New reserve account established

[Sudane Erato]

Tor Karlsvalt and others have suggested that community money held by Rudeen Edo (our community "bank account") which is not expected to be used within the next couple of months be transferred to a new "Reserves" account/avatar. I thought this was a great idea, and I have now just finished the steps to set it up.

Over the last few months there has been a lot of talk about the state of our finances and the level of reserves, or money not immediately designated for us, that we retain. This step enables people to accurately see the real size of those reserves. Hopefully it will prompt a more informed discussion about the matter.

NL 4-6 mandates that 2 full months of projected expenses be set aside to manage our commitments should unexpected shortfalls in community revenue occur. Using this as a guideline, and in accordance with the suggestion, I've reversed it a bit and have left 2 full months of projected expenses in Rudeen's account. The remainder, L$ 2,485,255, I've transferred to our new Reserves Account/Avatar, LadyJane Rhys.

LadyJane is a new addition to my family. She's actually an older cousin, and she joins Rudeen Edo (my "over-active hormones" little sister), Odysseus Elytis (my scoundrel older brother!), and Guilda Guisse (my crow). If you see any of them, please say hello!

The Reserves account will not show up on the monthly statements, of course, until I manage to prepare the September one in mid-October. But I'm happy to announce that the new system is in place.

Sudane..................................

[Soro Dagostino]

Off topic, but we'll have to talk about how I set up my Owl, Owslarah, as my alt. He's as grumpy as someone I know!

[Ranma Tardis]

Sudane,

My friend you would be better off putting it into hard currency. Lindens are not real money and if something happened *poof*, it all goes away and you will just be another creditor to Linden Labs. If it was in real money then if something happens maybe the community can be rebuilt elsewhere.

[Rosie Gray]

Sudane,

My friend you would be better off putting it into hard currency. Lindens are not real money and if something happened *poof*, it all goes away and you will just be another creditor to Linden Labs. If it was in real money then if something happens maybe the community can be rebuilt elsewhere.

I think this is very good advice. There are other virtual worlds, should it become necessary to move to one of them if LL disappear. Even moving the fnds into PayPal for instance would make it a lot safer, and also accessible.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Sudane,

My friend you would be better off putting it into hard currency. Lindens are not real money and if something happened *poof*, it all goes away and you will just be another creditor to Linden Labs. If it was in real money then if something happens maybe the community can be rebuilt elsewhere.

I think this is very good advice. There are other virtual worlds, should it become necessary to move to one of them if LL disappear. Even moving the fnds into PayPal for instance would make it a lot safer, and also accessible.

Paypal. Safer.

*chuckle*. Even while I think it's not a bad idea (and from Ranma who spends most of her time saying why we're inevitably doomed? I'm shocked!) right now the Lab's track record of screwing-with-people is a lot less gruesome than Paypal's. (Now, withdrawing it to an actual RL bank account... maybe, although there could be legal issues with it being a personal account and it being considered 'income' for that person, versus having a nonprofit set up. But without the nonprofit discount, it's hardly worth the hassle on that score, either.)

A median solution is to simply not carry a larger reserve than we need for a rainy day, which is probably a good idea anyway. If we're making so much money that we have a huge amount of savings, then we're bringing in a little too MUCH money.

[Sudane Erato]

Valid comments all. Please keep in mind these factors.

It costs us 3.5% to convert any funds to US$s, which is obviously the currency needed to implement any of the suggestions. The only ongoing use we have for US$s is tier... even sims can be bought, profitably, for L$s. ALL other expenses are in L$s.

So... assume we do transfer some funds to US$s, and store them... "somewhere's". I agree fundamentally with Aliasi about PayPal... it is NOT more trustworthy than LL. Maybe we could store them in a bank account... while technically Aliasi is correct, but there would be ways to accomplish this. But "safe" bank accounts, money market funds, pay nothing these days. So we spend our 3.5% to convert our funds into US$s just in order to stash them someplace in US$s? With no way at all to recoup the 3.5%? That doesn't seem reasonable.

And then... how would the funds be used? As I said, we can use them for tier. But right now, I cash out (paying the 3.5%) the absolute *minimum* amount needed to pay tier. This leaves all further funds for discretionary spending which I'm very happy to say is finally increasing! (For far too long we have under-invested our community resources in our community.) We could also use them to buy sims from LL. But if we want to do that, why not cash out only what's needed, paying the least amount of the 3.5% exchange fee, and keep the rest for ourselves?

Anyway... factors to ponder.

Sudane...........................

[Ranma Tardis]

This was just a suggestion to you. If you are comfortable with Linden Labs than more power to you but think of it this way. The money is not yours and it is your duty to safeguard it. Thus keeping it with a company clearly in financial trouble could be seen as irresponsible.
Oh you can set up a bank account for the CDS, call it a hobby club or such. Thus you as a person never took the money.
Good luck the the CDS!
kind regards
Ranma

Think of it as "insurance", we never expect anything to happen but what if it does?

[Soro Dagostino]

If LL fails, so does the grid. It is extremely unlikely that this gang of malcontents and political junkies will ever find the door to the vault that is outside of SL. That said, I would bet my life that Sudane would do all in her power to protect the funds of her associated malcontents and political junkies, and in the end find a means to rebuild the democracy to which the money belongs and then pay it over.

Face it, in the long run, in this market, you won't find a way to get enough return to pay the 3-1/2% percent fee for the currency exchange. Heh! The way things are going, the L$ is likely to be worth more than the weak kneed US Dollar in the near term. At least as long as the Chinese will not let the Yuan float on the market. I think Sudane is right on the money.

My $0.02.

Soro

[Ranma Tardis]

I suppose you are right friend Soro though if SL lives or dies it does not matter to me. I make no money in SL and have been spending most of my time in the rl. I have gone back to college to pick up another degree with GI bill money. I am restoring a 86.5 Toyota Supra and am considering buying and restoring a 1948 Pullman 10-6 Pullman sleeper. Most of the CDS could travel in it on a cross country trip.
Good luck my friends in the CDS and lets hope that Philip does not drop the ball.