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So I guess we can agree on three things, eh? (A) Teams that existed for maybe one day "don't move the needle." (Those weren't the teams I was talking about anyway, as I am certain you realize. Bringing them up was a red herring.) (B) Some bankruptcies occur after the team has pumped all its money into the economy, and then pumped in more money that it didn't have, sometimes more than a half million dollars, and then disappear. This puts a lot of excess cash into the economy. (C) When the replacement for these teams get a new manager, another $300k is pumped into the game, plus $50k per week for several more weeks.

The whole point I have apparently been unable to make is that the idea of money "pumped into the game" is the red herring, as none of that money causes any effects on the rest of the game world in any way unless the manager participates in the transfer market. The money they spend on wages or scouting or anything else disappears into a hole, and new dollars are created from attendance and TV revenue and the like. If, at the time a team went bot, every single dollar they owned was paid to staff as a severance bonus, that wouldn't cause even one millionth of a dollar of change to the "economy." If at the time a team went bot, they continued to draw revenue from attendance and merchandising and ceased paying salary, causing their bank accounts to rise perpetually, that wouldn't cause even one millionth of a dollar of change to the "economy." It will still cost the same amount of money to build a lower tier seat, a player's wage will be the same for the same skill set, and the amount of money available for teams to buy and sell players is exactly the same.

Now you can continue to say "other things overheat the economy, too," and I'll agree. But you cannot honestly deny that bankruptcies are a factor.

Sure, and the gravitational pull of the moon on the Earth is a factor in why Shaq was a horrible free throw shooter. I'm sorry, that's dismissive. I'm saying that the actual affect of bankruptcies on the transfer market (which I assume is what you mean by economy in this context) is trivially small.

You think "supply and demand" of players is the root of the problem. I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

You know, "too few worthwhile players" sounds awful lot like saying there's insufficient supply of players. Let me ask google to define supply, and the noun definition:

a stock of a resource from which a person or place can be provided with the necessary amount of that resource:

Now I just need to read up on the economic model that says when there is too little supply for a product that is easily produceable at a low cost, the solution is to forcibly extract money from people until only those who started with the most money will have enough left over to purchase the product.

Here's an even better test for your theory and mine.
[...]
The cash in the system is the culprit. If managers have too much cash, the prices are too high. If many, many managers have too much cash, the prices are too high. If there are fewer managers in the game but they still have too much cash, then prices are still too high. It isn't how many managers there are that matters, it is how much cash they have.

The flaw in your examples is that they make an unspoken assumption that supply is fixed and can not be altered. If no other players are ever going to be created, people will have to spend up to their available resources to acquire the player because there will never be another player available to them again.

But putting that aside, since there's no point in discussing something based on that flawed a premise, what is your solution? If money needs to be drained out of the game when teams leave, are you suggesting that each week, BB deducts additional cash from each team in the game to make sure that the transfer prices stay at whatever fixed point someone deems appropriate?

So do they take this money from everyone? "Hey, new team, I know you're working on building your arena and not spending money on the market, but prices went up 3% this week, so we are deducting $15,000 from your account." Or just from people who want to spend to buy players? "Hey, I know you'd like to buy player X, but prices went up 5%, so we'll take that money from you. On the bright side, he'll cost you less now!" Or maybe just those who sell players? "Player prices went up 5%, because there aren't enough good players. So since you are one of the people making the players, we'll have to make sure to take that 5% out of the transfer fee to keep prices level. Maybe if you'd make enough players, you wouldn't get penalized any more!"

And if that works, all you're doing is reducing the amount of money in terms of pure dollars. Teams will still spend their available dollars on the players, just that those without large reserves built up in the past will be disproportionately affected. Teams who need to spend dollars on arena expansions will be disproportionately affected. And prices for players who are desirable to teams who don't fall into your limitation of having very low money compared to the player's "worth" won't be affected - a 300k valued player would be worth a lot less to new teams if they don't start with 300k, for instance, but if guys with $3M in the bank still want him that price won't drop at all.

Other than all of that, it almost might work. Anything to make sure that you can buy players without people having to actually create them, I suppose.

The whole point I have apparently been unable to make is that the idea of money "pumped into the game" is the red herring, as none of that money causes any effects on the rest of the game world in any way unless the manager participates in the transfer market.

And since the entire roster cannot be trained from your draftees, the transfer market is an essential part of success at this game. Therefore, money pumped into the market is a fundamental influence on the game. Even your own posts sometimes make my point, no matter how hard you try to blow smoke over the entire topic.

Look, I get it, you evidently cannot admit that the BB's can do anything about the overheated economy. Maybe defending the game from anything perceived as a threat is part of being a GM, like a mama bear defending her cubs. But the overheated economy is a far, far greater threat than anyone calling it out.

When a team is 1$ in the red, where are they pumping money ? They cannot use it to buy players, so they don't transfer that money to other users. And seriously, there is not that much team going bankrupt. You are trying to make a discussion out of nothing...

... sort of like using a team $1 in the red as an example. Talk about trying to make a discussion out of nothing, I could take lessons here.

Here's an even better test for your theory and mine.
[...]
The cash in the system is the culprit. If managers have too much cash, the prices are too high. If many, many managers have too much cash, the prices are too high. If there are fewer managers in the game but they still have too much cash, then prices are still too high. It isn't how many managers there are that matters, it is how much cash they have.

The flaw in your examples is that they make an unspoken assumption that supply is fixed and can not be altered.

Not at all. You are again misrepresenting what I said. It was me among many others (who are willing to admit there is a problem) that suggested that a simple step toward correcting the problem would be lowering the threshold for players going on the free Agency.

Now let's see how many absurd suggestions we can think up to try to mock the other people in the discussion ... how about these ...

BB deducts additional cash from each team in the game to make sure that the transfer prices stay at whatever fixed point someone deems appropriate ... So do they take this money from everyone? "Hey, new team, I know you're working on building your arena and not spending money on the market, but prices went up 3% this week, so we are deducting $15,000 from your account." Or just from people who want to spend to buy players? "Hey, I know you'd like to buy player X, but prices went up 5%, so we'll take that money from you. On the bright side, he'll cost you less now!" Or maybe just those who sell players? "Player prices went up 5%, because there aren't enough good players. So since you are one of the people making the players, we'll have to make sure to take that 5% out of the transfer fee to keep prices level. Maybe if you'd make enough players, you wouldn't get penalized any more!"

How about a serious look at the problem for a change? Or at least be honest enough to admit you either don't see the problem with the overpricing of players, or just that you like it because it benefits the daytraders and teams at the top. You can say that without fearing that the problem will go away -- it won't. But if you would stop denying it and mocking people's suggestions, maybe there would be a climate conducive to people working constructively to help BB.

A team 1$ in red or a team 499,999$ in red are not pumping money into anything except outside of BB. Nobody get their money.

Oh, great, now we can pretend we're talking about real money outside of BB instead of the "money" in the BB game. Swell. Thumbs up on that one. Great red herring! *cough*cough*the smoke is getting thick around here.

The smoke will go away as soon as you stop posting it. Perpete is talking about "money" in the BB game.

The fact that you don't understand that the majority of money teams spend each week (player salaries, staff salaries, arena building, staff acquisition, etc.) is money leaving the economy, and that in fact this is the only way a team can go bankrupt (since it is impossible to participate in the transfer market unless you have a positive balance), simply continues demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of how the game works.

How about a serious look at the problem for a change? Or at least be honest enough to admit you either don't see the problem with the overpricing of players, or just that you like it because it benefits the daytraders and teams at the top. You can say that without fearing that the problem will go away -- it won't. But if you would stop denying it and mocking people's suggestions, maybe there would be a climate conducive to people working constructively to help BB.

You said:

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

So, how do you fix that? You can either remove cash - which leads to all the questions I asked about "from whom?". You can make it so people don't want to buy those players any longer - which of course leads to the question of "how?" Or you can increase the supply of players.

Maybe defending the game from anything perceived as a threat is part of being a GM, like a mama bear defending her cubs.

You can accuse me of refusing to admit flaws in BB all you like, but you know that's a b.s. argument as you've seen me consistently say the substitution system for example is horribly flawed, and that I was far more willing to discuss alternatives to the current training regimen than a mama bear would be. And you keep resorting to this line of argument because you simply can not come away from:

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

You have no response because there is none, short of more players. Which is why the FA discussion at least made some sense - I disagreed, but at least that's a logical solution to a perceived problem.

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

No matter how little or how much cash there is, if the player supply is sufficiently low, people will spend what they have. People who have more money (because of higher level revenues or old balances) will have more. They will profit. They will thrive.

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

If there are more players, prices recede.

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

If prices are rising and you fear not having the money to pay them, then create the players yourself.

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

The guy who spent time training his players matters just as much as you do. And robbing him to keep prices low for you is just as wrong as it would be robbing you to keep my team afloat.

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

It's a shame that you can actually realize the root of the problem and focus so much on things incidental to the problem.

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

Have I made my point yet? Supply and demand involves demand and supply.

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

I agree. Since we're in agreement, I think there's nothing left to say. Except maybe...

I say no, too much cash chasing too few worthwhile players is the root of the problem.

Last edited by GM-hrudey at 4/10/2015 1:02:42 PM