Monetary system
Commodity money
The Water bottle (Lagona)
After an initial period of different systems of bartering, the Lagona /la:gu:na/, the bottle, was taken into use as a currency, first physically as bottles of water, later as paper money representing bottles of water.
The Lagona was issued by the desalination plants in the first settlements. Initially each settlement had their own value for their currency, but later a standardization was agree upon, removing the need to exchange currency between cities. Thus the Lagona became the first currency of Illte.
The Lagona was in use until late 3rd century a.Q.
A normal days wages was 3-4 Lagona (ca ½ gallon/2 liters of water).
One remnant of the Lagona still exists in the custom of presenting a bottle of water, with a pouch of salt, to arriving guests.
Gold and silver
Gold and silver has been proposed as money several times, and used as money even fewer times.
After landing on Illte, the little gold and silver that the refugees had with them was used as money at first, but lost favor among the general populous compared to the Lagona. The final nail in the coffer was an irate King Qakhomatze giving the supporters of gold and silver the following redressing:
If you hunger for gold, eat Gold! But those that hunger for food wish to eat food and drink water. Unlike the Bottle (the Lagona), Gold can never fill the belly of a hungry child.[1][2]
However, about 250 years later, after the Lagona collapsed, gold and silver was used as money for the first time. This was done to facilitate commerce with the Zjaunjo.
The first usage of gold and silver lasted for about 100 years. It was replaced by credit money and the dark ages of the Illomi.
Time based money
Time based money are currencies based upon the amount of time you need to work for an item. Unlike other types of commodity currencies time isn't a physical commodity. The first time based money was created by the first industrial companies both to avoid taxation and as an easier available currency of payment to it's employers. With time, as more and more production companies switched to one or another time based currency, the governmental issued Cejswau lost favor in the economy and was printed for the last time in 822 a.Q. Consequently taxation ceased in 825 a.Q. thus ending the reign of the centralized government.
In the beginning several different time based currencies existed, however during the years a consolidation of the currencies happened, leaving only the modern currencies.
Fiat money
Credit money (Gold)
After the gold standard was initiated for the first time, bankers found that they could lend out more money for profit than they had gold and silver. After a while this practice flourished creating more and more credit money in the system. However, while the credit money took over the Illomi economy, the Zjaunjo still demanded gold and silver for their products and knowledge.
In 362 a.Q, the credit spiral was starting to throttle the economy. The gold and silver was almost gone, and the somewhat easier access to water made the Lagona impracticable. Neither could serve as a replacement for the credit money, nor was it easily feasible to replace the credit money with a commodity system.
The desalination plants still remembered the time when they were the basis of the economy and bankers was something that was lost in the Negan war. As a measure of aid, the plants started using some of their income to keep some of the poor people alive, printing their own money again. However as most people didn't want to accept the new Lagona, this didn't last long. By 374 a.Q. the poverty level was climbing, and as some people started, in desperation, to either eat their kids or dive for the carnackfish for death to take them, king Ferde and his council enacted a system for the poor people's welfare. It's purpose was to create jobs and pay for the less fortunate's food. After a couple of years building up this system, it was swamped by the exponentially growing debt and poverty. 16 years after enacting the welfare system, king Ferde, as the only king to do so, committed suicide.
He left the following note:
My people are dying! Not from lack of food as in the days of Qakhomatze, nor from war as in the days before him, but from the claws of banking on our throats. We are all doomed to die of hunger while our food are left unharvested.
May my successor send the bankers to Welauneqi.
The dark ages, the Age of Banking, finally ended when king[3] Zara[4] executed the last banker in 401 a.Q.
Since 398 a.Q, it has been punishable by death to create money backed by debt. Several people has lost their life to this law, but credit money has never been systematically used since then.
Tax Money (Cejswau)
Following King Ferde's suicide there followed a short period of civil unrest between the bankers and their victims. Among the populace was an outspoken young woman of about 19 years of age, named Zara that won the hearts of the people by speaking about draining Tejmokh[5], the continental ocean that fills most of Illte.
The weight of the debts equals the weight of 4 mest[6] of Tejmokh on the head.[7]
As such, and against the will of the bankers and their followers, she became king of Illte after Ferde.
Although several people wanted to return to gold and silver, or even another commodity currency, King Zara deemed any current possible commodities to be too invaluable to serve as money. And as the storage of gold and silver had been depleted as the Zjaunjo demanded payment only in gold or silver, the lack of these valuables made them unusable as a currency at that time. While most people felt that paper money was the reason why everything had gone to Welauneqi, Zara rejected such sentiments as uneducated nonsense.
Looking at the system of welfare created by Ferde, she decided to rebuild society from the bottom and upwards. By issuing new paper money through the welfare system, and later demanding the same type of money to be returned as taxes, the recreating of the economy firstly benefited those that needed it the most.
The Cejswau /zejswɔ/, the tax money, and the Gold coexisted for the first few years, yet it wasn't an easy symbiosis. Bankers rejected the Cejswau as a mean of repayment of debt at first, but soon realized that the Gold would neither be kept in circulation after being received as taxes nor be accepted for taxes after a, for bankers and other traders, very short period. By keeping the printed amount of Cejswau very limited, King Zara and her government forced the new currency through the resisting economy.
While resisting the Cejswau, banks kept issuing new credit money, first in the old Gold-currency and later in the new currency. But in 398 a.Q, 4 years after creating the Cejswau, King Zara made it punishable by death to issue new credit money, thus ending the credit spiral. Over the next three years 86 bankers was executed, some by mobs, other after being tracked down from their hiding place.
Finally, with the last banker executed it 401 a.Q, the Cejswau reigned the economy for the next 300 years, and by 420 a.Q, poverty was completely eliminated.
Social money (aka pain money)
Social money was primary invented as a teaching tool to teach Koonan[8] kids the value of money. Social money are printed by the kids as part of their classes in elementary economics. The kids was encouraged to use their money to barter for smaller objects and services at school, such as help with home work and exchange of knowledge.
Although this social money was only supposed to be a teaching tool, it soon became accepted by some shops for minor object kids would be interested in, as such social money entered the mainstream economy and became unintentionally a part of it.
Data table
The Big Mac index
Although there are no McDonalds in Illte, nor any hamburgers or even Big Macs in Illte, the following index will give you an indication of the value of Illomi money at certain points of time during Illomi history.
Year a.Q. Currency Big Mac index Notes Amount Big Macs Issuer Inflation Currencies 50 Lagona 1 7 Nature
(Desalination plants)None One 100 Desalination plants 150 200 250 300 Gold
(credit)1 25 Nature
(Banks)Rampant 350 1 1 400 Cejswau 1 10 Government None Two Gold
(credit)15 1 Nature
(Banks)Rampant 450 Cejswau 1 10 Government None One 500 550 600 650 700 750 Cejswau 1 10 Government None Several
(Time)1 5
(average)
(Factories)Minor 800 Cejswau 1 10 Government None
(Time)1 5
(average)
(Factories)Minor 850 No data yet 900 950 1000 1050 1100 1150 Near future 1200
- ↑ Ip vy aunj deswaut llimauzi, Swaut grojezi! Nau hamiz aunj cepizj lluri gromauzjy cepizj jezi i caqwh bibri. Ne aj Lagona, Swaut gro nej deziwau aunanfomi aziti grolleti.
- ↑ Delang has several words that means to hunger, three of which are used in the original text spoken by King Qakhomatze. љімҩсі /ɭimɔzi/ rationing; љиłі /ɭʉɹi/ famine; асіті /aziti/ starvation. As such an alternate translation would be as following: If you hunger for limited gold, eat Gold! But those that's famine for food wishes to eat food and drink water. Unlike the Lagona, Gold cannot fill the belly of a starving child.
- ↑ According to tradition the regent are always referred to as king, and his or her spouse as queen, no matter the gender of the regent.
- ↑ King Zara was the first female to serve as king of Illte. She reigned from 392 a.Q to 446 a.Q, and was at that time, the most popular king since Qakhomatze.
- ↑ Tejmokh is the name of the continental ocean most of Illte lies underneath. The average depth of Tejmokh is 4 mest. The average dept of the ocean outside Illte is 2 reung (a measure of length equal to 30 mest), or 2284.2 meters/7494.1 feet.
- ↑ A mest is a measure of length equal to 38.07 meters/124.9 feet. 4 mest equals 152.28 meters/499.6 feet.
- ↑ Δепєѡа ҩнδеѕδебе еьѡаљ δепєѡа δє тіłе меѕт δє Тејмҩр на δеьап. /depø:wa ɔndesdebe eqwaɭ depø:wa dø tiɹe me:st dø tejmɔx na deqap/
- ↑ Кинан (Kunan) /kʉ:nan/, from ƒакилтін (fakultin) /fakʉ:ltin/ - knowledge, and -нан (-nan) /nan/, Age of, Era of, meaning Age of knowledge, a term referring to kids in secondary school level, normally 11-14 year old for girls, and 12-15 years old for boys.
