- Civil servant: This is scandalous!
- Civil servant: The black market with expired Shards is flourishing! And not in some dimly lit alleys, right on the market square!
- Police officer #1: Damn, that’s crazy!
- Police officer #1: If I meet a police officer who wants to put a stop to this, I’ll get in touch with you immediately.
- Civil servant: But you are…
- Civil servant: This will have consequences! I’ll complain to Chief Luitpold about your inactivity!
- Luitpold: Guess who just got rid of all his red ones! This calls for a celebration!
- Police officer #1: Here’s to you, Luitpold!
- Police officer #2: Here’s to Samaris!
A Sky Full of Stars 051
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└ Characters: Luitpold
17 thoughts on “A Sky Full of Stars 051”
Graybeard
So we’ve (ahem) seen Luitpold before. Have we seen the guys who’s kvetching?
MacareuxMoine
Luitpold is the 730 reds guy from the previous page
BlackDragonSlayer
10/10 page, no notes here.
Vicious Sand
Why does Guy think it is/ should be illegal, anyway? Are people just supposed to suffer the losses? The continuing losses every year? “Why should I listen to this guy? He doesn’t even have all of his mustache in the 4th panel.” Is he prosperous enough to not have to care? Is he on some sort of “vow of poverty” religion like Communism? He does seem sorta thin. Still it’s a good look outside the scope of Scarlet, at how the rest of the world turns a blind eye to “black market” dealing while everything gets worse. But the real question is- if it’s a black market, and not the government, then who’s backing it and for what profit?
Dan
Sorry, my below reply was meant to be to you.
Crystalgate
I think it is obvious that the shard sale is illegal, it’s just not enforced. So, the guy thinks it is illegal because it is. I don’t know why exactly it is illegal. As for profit, both the buyer and the seller gets yellow shards out of the deal, the seller sells them for yellow shards and the buyer exchanges the red shards for yellow ones.
HKMaly
It’s a method of taxation poor are expected to be excused of, of course circumventing it is illegal.
Dan
The black market doesn’t need to be backed by anyone, it can just be an informal arrangement that arises due to economic policy. In this case, those wealthy enough to have more than 56 expired Shards each year get to reduce their losses and those who are able to buy 56 expired Shards at pennies on the dollar make a profit.
The disadvantage is that a system with expiring currency and what is effectively a progressive tax (the 56 Shard buyback) is unbalanced if these transactions occur. Because some poor people are making a profit, they’re keeping more Shards in circulation; this reduces the appreciation in value of the average Shard so those who are unable to take advantage end up losing net value. The system would be fairer to everyone below the 56 expired Shard threshold if the expired Shards held by those above the 56 threshold were allowed to expire fully.
Mr red gloves trench coat is likely either a firm believer in fairness or is in an economic bracket where his total holdings amount to almost 56 expired Shards annually, meaning he cannot take advantage of the situation.
Clevershitter
First: I cannot stress enough how I like the world building.
Second: Did the transscripts disappear somehow, or is it just me?
Clevershitter
Older transscripts are still present (#46 an before), so I guess it’s not a browser problem.
So this seems to be a deliberate change. Perhaps to avoid spoilers by making it less obvious who is a named character?
Will red handed young David Hasselhoff/ head canon Skinny Norris turn out to have an in-story name?
Cirom
That wasn’t an issue for Gaia, iirc. Unrevealed characters were just written as “???” until they got a name (unless they were a minor character where their name isn’t important anyway)
aaaaaa123456789
Can confirm, black market exchanges in the open streets do happen just like this when regulations are in place 🙂
Sooner or later governments realise that those are just a fact of economic life and that there’s no such thing as forbidding exchanges. In some places, though, they certainly do try…
Arthur
Damn. It’s almost as if planning an economy is impossible and everyone within these systems will try to leverage themselves to the maximum advantage with whatever you set up. Crazy.
Crystalgate
I think we are still lacking at least one important piece of information. The chief said that he got rid of the red shards, not that he sold them. While I do think he indeed did sell them like Mr. 730 did, the chief choosing to say that he managed to get rid of them indicated that it’s not just about getting some money out of them, getting rid of them is a priority as well. Further, when viewing the dialog between Tibor and the blue clothed man in previous strip, they seemed to think that the lousy exchange rate may mean that they won’t be able to buy red shards. Tibor was able to buy 54 red shards with at most 19 yellow shards, and those 54 red shards got him 54 yellow ones, so at worst he paid a bit more than 1 yellow for 3 red. If that is what the exchange rate they have been talking a bout is, then I don’t see the rich getting out of it scot-free, they had a 60%+ loss.
I wonder of there is a problem with simple having red shards. If that is the case, then there is the question of why you can’t just throw them away.
Greymatters
I think you may be overthinking it. Judging by the quantity of red shards he was selling, he was never going to redeem them all, which means they would be sitting useless in a drawer somewhere.
Getting rid of them for yellow shards means they are no longer cluttering up his place, and he is richer for it (also declaring he had ‘sold’ or ‘exchanged’ them may have legal ramifications he could be held accountable for later).
Odhrain
“While I do think he indeed did sell them like Mr. 730 did”
Chief Luitpold is Mr. 730! It seems like prohibition, when a lot of police officers, judges and other “honorable” persons were also drinking illegally.
Thomas
Damn, that’s crazy.
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