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[squeakyReaper]

Escape stops all gifs from animating. Check previous posts in this thread to see if it isn't animated there.

[PyroDesu]

Yeah, it's not spinning anywhere on the thread.

And escape does nothing to GIFs for me, I just checked.

[squeakyReaper]

Odd. It spins just fine for me, so I don't know.

[mainiac]

I see it spinning too.

Also: poke!

[Ghazkull]

maybe somebody should pm Mullet Master, or take over for him if hes not interested anymore

[PyroDesu]

Looks like updating my browser made it work.

Anyways, is MM on vacation or something? He hasn't been on for a long time.

[mainiac]

maybe somebody should pm Mullet Master, or take over for him if hes not interested anymore

I think it would be better for someone to start a new story then take over his story.

[PyroDesu]

For some insane reason, I think this is probably dead.

If it's not, I'll probably find it again when it's alive again.

[Mullet Master]

You light a cigar and take a long drag as you walk to the window of your office.
The sun is setting, and there is a drizzle of rain. A few workers trudge out to the bus stop in front of the building, looking genuinely miserable. These dwarves are the first. Soon, they will have good wages, and good standing in the city.  You see a speck of light in the distance, cutting through the haze that envelops the road headed to your factory. As it draws closer, you see that it is a copper-colored Phaeton. That must be Datan.

A bottle of human whiskey at your desk catches your eye, so you take a quick swig and head downstairs. The secretary mumbles something about a guest arriving, but you are well aware. You take long strides towards the door, brimming with confidence. As you open the door, you greet Datan with a warm fraternal hug and welcome him inside.

Datan is the very image of a distinguished Dwarven aristocrat. A thousand years ago, he would have been a baron, eying down the peasants from an ornate microcline throne. He's wearing a very expensive cave spider silk suit, and a wool overcoat that cost more than your entire suit.  His leathery skin is criscrossed with scars from untold conflicts in the last hundred years. Instead of being at the helm of Dwarven war airships, he now fights battles in the largest boardrooms for the future of the nation.

Datan glares at you, and speaks with a piercingly deep, clear voice.

"Urist. It has been a while. I am surprised you chose to end your career here... your career should have come to a close when you were driven from the mining complex at Ornot. There is blood on your hands...."

You're going to have to disarm him as quickly as possible. You take his coat and hang it up on a stand near the door. You gesture for him to follow you as you speak.

"Datan, old chum, I want to show you the most beautiful pile of rubble you've ever laid your eyes on."

You start walking towards production hall B, while describing the situation plainly.
"It's gonna be easy for you and me to buy this place, contracts, debts and whole for pennies on the dollar.  We've seen this drill before, leveraged management buyout.  But nobody's ever seen it like this.  Our old accounting teacher had that joke 'give me a leverage large enough, and the stones to use it and I'll buy the world.'  Well, Datan, today that leverage just dropped into my lap.  Don't worry, I'm not talking about this rundown trashheap.  I've got something to show you in the office.  Something that can never leave the room."

He stops you in front of a coke hopper and grabs you by the arm.
"What are you talking about Urist? The stock in this company is worthless. You will be buying debt. If you took majority ownership, you would risk losing your own assets when this place keels over...."


"Datan, there have been mistakes made by many Dwarves in our society. Our industrial economy - is gone. I am about to... rekindle this fire. But I can't talk about it here. Let's head up to the office before we have dinner tonight."

You both trudge towards your office in silence. 

When you get to the office, you shut the door, close the window shades, and turn on a dim electric lamp. You remove the elven contract from your desk and show it to Datan.

"Nobody knows about this but you, me and the elf.  We are talking serious revenue here.  The factory is viable.  But even more important is what we are dealing with.  Adamantium.  An honest to Armok ton of the stuff and the elves are going to let us get our hands on it.  That's good enough to back a measly 300 thousand.  But this is about more then a loan, Datan.  This is about what you and I can do with a golden fucking opportunity.
"I signed the contract out in the name of the factory.  You and I buy this factory, we get the adamantium and the elf contract too, completely free.  Think about what that does to your value estimates." 

Datan puts on a pair of spectacles and flips through the documents. "Our world is devoid of adamantium. You know every scrap has been cobbled up, here and there. The Dwarven council hasn't had enough to do anything with forever. The scientists...."
He looks up and says "So, the elves are planning war? Why would they need these barrels?"

"You know the elves aren't exactly being subtle here.  If they are making this, they mean war.  Maybe not against us, but war is coming all the same.  How many factories are there left from the Kobald Wars?  Last time I counted, it was one and you're standing in it.  That gives us a monopoly, but why stop there?"

"You may have a point Urist. There's only one logical target... the humans that plowed down ancient woods of Fy'ortol. This is big information, you know this? "

"Forget these things now. We need to talk about one thing, and one thing only. I want ownership of this company, and I want you to help me get it. In return, I will offer you twenty five percent ownership, and 5% from each Dwarven government contract for the next five years."


Datan sets the contract down, and takes off his spectacles and glares at you. "You may have enough to buy 75% now... but what is stopping me from doing it myself? Why would I settle for 25% of the next multi-million dollar corporation? Especially one that is going to be supplying the greatest war this world has seen since our defeat of the Kobolds!"

((This negotiation takes precedence! You have no time to review other documents!))

[Coolnesstod]

"the reason you want 25% is because if shit hits the fan then its on me and not you, think of your reputation. It would not look very good for a man such as yourself to be in a situation like that and not to mention, the money you would lose. But with only 25% you can pull out and run when it gets bad."

[mainiac]

"You wanna buy it?  Be my guest.  But good luck finding someone to run it.  Hell, good luck getting the staff to show up for work tomorrow without me.  Without you, your bank would be nothing more than an empty building.  Without me this factory would be looking up at empty building status with envy, dreaming of the day it rises in the world.  Even if you find somebody as good as me, the privileged information I'm giving you won't be much good once you start bringing new people in on the secret.  Then you are stuck with an old building when you could have had an industrial empire.  But put that aside and just survey the landscape."

Subconsciously glance out the window while leaning back in a chair and puffing on a cigar.

"Datan, you've got the best damn bank in this nation but how much good does that do you when there isn't a two bit business worth lending to?  Well this industry is going to be high profit, high growth but desperately in need of capitol.  Your bank and my factory, it's a marriage made in heaven.  Years from now your bank will still be taking in the cash hand over fist from those mortgages and transaction fees.  You don't want this deal for the slice I'm giving you as a friendly thank you.  You want it because this factory is going to be the start of something new.  A factory pushing the economy along like it used to run.  And when the economic engine is humming, the bankers grow fat."

[Ghazkull]

the above...seriously maniac...are you some kind of CEO? Or do you study Economy (or whatever you call it in english)? 

anyway that what maniac said and somewhere in ebtween a part of Cloolnesstod's blame stuff...

[mainiac]

the above...seriously maniac...are you some kind of CEO? Or do you study Economy (or whatever you call it in english)? 

anyway that what maniac said and somewhere in ebtween a part of Cloolnesstod's blame stuff...

((Well I read a lot of economic blogs but I don't have any sort of real education.  Basically it's just a matter of seeing things in terms of risk vs. rewards and long term interest rates.  By keeping things going on a shoestring and a prayer, we are basically cheating the typical opportunity cost equation which is de facto equal to free money.  The larger a scale we can sustain that on, the more free money.

Spoiler: how I see the situation (click to show/hide)

We've got an industry which has an inherent value of:

(A big number)(profit rate) = (A big number)*(A negative number) = (A big negative number)

But we can't actually lose more then our initial stake so the value becomes:

(A big negative number) = 0

Already things are looking up!  But if there is a floor on the value of this industry (zero) and there is some chance, no matter how small, that the value goes up, then the value is greater then that floor.  So now we have:
(A big negative number) = (A small but positive number)

In other words, we are talking about free money.  But how much free money?  Well the greater the upside risk, the further above our value floor (zero) the value of the industry becomes.  And our privileged information means the entire industry belongs to us rather then the upside risk getting shared with the competition.  So basically, we have a bet where we win if we win but the consequences of failure are both 1) fairly small 2) can't be larger then a certain maximum (we lose the factory) no matter how big the stakes are.

Imagine this situation.  You walk into a casino and are told that you can make one bet on any game in the place.  The rules are as follows:
-Your bet can't be any more then the cash you lay down on the table.
-If your bet wins, you get the full payout, up to the total money in the casino vault (lets say 200 million).
-If your bet loses, you pay no more then $1000.

Your first impulse might be to go to an ATM, empty your savings and bet everything that you have on a game of roulette.  You could get all your friends to chip in their life savings too.  But there's a smarter way to do it.  Turn around and go to a bank and tell them about the bet.  Then rather then playing the game yourself, you sell your bet to the bank.  Then take 200 million dollars of the banks money and go place a bet on a nearly even bet at the roulette wheel on behalf of the bank.  To the bank, the value of this bet is about 90 million dollars whereas for you the value was never more then whatever you could scrap together, a lot less then 90 million.  So you shop around for the most attractive offer and you walk out of some bank a multi millionaire and the result of the casino game doesn't even matter to you.  Now a casino offering such a deal would go broke very quickly.  But what if you were the first person to get this offer and you had some time before anyone else would get a shot?  Well then you get to be the lucky winner who burns the house down.  It's not certain whether the bank or the casino wins the bet but it's certain that you are walking away with a big fraction of however much money is at stake.

Basically, that is the situation that our protagonist finds herself in.  She is playing with other people's money because other people have an interest (the adamantium) in seeing the factory not fall below the status quo.  And there is a lot of money in the casino vault so to speak, all the value of a fully restored wartime industry.  Urist is the only one who can act on this opportunity for the foreseeable future.  So Urist expects to walk out of this episode with a reward equal to a significant fraction of the theoretical total value of what this industry would be worth if it was running at full wartime capacity.  Even if her fraction is only 10% or even 1%, that is a lot of money.  But it's even better then a lot of money because it's a lot of 'free' money.  All that remains is greasing the economic wheels until that 'free' money materializes, which is admittedly a lot of work.))

Btw, I'll be leaving on a trip this afternoon and probably won't make any posts until monday.))

[Armok]

"multi.million dollar corporation"? dwarves use dollars now?

Either way: What mainiac said.

[Mullet Master]

=============== GAME PAUSED ===========================
It seems most everyone is going to side with Mainiac with all decisions of Urist. Therefore, from now on, I pretty much am going to play Urist's actions however Mainiac says. Frankly, he or she is doing a fantastic job and staying in a "set character" pretty consistently.

That being said, everyone else is still welcome to voice their opinions in the game. Within a half dozen or so posts, I am introducing new characters that will require input for every game turn. You'll have a decision to make which can negatively or postively affect the company.

I need a :
DWARVEN RESOURCES MANAGER (This is mostly HR but is somewhat involved in finance)
CHIEF ENGINEER (deals in production and technology related problems)
and
SECURITY CHIEF (deals with physical security and some political situations)

These jobs are first come, first serve but Mainiac may fire them at any time. To become this character, say : "I will be playing the ((Job Title)). " You'll need to make a character name, and choose a sex. You are welcome to add any flavor text you like.
These roles will not have anything to do for a few more turns, so consider it a "waiting list".

=================== END GAME PAUSE ===============================


"You wanna buy it?  Be my guest.  But good luck finding someone to run it.  Hell, good luck getting the staff to show up for work tomorrow without me.  Without you, your bank would be nothing more than an empty building.  Without me this factory would be looking up at empty building status with envy, dreaming of the day it rises in the world.  Even if you find somebody as good as me, the privileged information I'm giving you won't be much good once you start bringing new people in on the secret.  Then you are stuck with an old building when you could have had an industrial empire.  But put that aside and just survey the landscape."

Subconsciously glance out the window while leaning back in a chair and puffing on a cigar.

"Datan, you've got the best damn bank in this nation but how much good does that do you when there isn't a two bit business worth lending to?  Well this industry is going to be high profit, high growth but desperately in need of capitol.  Your bank and my factory, it's a marriage made in heaven.  Years from now your bank will still be taking in the cash hand over fist from those mortgages and transaction fees.  You don't want this deal for the slice I'm giving you as a friendly thank you.  You want it because this factory is going to be the start of something new.  A factory pushing the economy along like it used to run.  And when the economic engine is humming, the bankers grow fat."

Datan looks down a minute, at the documents sprawled on your desk. He picks up a gold paperweight and thoughtfully weighs it in his hand as he looks at the steadily increasing rain outside. "Well then. Let us retire fat. You will have my bank's support through these strange days. I am going to have my secretary draft up a promissory note that will keep you out of bankruptcy for a while."

"We will have a meeting at the bank, in front of the trustees, five days from now provided all goes well with the councilman. At this time, you are going to outline your plan to get this place not only profitable but exceptionally profitable, and then you are going to introduce your key management figures, which you seem to be lacking right now.

Also,by stock exchange regulations - I cannot purchase shares directly. You are going to purchase my shares, and in return I am going to get a lien on your Villa to guarantee the cash. You just put in a buy order twenty minutes ago, for 75% of this corporation's shares. Got it? "

He takes out his briefcase and pulls out a lithographed stock purchase template. He sits down and takes out a fountain pen, and dips it in the inkwell on your desk. He writes out a buy order for 7500 shares, and fills in all your informatoin. He slides the document over to you and just as you reach for it.. the phone rings.

You pick up your phone and answer it. It's the secretary, downstairs. The councilman and his entourage is here. It's time to get ready for business.

"Okay Datan, the councilman is here. I'll speak for my company, and you speak for yours. You know what we are trying to accomplish today."


..... this is post 1 of 2.