Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cheddarius]

It seems unfair to me. They'd be making money without actually doing anything, and forcing us to pay their inflated prices by buying anything cheaper.

I know a little bit of spanish. What text do you want translated?

[Rakonas]

It seems unfair to me. They'd be making money without actually doing anything, and forcing us to pay their inflated prices by buying anything cheaper.

I know a little bit of spanish. What text do you want translated?

Eh, a citizenship request saying something along the lines of me being a skilled worker wishing to contribute to Paraguayan industry. Basically anything that sounds good.

[qwertyuiopas]

Well, the thing is, with taxes, they have a net loss if they can't sell sufficiently higher than the competition. So, if you set your prices just below theirs, they will either not buy yours, or they will and lose money before they realize that taxes are stealing their profit.

[Cheddarius]

Honestly, I have no idea what I should say. I can translate, but if you do not provide me with something to translate, I cannot help you here.

Qwerty, their system bypasses taxes. They do a direct exchange through donations, which is not subject to taxes.

[Shades]

Qwerty, their system bypasses taxes. They do a direct exchange through donations, which is not subject to taxes.

Personally I don't see how that matters anyway, all we need to do is increase production and provide more source at the same price through standard channels. Your not going to buy directly unless they are significantly cheaper than what is on the market.

[Cheddarius]

They will be.
Listen, suppose Charmin Ultra makes 100 products at 1 PYG each.
They will purchase those products.
Then they will sell them at 2 PYG each.
Thus, the general populace will be forced to buy overpriced goods.

It's true that you could conceivably produce so much that they run out of inventory space/money, but that's difficult - they've bought up 50 or more at a time, easily.

[Shades]

We really can't get enough people interested to dump more stock on the market than they can buy? Only has to be done once to kill their cash flow.

[Cheddarius]

I don't know. I really don't know.
But all the same, I'd prefer reporting this directly, and see if the admins think it's a crime, if we have any evidence.
Do we?

[Aavak]

Nope.

[eerr]

Bay twelve is a hive of scum and villany.
I approve.

[Duuvian]

At the same time though, we'd still be getting our product bought out. It's basically the same as new car dealerships or drug dealers. They control or buy up the whole supply and fix prices. The only person really hurt by it is the consumer. If our goal is to lower the price of weapons for the good of humanity, and make a buttload of cash as our secondary goal, then we should squeal on them. If we just want to be get rich and say screw the consumer like nearly every company in existence then we should go along with it as we would have a guaranteed consumer. I would say the best path would be to ignore it at first until you make some capitol and then turn around and raise prices on them, and if they don't agree we "figure out their scheme" and we sing like canary boids because we are an respectable and honest forum community.

Bay twelve is a hive of scum and villany.
I approve.

Oh yes, and don't negotiate over the e-republic website. Paper trail bad.

EDIT: Then we can take credit for having "discovered" their scheme and for "taking the high road" to lower prices. Also as a co-incidence if everyone knows it's due to our actions that this group of speculators was put out of business we score some votes for our eventual take-over...

By the way, we should really try hard to recruit someone who speaks Spanish as a first language and English as a second. Or at least is fluent enough in Espaniol to pass for a native speaker in type. They would be a good choice to run a political newspaper... if we can trust them.

Also, E-Paraguay must never learn the existence of these forums. We'll need to look like it was just coincidence that a bunch of English speaking people chose Paraguay, fixed the economy, formed a political party and took over the government. Definitely not an internet conspiracy.

[qwertyuiopas]

One possible solution would be an erratic and incomplete stock update cycle. Put maybe 5 products up at a time, and pick random times of day until the stock is depleted for the day.

Now, the general population has a decent change of getting lucky, and will start to hesitate to buy the overpriced goods because they might be able to get a better deal. Further, they might buy all of the stock even if they don't need it all, since it has such a discount.

However, this relies on my assumptions about how they will act being true, and that you can be on frequently throughout the day to add some product to sales.

[Duuvian]

That would work, but it would rely on most people in Paraguay knowing that A: Someone is fixing prices and B: That they can get it cheaper if they wait and C: The price fixers being unable log on more often than Ched to respond by buying him out.

However, this would be a decent option until we either come to an agreement or screw them over.

[Cheddarius]

I talked with them; they said they have suppliers over the world. This seems plausible; they might just buy all their stock in Poland and sell it here.

I guess that's a legitimate way to earn money, since they're actually working for it by shipping it over.

Also, "erepublik paranena paraguay" on Google gives us this thread as the fifth result. Paper trail: Unerasable.

[Servant Corps]

Has anyone else been contacted by some company trying to sell all manner of goods?

I think this company might be cheating, and buying all the goods they can get their hands on, then reselling them at higher prices. This might be why they have good prices, and why companies' stocks of material don't go down normally. They might have 50 q3 food, and suddenly these guys come along, buy them out, and sell them for ridiculous prices. This is called profiteering (sort of), and it is illegal.

I don't know if they are, though. Do we have any evidence? Should we report them, and let the admins see if they are?

That would be silly to be a bannable offence, I think. The Black Market is illegal, but it's not bannable, afaik.

But the Black Market exist due to a stupid work-around of the game mechanics...and is impossible to prevent. If you could prevent it, then, sure, make it an unbannable offense. But if you can't, then banning it is the only solution.