Service moved to the Dept of Homeland Security shortly after it was introduced. You were close. It was the Coast Guard that moved to the Dept of Homeland Security Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 23, 2017 - 9:49am | I had to google secret service & homeland security to see what I could dig up as far as refreshing my memory. Naturally the "anyone can edit" wikipedia entry was first on the list so I ignored that.
I did find this though: Scroll to 2003 and it says they did move to Homeland Security. |
 December 23, 2017 - 8:53pm | A thought on the PGC Credit. Pan Galactic is buying and selling in multiple worlds and their currencies. Their accounting system would constantly be reconciling one against the other aginst their own measure of value. The Credit could easily develop out of this as a common accounting column in their ledgers. The lack of a currency exchange between worlds then made this the measure of the currency exchange. The final result could be that the banking system adopted this algorithm as the system to measure their assets between currencies and the credit is now a measure of the value of all the frontier currencies at any given time. This is something that our world seems to be on the brink of developing but not yet able to due to existing laws. Bitcoin being the pioneering experiment here. In an environment like the frontier where there were not a lot of preexisting laws then whatever establishes first easily gets put into law. So I am leaning to think that the credit is not the property of any entity now, but rather a measure of the entire frontier economy through some well established economic rules and algorithms. This opens the environment up to have local currencies and pogs like the Clarion HIgh Intensity Pogs. Is anyone on this site a Wall Street guy or economist? -iggy |
December 24, 2017 - 5:41am | Bitcoin is crashing mightily right now. I do not think it would make a good example. The prime requisite for a currency to be a basis of comparison is its stability. PGC had the stability by using constant pricing. A toaster on Clarion would cost the same as a toaster on Inner Dramune. Their might be a slight adjustment in pricing because of tariffs or increased safety requirements on certain worlds but it is the Toaster Standard that allows the PGC credit to be the crown jewel of currency in the Frontier. Much to the chargin of Streel and their Streelly. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 24, 2017 - 9:53am | Don't forget about the shrugged off Cassidine Developed Coinage either...printed on demand, just like the U.S. dollar. ;) |
December 24, 2017 - 11:05am | Bitcoin is crashing mightily right now. I do not think it would make a good example. The prime requisite for a currency to be a basis of comparison is its stability. PGC had the stability by using constant pricing. A toaster on Clarion would cost the same as a toaster on Inner Dramune. Their might be a slight adjustment in pricing because of tariffs or increased safety requirements on certain worlds but it is the Toaster Standard that allows the PGC credit to be the crown jewel of currency in the Frontier. Much to the chargin of Streel and their Streelly. Yes, price the same on multiple worlds is the thing that the credit gives. How this is done without a government backing it I don't know. I think in the beginning it was PGC that backed/forced the standard but later as multiple megacorps gain equality with PGC I think the credit gains a life of its own. That is why I am asking for an economist to chime in that can point to economic principles and methonds that would make the credit stable and independent. The toster on Clarion can be purchased in credits or the Clarion Royal currency. The price in credits would be the same on Inner Drammune or some other quantity in the Drammune Dru. The credit is the great equalizer and everyone does their books in credits because it is world currency agnostic. A Clarion Royal Crown is X*Credits. A Drammune Dru is Y*Credits. Rather than convert between the hard currencies all the time, the banks just keep the records in Credits. However, when on Inner Drammune you may need to have a few Dru on you to buy your ipo from a street vendor when your hungry. The street vendor doesn't take credit cards because he doesn't make enough to afford the transaction fees. When on Clarion the Crown is used openly in the street markets as a show of sovernty by the royal government. Now I suppose the various governments that are members of the UPF have a vested interest in making the credit system independent of the control of one megacorp like PGC. However, I don't see the UPF as a full government like the US federal government. I see the UPF more like NATO but with a few more police powers, some of the UN functions mixed in, and a bit of trade aliance management too. If the UPF was like the US federal government then give up on having Outer Reach being able to harbor fugative criminals like it does or Hentz be such a closed world to non-yazirians. What the UPF really is, is an open debate we once had a healthy thread discussing. -iggy |
December 24, 2017 - 2:40pm | While various governments may or may not have their own currencies depending on many factors but most importantly whether they were established before or after the "credit" was made the dominant currency. Since many of the planets in the Frontier have small populations, a single stable currency would allow them economic stability as well until they can grow to a size where their own currency would be beneficial if they even choose to adopt one. For an example of how this can work here is an interesting tidbit "Countries that only use a foreign currency. US dollar: Ecuador, East Timor, El Salvador, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Islands, Zimbabwe. The US dollar is the most widely used currency in the world, with many countries employing it as an accepted alternative to their own currency." So we have real world examples of governments not using their own currency. As to the other Megacorps, since PGC was the first it would make sense that while they were growing and expanding they used the "credit". Once they reached Megacorp status there would not be a good reason to make their own currency to be used on different planets which were already using the "credit" as this would only make transactions difficult. Primary reason US goods are priced in Euros when for sale in France. One further point, Fantasy games have used the universal currency since their creation and no one really challenges it. Gold piece is worth a gold piece and no one ever asks where was it minted? Is it a 1000 year old coin taken from Dragon's hoard? Is it a newly minted coin from the Empire? Is it taken from pirates and comes from a country 3000 miles across the sea? Doesn't matter in a Fantasy game it is Gold, Silver and Copper (sometimes other metals) but all are worth exactly the same even though that makes no sense whatsoever. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 26, 2017 - 7:12am | Found this online today: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/cash-might-be-king-but-they-don't-care/ar-BBHm7p0?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp Pretty much businesses in NYC are no longer accepting cash. This goes in line with SF and using your ID card for all your cash needs. Does anyone use physical credits in their games or is it all electronic? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 26, 2017 - 9:33am | I noticed the writer of that article did not interview any servers --- who, in NYC, make $2.16/hr (last I heard anyways) and are very dependent on cash tips to dodge their tip compliances. |
December 26, 2017 - 5:21pm | Not really a point of the article but I understand your point. Tips can be included on charge slips or a customer could just pay the server directly. Frankly nowadays when taking a family of four out to dinner or taking two couples and one is paying the price can easily go over $100 and since not many people carry that much cash with them debit/credit cards are mostly typical. Is there tipping on the Frontier? With the very standard salaries given in the pay charts it would seem that they do not tip. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 26, 2017 - 8:27pm | Is there tipping on the Frontier? While most duties are carried out by service robots in the Frontier, tipping isn't as prominent as it is in moden society. However, you'd better believe it occurs...especially if your adventurers are nosing around for decent intel. For instance, the barkeep/proprietor running his establishment in the seedy warehouse district has many friends in low places. If you simply pay him for the tab, he just serves your drinks. However, if you slide an extra handful of credits across the counter, he can divulge some worthy info about the mission you're on. It all goes back to the "rumors table" in D&D.  |
