The unremitting horror of brexit (Economics)

The UK's economic troubles didn't even politely wait until the results were in. The pound started to fall against the dollar (and euro) from the first big brexit win. But that was only the start of it.

Uncertainty is the new British norm.

In the days since the Brexit vote, stoke prices have been volatile, and the pound has been volatile at a new lower level. The pound has over the last few days, been as weak against the dollar as it has been in my lifetime.

It was helpfully pointed out to me on the night that this was just a temporary effect of uncertainty.

What the person who said this appears to have missed, is that the whole process of untangling the British economy from the EU economy is basically a Femtotech matter fabricator optimised for the production of uncertainty. That happens to be running at full capacity. Uncertainty is the only thing the UK economy can be confident of having for the next few years

Between the political fallout, the uncertainty faced by EU citizens in the UK and the UK citizens in the EU, the upcoming re-write of vast chunks of our corpus of law, and the fact we haven't gotten a clue what will be happening with trade; the future is looking pretty hard to reasonably predict.

High Demand

To say that "the UK is dependent on imports" is one of the greatest truism in global economics, it is up there with "China has a huge cheap labour market" and "american governmental subsidy of high technology industry through the space race and military spending built the modern world."

We import almost half our energy and 40% of our food (almost all of our ingredient variety and non-seasonal food is thanks to imports). Almost all raw materials used in British industry are imports. 

With the fall of in the pound against other currencies, we are starting to experience import inflation. 

This is already having an effect on the engineering industry, where firms such as specialising in high quality, CnC routing are Geometric Manufacturing Ltd are having their costs pushed up by increases in the cost of aluminium, which is traded globally using the dollar. Increased costs have an impact on the companies ability to compete against EU and Chinese competitors. 

The real kicker is going to be food, as it will affect cost of living significantly, driving inflation.

Nothing to trade 

The sad truth is, other than scientific research, media and very specialist engineering, the UK doesn't produce much. As a result other nations don't really have much reason to trade with the UK, as there isn't much for us to sell them. Sure we are a large consumer market, but we cannot afford not to trade with other nations just cause the deal isn't great.

But that is okay currently, because we have access to the single market(itself an awesome trade deal) and have a host of around 50 others, which we come out of pretty well, thank you very much. We have these deals because we marketed ourselves as the gateway to the single market . 

This would be great news for the UK, as it would mean we still had access to almost all the material, goods and luxuaries we are accustomed to, if it were not for one little detail.

Almost all of our trade deals would be left null and void with the signing of Article 50(you remember that thing that nobodies signing because they have no plan in place).

Trade deal are a real arse ache, they take years to hammer out and honestly at this point there is no certainty anyone would be willing to give the UK anything like as good terms in future as we have right now, but that is okay because out leaders live in....

Fantasy land!
"It's all just propaganda, everything fine."

Despite  the crash of the pound, despite multiple credit rating agencies having removed out AAA status, despite ongoing market instability, the message in the right wing press and from the leave campaigns leaders is that; reality is over rated, everything is  fine! Every. Thing. Is. Fine.

This is of course because markets are non-rational, and to a degree perception defines economic reality. Many leave voters are believing this message uncritically, and clinging to it with the desperation of angry drunks.

Where's my money, man? Give me my money!

Britains future looks to involve a fair amound of being beaten with baseball bats by loan sharks, as  Standard and Poor's, Fitch, and, Moody have all down graded the UK's credit rating, making it harder and more expensive for the nation to borrow.

£350 million as week?  

One of the big elements of the leave campaign was the above statement. Now the idea that we spend £350 million a week on the EU has been thoroughly debunked and the idea that we could have spent all of that money on the NHS (as opposed to the things we were getting funding from the EU for) was always some what ridiculous, however, the idea of spending significant sums on the NHS, is to the British populations roughly equivalent of promising "free gun and your sports team winning the next superbowl" to a subset of the American population. 

You'll note I hope, notice the absence of the words "we will fund...", and sure enough, not sooner had the dust begun to settle, than the leave campaign conveniently shuffled the statement of their website and briefing that it would almost certainly not be possible to spend the money on the NHS...

Which is a good thing too. Why? Well because we are very likely to have to continue to pay a significant portion of this for access to the single market, just like the non-EU Scandinavian countries do

There is also fairly little chance we will get migration controls, as most hyperthetical deals for single market membership will require free movement of labour...

Which is itself oddly one of the very few cases of good news in the last few weeks, given that immigration controls would likely damage our GDP.

It's all awful...

So, yeah, that is some of what is happening here in the UK. With concerns the UK/london property bubble is about to burst and more economic chaos on the way, let me leave you with a thought and one last bit of politics.So first, this is the kind of event that on occasions triggers global recessions.  

Second, do you remember Boris Johnson? The blonde cockwomble who jumped into the Brexit campaign, throwing his weird and inexplicable political charisma into the mix, offering a legitimizing boost to Leave? Well he came out of the vote presumptive leader of the conservative party, and our next priminister, and within the space of a few days pissed is all away. On thursday, last week, having just been stabbed in the back by his presumed deputy, Boris withdrew from the race, leaving the conservatives to choose from perhaps the only four people more utterly horrible than him, in the whole of British politics

Fuck you, Boris.

Anyway promise that i have it out of my system now; back to pure red markets goodness from now on ;)

Thursday, we learn about the horrors of puddles!

The unremitting horror of brexit (politics)

A quick warning, there is going to be some distinctly british swearing in this,if bad language offends you, please continue regardless, it should give you an insight into just how betrayed and fucked over most remain voters feel.

So, Red Markets is a game about economic horror.

Economic horror is a little to real right now, as i happen to be living through it. Long with a unhealthy does of political horror.

On Thursday, the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. Somewhere in the labyrinthine halls of white hall, Nyarlathotep smiled, for this will mean chaos

I am going to start by talking about the politics of the thing..

This wasn't what you have been told it was...#

You  might be forgiven for thinking that the United Kingdom European Union Membership Referendum, 2016, colloquially known as Brexit vote, came about as a result of a national desire to leave the EU.

You would be wrong.

Our political class largely did not believe that this would happen, and had they believed it was likely, they would not have offered the referendum.

No, in fact, there is every reason to believe that the referendum was offered by David Cameron and his allies as a way of securing their political position.

At the last general election, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) made some significant advances  in the polls, enough that the extreme right of the conservative party were able to  use the threat of  UKIP to push for harder and nastier politics.

Our porcine premier used decided in his infinite wisdom, that the best way to de-fang UKIP, was to offer a referendum, as part of the manifesto. He did this im I suspect full belief that the british people would reject such a proposal.

No one ever suggested that Cameron is in touch with the wants, needs and fears of the electorate...

Cameron and many of his political allies/enemies getting ready for a night of
 incredibly fine dining, drinking and smashing up restaurants.

Oh, I just can't wait to be king!

Things might have been okay, if it hadn't have been for Boris Johnson.

Johnson is a social and political chameleon of highest  order. Just look at his changing stance on gay marriage

“If gay marriage was OK – and I was uncertain on the issue – then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog.” 

Boris Johnson

‘One of the amazing things about London is that not only have we got a declining crime rate, declining murder rate, more theatres than New York, less rainfall than Rome, it’s also one of the few places in the country where the rate of marriage is actually increasing.

‘I see absolutely no reason why that happy state should be denied to anybody in our country and that’s why I’m supporting the Out4Marriage campaign.’

Boris Johnson

He shape shifts his politics mercilessly to gain power, and has done so through out his career. His most common public demeanor is near archetypal. It is the Idiot, and it haves made him wildly popular, well beyond London, the city of which had been mayor for some years. Even I, find myself grudgingly liking the man.

Boris, seeing an opportunity to grab power, joined the leave campaign, legitimizing it to a degree..

 
For without Boris "zipline" Johnson, they would have been left with the braying  ass, that is Nigel Farage, a man who's political career appears to have involved playing bottom.

This is a man who conveniently forgot the political assassination of MP Jo Cox by a far right extremist, to state that the referendum had been won "without a shot fired".

No one saw this coming (except the SNP ).

Lets start at the end. Faisal Islam is  the chief political editor of Sky News, owned by everyones favorite Australian Cunt Rupert Murdoch,  If there was a political editor for a news organisation who should have known what was going on with the leave, it should be Faisal Islam. After all, his news service has been an ongoing ally of the leave campaign. One might almost call it the propaganda arm of the leave campaign, if it were not for the right wing press having gone so much further.

What makes Mr Islam interesting in this case, is what happened when he questioned leave campaign sources about plans going forward. Check it out here.

There is no plan for how to go about disengangling the UK from the EU.  The only groups with any real plan for how things should precede from here on are the Scottish National Party, and the Bank of income, though the bank of englands plans revolve mostly around trying to stem economic chaos.

I would like to say that I saw the working class vote on this coming, but I think it is fairer to say that the reality was an extension of my worst fears of what might happen.

Fuck this shit I'm out!

A handful of hours after the election results became clear, the walking slab of gammon, known as David Cameron, announced to the public that his official position was...
 

And in a moment he managed to hand the whole poisoned chalice of Brexit over to the leave campaign, by not starting the process. In fact, it appears, he went to far as to say "Why should I do the hard shit"

Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty

Article 50, as it is mostly termed, is the process by which a nation leaves the EU. This complex and somewhat vague document's most easily understandable equivalent is a divorce.

Undertaking Article 50 will be a long and complicated process, likely in the range of two years. During that time there is likel;y to be significant uncertainty about the future of the UK, as our diplomats hammer out details such as what will happen to EU citizens living and working in the UK, and UK Citizens living and working in the EU. Health insurance, social security, taxzation and much else besides.

What it doesn't do is set out new trade deals with eurozone countries, a process that could take 10 years. Professor Michael Dougan gives a concise  and informative lecture on the implications of article 50.

In short, the whole affair is likely to be long, contentious and messy, exactly the sort of thing Boris and his rivals would rather David Cameron was doing for them.

Death of British Democracy

As Professor Dougan points out, our laws are intimately tied to EU membership. Leaving the EU will mean that vast quantaties of UK law is go to have to be rewritten. So much in fact, that parliment will almost certainly going to have to just allow the government to do the whole lot, with minimal oversight. Why, because the parliamentary system will now allow new laws to be made quickly enough.

We also live at a time when the conservative party has some really nasty agendas, such as the destruction of NHS and BBC, welfare 'reform' which can be summed up as "Workhouse were a jolly good idea, what!", and an approach to privacy and digital rights that is frankly terrorfying (See snoppers charter )


But this must be done, 'cause,you know, the EU is undemocratic...


 

Maintainance: The billhook

Speaking of wood and charcoal....

The humble Billhook should be strongly considered as a tool/weapon of choice by takers, much as it is a common tool in traditional charcoal burning.

These versatile tools have the weight needed to chop wood like a hatchet, a concave cutting surface perfect for clearing vegetation like a sickle, has a long blade for use in a fight, and reinforced spike, which will transfer the energy of a blow through armour like a pick or warhammer.  It is, in short, a versatile piece of equipment for any taker.  Not to mention that it looks bitchin' and is pretty easy to use.

P.S. It is also hands down the best hand tools going for making fire kindling and tinder
.

Material science: Charcoal; fuel of the loss.

Charcoal one of the most important historical fuel sources. It burns relatively cleanly, meaning it is a good cooking and heating sources. It also burns at temperatures which make it suitable for blacksmithing and other metallurgical uses (such as the production of steel from iron). 

It also has medicinal uses and makes a decent filter. On top of this it can be used for drawing and writing. 

In the Loss, it is reasonable to assume that their is a very high demand for charcoal.

It is also a renewable resources, made relatively easily, even at the lower technological level found in the loss, which means that it makes sense that charcoal is a significant industry in the Loss

How is charcoal made?

Charcoal is made by a process called Pyrolysis, which involved slowly heating wood in the absence of Oxygen. This process remove water and other volatiles from the wood, leaving behind almost completely pure carbon.

Traditionally, charcoal is produced by Clamping a large amount of wood(effectively burying wood under a mound of earth), and then introducing burning., and once a small fire is established, shutting of the oxygen. Over a period of about five day, the remaining heat causes the volatiles to boil off, leaving behind the Carbon, in the form of charcoal.

This approach has huge advantages in the loss, as the process requires no equipment more specialised than an axe and a spade.

However, the addition of a well designed chimney can increase the profitability further,as it allows for the distillation of Creosote from the smoke.

More modern techniques involve specialist charcoal burners with built in Creosote stills. 

Leg of the Day: Traffic Jam Massacre

As the crash got into full swing, the proto-recession did its best to grab up key individuals strategically important knowledge and skills. This site is what remains of an extraction operation. When a black hawk touched down, just ahead of the blights progress to pick up the a VIP and his family, other struggling  refugees tried to get aboard.   The crew of the helio, and the gunship escorts opened up on the refuges and their vehicles.  Within minutes of the helicopter taking off, the first vectors arrived...

What remains is an overgrown strip of road, with dozens of cars, some of which have been burned out. The vehicles show  signs of having been shot up from above, with high-caliber rounds.

Roll a D3 to find out what the horrors of the crash remain here.

1. The VIP was a specialised from Nest Emergency Support Team, who was recovering a man portable tactical nuke, which had failed to detonate in the face of the blight, due to an electrical failure. During the dash to the helio,  one of the refugees shot and killed the VIP.

During the fire fight, the weapon was damaged by fire from the gunships, and the area is now a radiological hazard.

2. The VIP was a specialist from the CDC. The biologist was carrying tissue samples from a vector. Most of the samples were left behind in the evacuation however. Those samples, trapped in Petri Dishs has not died. It squirms around inside, having become a mass of thin, lung worm like filaments of blight sinew.

3. The site is home to a pack of dozens of small dogs, which have become hyper territorial and aggressive. They make the cars their dens.

Hello, Blimps? Yeah, this is Airplanes. Yeah, you win.

 Airships might not be quite what you think of when someone mentions near future science fiction economic horror with zombies. They are a little bit 1930's for most peoples tastes, what with the burning and the explosions and the oh the humanity. But as it turns out, airships are starting to look very much like they are going to be making a huge come back, thanks to the magical powers of HELIUM! A resource we have shamelessly wasted on kids party ballons for decades, shame on us.

Meet the Aeroscraft , a semi-rigid hull Hybrid Airship funded by DARPA.

It is currently being reported that the U.S. military has ordered a number of the children of this craft as as transport vehicles.  Once operational, the US Military versions will be the largest Aircraft to take to the skies in the past eighty years.

Built with carrying capacities of up to 500 tons and a range of around 3000 miles, and no need for a runway, these behemoths are likely to change battlefield logistics vastly.

In Red Markets, the DHQS could well run larger operations out of such vehicles. Using it to ferry weapons vehicles and personnel to an operation zone.  Which they can then sit above like a stationary AC-130 Hercules.

In short, if the DHQS has an asset like this in the field, Takers really aught to take notice. 

Leg of the day: rapid deployment riot barriers.

The government didn't just role over and give up without a fight in the crash. The contagion spread quickly, and as police and military forces fell back from it, they took efforts to slow or contain the blight.

One of the tools in their arsenal where rapid deployment riot barriers. These concertina wire assemblies where semi rigid and self supporting. Importantly they could be used to very quickly put in place a semi effective physical barrier against casualties.

Some of those barriers are still in place, representing both opportunity and threat to takers.

Opportunity because they are great enclave fencing material, and threat because they often block thoroughfares and can have dozens of casualties tangled in them.

Leg of the day: Sinkhole

Sinkhole are weird. They appear seeming from nowhere(in the eyes of most people), they cause huge amounts of damage and they claw like the hands of a thousand casualties at our assumptions about the ground beneath our feet.  They are also something I believe I have never seen covered in any other RPG.

With the absence of significant  human maintenance, the water pipes of the loss are, frankly, fucked.
While most pump stations stopped working relatively quickly after the crash, there was still a significant quantity of water in the system. That was five years ago. Since then, water has slowly but surely drained out of large sections of water pipe networks, wherever there has been a crack at a low point in a system. This has led to large numbers of sinkholes across the waste.

The Takers come across a large sinkhole. Roll a D4 to find out why this one is especially interesting.

1. An abandoned valuable goods transport vehicle(aka armored car) was abandoned here during the crash. When the sinkhole formed, this vehicle went down into the whole, filling with water rapidly.

 It is partially flooded, its back filled with soggy and rotting currency, and while it has been looted a number of times, previous individuals have missed a refresh worth of shotgun ammo, lodged under the passengers seat.

2. This sinkhole undermined the foundations of two story story house, causing a partial collapse. This would not be a big deal, but the collapse took out one wall of a saferoom in the house. It is a dangerous climb up to the second story room . Within are two corpse and a document cash worth 2 bounty.

3. this large sinkhole has filled with water, becoming a murky pool. It takes up most of the street. Moments after coming into site of the sinkhole, a large pack of Casualties come into view, boxing the PCs in. Trying to squease past the edge is dangerous as the edges are liable to collapse in.

4. A large number of casualties have fallen into this sinkhole. They scrabble at the edge constantly, unable to get out. It would be like shooting fish in a bottle, but looting the bodies might be dangerous.

So there were swords and shit...

When I started this blog I said was going to post on it every day. What I had forgotten at that time was that I was off to a major Fest Larp.

Empire is one of the UK's biggest festival larps, and it is amazing. You should check out Charlie Moss's photography event Here.  It is also worth noting that Empire is a game with a live economy, a very borked and dangerous one. I am now largely recovered, and caught up on all the things I should have been doing.

So the flavour of the moment in the red markets community is setting hacks. I will definitely be doing a Cyberpunk Hack, but their are several people already working on that.

So what might be an interesting addition, that hasn't already been suggested?

Well, what about Hack focusing on fantasy Hunter Gatherers, Spirits and a city of the gods?



The fallen world hack

Is set in a fantasy version of the late Pleistocene. It is a world of mammalian Megafauna, hunter gatherers, shamanic magic,  and evil serpent people, that takes elements of farcry primal, conan the barbarians, and the cthulhu mythos and mash them together into a game of primeval survival horror.

You play a member of a human tribe, struggling against nature to survive at the feet of the great glaciers.

Thoughts?

Leg of the day: Elevated Highway

Elevated highways are striking, weird piece of architecture. Brutally utilitarian, they carve their way through cities; doing strange things to the neighbourhoods they pass through. The Takers find themselves on a section of road that passes under one. Roll a D4 to find out why this one is interesting.

1. As the Takers pass under the Highway, a group of Casualties start throwing themselves of the bridge to get at the Takers. It is unlikely that any will land on the Takers. Close to is a different issue. Will the Takers be covered with infected biological material?

2. Up on the highway, a bandit lays in wait with a rifle, ready to use the cover and position to his advantage.

3. Someone has strung up a bunch of Casualties on cable, their toes just scraping the ground. They are closely packed together, but it should be possible to slip between them without too much danger. Unfortunately, an Aberrant lurks in amongst the forest of clacking teeth

4. The road here has been partially blocked by a large and nasty pile up beneath the elevated highway. Trapped in one of the cars by the steering column, a Casualty angrily snaps its teeth as anyone gets to close. Their driver’s license is clearly visible in the busted open glove compartment.
 

Weak Spots Wednesday: Some people are to well adjusted to the loss

So, i am still trying to get to grips with the distinctions between the three spot. While I figure that out, here are some example spots which  I want to work into my home game.

I kinda love this job

Everyone knows the being a taker is not something a person should want to be. It is dangerous, dirty, and morally ambiguous.

This is why people look at you with suspicion, because while intellectually you know you should want to be doing anything else, you still kinda love being a Taker. Maybe it is the first thing you have ever been really good at, maybe your neuroatypical and unconcerned by the moral or ethical dimensions of the job. Whatever the case, people can see it in you, and it scares them.

I will willingly die for two Takers or eight enclave members:

For members of Black Math psudo-rational methods for determining what it is worth dying for, are damn near an essential part of life. You have adapted Hamilton's rule from kin selection, to cover how and when you should take risks for other survivors. After all other survivors will, over time, kill casualties, so even if you die, you may end up killing more casualties than you would if you had survived. 

Leg of the Day: Don't you open that storm drain.

Drains are weird. Large cities cause a lot of run off, as concrete, stone and brick does little to absorb water. That means drainage. Those big slots leading down into relatively large tunnels can play on the mind, making use ask our self...what lives down there?

Where pavement and road meet, set into the curb, there is a Storm drain. As the takers pass by the slot, something happens. Roll 1D4 to find out what is going on with the drain.

1. There is a huge swarm of rats moving down there. Left unchecked, they could pose a serious disease threat to nearby enclaves.

2. A casualty is stuck down there. Who knows how it got down there? Whatever the case, it trying to grab the Takers legs now.

3. A child is hiding here. She is hungry, cold, and terrified. She lost her families’ caravan during while hiding from a raider attack.  

4. There is a rope tied to the storm drains grate. The other end disappears down into the dark. It has a bag containing an emergence stash attached to the other end.

Welcome to Market Fiat

Market Fiat is a place for me to talk about Red Markets.

What is Red Markets, you ask?



It is an Economic Horror RPG by +Caleb Stokes, in which the world has crumbled under the onset of a Zombie Apocalypse. When the Zombies came, humanity withdrew behind significant geographical boundaries, cutting of huge sections of nations, like amputated limbs. In the states, everything west of the Mississippi has been abandoned to the casualties, quarantined in an effort to stem the tide of infection.

But not everyone got out. Large numbers of people, survived, behind the barricades of survivor enclaves. Now, five years on, you play a taker, one of the rage tag survivors, desperately trying to get rich in the abandoned sections of the world, so they can escape to civilisation.

Red Markets is pretty much the coolest thing happening in RPGs right now, with interesting elements from all across the gaming spectrum. There are tools such as large random events tables, that would feel totally at home in an OSR Hexcrawl there to support emergent narrative,  coupled with a difficulty level which from what has been said would make most 1e WFRP fans blush. But it also contains character focused mechanics which would be very at home in a modern Storygame.


You can check it out here.

So, what can you expect from Market Fiat?

Well, the initial aim is to have one post a day, until the end of the Kickstarter. That way, I can start to build up some material for running my first game of Red Markets.