spice and wolf, business sense and wolf
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Tagged: spice and wolf
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“I look at the world through apple eyes.”
The third episode of Spicy Wolfgasm features, by far, the least nudity of the series so far. That’s compensated by– gasp– actual trading! I couldn’t be more thrilled. Honestly, there’s very few times when I would be riveted by a currency exchange (other than crying when I see the dollar plummeting against the euro), but I’m riveted by how Horo and Lawrence trade silver coins. I guess the appeal could be how Horo and Lawrence resolve their deals and try to get the upper hand. I guess the appeal could be that I’m learning something, even if it is a shallow yet fun knowledge. I guess the appeal could be that Spice and Wolf is just different enough from the other series that even if it’s not perfect, it’s still a breath of perfectly fresh air.
Market Report and Wolf
UP “Men are all stupid and jealous, and women are stupid to be happy about it. Idiots are everywhere you look, especially on blogs and web forums.”
UP Apples… my love for honeycrisp apples is well known, and I couldn’t resist. I actually have a dozen organically-grown honeycrisp apples in my fridge. Well, actually, only eleven now. We’ll see how many survive by the time I publish this post. The other fruit that I have abundantly in my kitchen right now is comice pears. They’re large, juicy, and highly delicious pears. I like them a bit overripe to get maximum juiciness and sweetness. Unfortunately, because comice pears don’t really change colors, they’re hard to gauge. Both comice pears and honeycrisp apples make a great afternoon snack.
UP Apple cores… I loved Horo’s tail wagging after she plowed through those apples. She ate like fifty of them! Good gosh!
UP Silver for pelts… I guess apples can also be used to manipulate business deals. I’m not sure what I enjoyed more: the fact we finally got a trade, Lawrence’s face when Horo managed to up the price to 200 coins, Lawrence’s mini-depression knowing that Horo just schooled him, Horo’s acting, or that apples were involved. If Horo had a few sizes larger bust, she would combine her manipulative prowess with a plunging neckline. That’s two fantastic weapons for any poker table. She’d be the Gurren Lagann to their pathetic gunmen.
(I’d love to play Catan against Horo. Especially plunging neckline Horo. I wouldn’t play poker against her though… my wallet can’t stand that thrashing.)
UP Nick at Night… when Lawrence was casually ignoring Horo about apples at the beginning of the episode, it’s a classic trick parents use to not buy stuff for their kids. Of course, like most parents, Lawrence relents… and Horo buys a tub-load of apples, and she doesn’t share any. Childish behavior. ;)
UP Horo… very manipulative this episode. I like that! She’s more crafty than wise, really. And, uh, I really wanted to nibble on her apples too. That reminds me, I have ten honeycrisp apples left in the fridge now.
UP Fox Reality… watching a shark like Horo charm an unsuspecting victim… well… it’s like watching Sumeragi deploy that scary dress against Billy, only if Sumeragi made actual use of that information. Horo should be leading the Gundam Meisters; she’d whip Union, AEU, and HRL by episode 20, and the last six episodes will just be a harem comedy around Saji and Louise. Mmmm… maybe it’s not a bad thing Sumeragi’s in charge.
(Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it more, watching the Gundam Meisters curl up in their most important battle was like watching LT on the sidelines of the Chargers/Pats game. LT was that pathetic. Both Gates and Rivers played with major injuries, and LT just sat there with his shades on. What an awesome teammate primadonna. He didn’t even go cheer on his teammates… in the biggest game of the year! So far this post, I’ve talked about comice pears and ripped on the NFL’s premier running back. Good balance. I think.)
DOWN Lawrence and Logo… so let me get this straight… he’s traveling with a wolf girl who doesn’t mind prancing around in the nude, who makes big profits, and is a major tease… and he hasn’t hit on her yet? I’m starting to get bad Zero and Kallen flashbacks. To make it worse, he also discarded the other tease, Chloe. Now I’m getting Zero, Kallen, and Shirley flashbacks. OH GEASS NO! I really hope we don’t get any more male characters, because each one is a potential Suzaku. On the bright side, Kimikiss, H2O, and Rosario + Vampire called. Lawrence would be a total upgrade over any of their current male leads.
DOWN IMAGIN… shakes head. Again.
DOWN Food Network… if I were still doing the mathematic gimmick from the last thin slicing (I changed it up for winter 2008… which should be posted within a week): “Food Network + Catan + OH GEASS NO = Spice and Wolf.” Horo is such a deliciously cute glutton. I just hope she stays in the anime blogosphere and not in the fatosphere. I’m down to nine honeycrisp apples.
(If the bloggers in the fatosphere believe that if they keep blogging about unhealthy lifestyles, they’ll improve their lives? I don’t get it. It’s like me thinking that if I keep blogging about underperforming Sunrise series, we’ll eventually get a pantheon-class Gundam series. Some things won’t happen, no matter what your RSS feed says.)
DOWN CNBC… the emergency 0.75 cut was nice by the Feds, but there’s rumors of more cuts in the coming weeks. The prime rate is quickly approaching 3% while banks are still propping up savings rate (because they are desperate for deposits). If you have good credit and a stable job, it is an excellent time to buy some property. Unfortunately, cutting rates was what caused the housing bubble in the first place! While another housing bubble so soon is very unlikely, the end result of the rate cuts will be higher inflation.
DOWN Coin trading… I’m very curious about next week now, because I’m not an economics expert. What I do know is that if you know one currency (dollar) is going to decline versus another (euro), you’d hoard the one that would be higher (euro). If someone knew that and wanted to manipulate the market, he say that the dollar would be higher, so people who flock to the dollar, devaluing the euro. He’d then scoop up the euro, and when the decline of the dollar comes, he’d make a larger profit.
(If only I had a time machine back to 2001. Goddamn.)
DOWN National Geographic Channel… doesn’t IMAGIN watch Nat Geo? Wolves are carnivores! We’ve seen Horo wolf down potatoes, apples, and bread. Where’s the meat?
(Please, let’s keep the “I’ve got her meat right here!” comments to a minimum. Thanks.)
UP Travel Channel… I’ll give you guys a special treat. I took this photo last summer when I was bombing around Yellowstone National Park. I was lucky enough to see a wolf hunt, albeit from over a half kilometer away. It was one of the more fantastic episodes of wildlife I had ever seen. I’ve been to Yellowstone before wolves were re-introduced, and there’s a very distinct change in the animals since. The larger herbivores like deer are much more cautious knowing that the wolf packs are roaming around. The deer aren’t as afraid of humans as they are of the wolves. Now that’s splendid wilderness. And, no, I highly doubt any wolf would be satisfied with a few honeycrisp apples. Eight left in the fridge.
27 Responses to “spice and wolf, business sense and wolf”
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Nice article and nice episode but don’t use this show as a way of educating yourself about currency values. Currency value is largely driven by how much people use it (and a host of other factors). Silver or gold content in the currency is usually not a good indicator of exchange rate. This is illustrated by the currency systems in place in the 1800s in Europe (current currencies are fiat currencies so gold and silver content is not even an applicable measure anymore). In Europe, governments typically charged a surcharge on all the gold/silver/bronze given to the mint. This ranged anywhere from nearly 0 % in England to almost 25% in France. I.e. a French coin would be worth 25% more than its value in terms of precious metals. In fact, most governments did this and for a good reason. The coins could still be exchanged back and forth through the gold/silver markets and the surcharge disincentivised (is that even a word?) circulating the currency (get some gold coins, melt them and get more gold coins from the mint with that gold. rinse and repeat).
Sorry, I know that this is not the blog for discussing the economics of currency but this was bugging me throughout the entire episode. Still, nice episode though it could use a little more teasing Horo.
Oh men, you sure were hungry….
Just watched this episode, and as you’ve said, it was a descent combination of trades, comedy and some serious business for Lawrence.
Don’t worry for a Oh GEASS NO moment, I guess our friend will try to hit on Horo next episode, but guessing Horo won’t allow it.
Damn it, now I want an apple.
I’d say Lawrence is putting up quite a good show of NOT hitting on Horo. He probably ain’t too sure if it’s safe to hit on a thousand year old carnivorous goddess. Though it does look like he might just jump the gun next week … Either way looking forward to that one for sure.
Horo has shown her omnivore tendency in ep. 1 when she ate that handful of raw Barley kernels, shell and all. I guess she can eat anything she likes for she is a ‘deity’, not a regular wolf. I did see wolves munching up watermelons in Wolf Park near Lafayette, Indiana. Remember that the more than half the food we humans give to the dogs are likely to NOT be meat.
Actually, you can make a killing if you know a currency will devalue by selling short. That is, make a contract with someone to sell them 1000 Dollars a month from now for a specified price (say 690 Euros). When the dollar devalues, you can then buy the 1000 Dollars at a lower price (say 500 Euros) then you sell back those 1000 dollars to the guy you have a contract with making you a tidy profit (in this case 190 Euros). Free money!
Isn’t that thing Lawrence is eating in the 1st episode, when he finds Horo sleeping inside the cart, supposed to be jerky meat or something? Horo ends up eating that stuff… 「ã‚ら。もã£ãŸã„ãªã„ï¼ã€
The 10th image of Horo eating that piece of bread…I just couldn’t help but imagine that it was a photoshopped image over something…inappropriate. And that all it was lacking was a “DELICIOUS CAEK, YOU MUST EAT IT” speech bubble next to it.
Goddamn you, 4chan.
Big issue I had with this Ep was that Horo had to explain that it was her apples making the furs smell nice. By his initial reaction and apparent intelligence I’d assumed Lawrence had clued on to that when she was selling the furs, so I just about fell off my chair when he was all surprised at the “big revelation” afterwards.
Didn’t have the same issue with currency trading mechanics. Maybe they weren’t historically accurate, but that wasn’t really the goal. They showed how the story fed to Lawrence was a good, plausible lie, that they only saw through because he has a god advising him.
The scenario also tries to make the viewer aware of certain attributes of the currency markets – the cutthroat manipulations, speculation and the stakes involved both for individuals and nations.
I can only applaud this sort of entertainment in the current world climate. Argentinia suffered a pretty devastating collapse in the 90’s because of exactly this kind of speculation. More recently two countries have come under attack and a third been marked for threatening a certain nation’s already fragile currency.
Yes you can. These are called foreign exchange bonds (their most common use is as hedges, not much for speculation). However, these are not very useful unless you have future information on a currency and Lawrence’s method of getting that is flawed.
All the currency talk in this episode induced horrifying flashbacks to my near-complete financial ruin and subsequent ejection from Manhattan high society following the ’98 Ruble crash.
Fortunately Horo’s antics pulled me out of my downward spiral.
CURSES!
I got her… apples…right here…?
The Gundam references in this post had me trying to imagine Lockon with a Horo and Lawrence with a Haro.
Strictly speaking wolves, and every other canine out there, are actually omnivores. It’s just that meat is a more efficient source of food for pack animals living a high octane lifestyle in a seasonal environment. More solitary canids like red wolves (which looks an awful like Horo in her true form), coyotes, foxes, and several wild dogs actually eat a significant quantity of fruits and starchy plant products when those are available. In fact there is a species (red dogs I think they’re called) in India that raise their young entirely on a type of tuber that grows at the same time as their rearing season.
Wow you mentioned my favorite board game, AND the NYTimes article I was telling people about last night in the same post. Get out of my head!
That said all this show needs is more brick ports.
Ironically, I’ve found the best way to win Catan is to not play. The trading part of the game, I mean. Just strategically place cities for self-sufficiency and you’re all set. Then again, every time I’ve played the other players band together in an embargo against me so my Catan experiences are probably not the norm.
But even knowing I’d get screwed, I’ll still trade with Horo any day.
well, you don’t really have to worry about horo’s shape… since she is HUGE (as seen in OP)… african elephant has nothing on her, i’m kinda amused she hasn’t chopped down the cart they are driving… and the entire neighborhood for good measure
At a point where the US economy is declining, it is not necessarily a bad thing that the value of the dollar is dropping. What results is a upper hand in trade where US products steadily becomes cheaper compared to, say European ones. Cheap currency is rather key for economic growth. (Points at the rise of Japan before they stagnated, as well as the current rise of China.) The one thing to watch out for however is to make sure a steady decline in currency value does not result in a loss of confidence that results in a crash of the currency value which ends you with stagflation.
Our president Sarkozy is too busy banging Carla Bruni to save France’s LOL economy. And strikes doesn’t help the situation.
It’s kinda cool to pay my international ragnarok online month, but the inflation in my country does suck.
“The Dollar is our currency but your problem.” Americans don´t exactly worry about a weak dollar. But if it goes overboard the dollar could loose the actuall source for it´s value: trust.
That is why gold/silver content IS a good value indicator IF everyone thinks that it is.
Notice how the gold price rises – it isn´t exactly reasonable but gold has the stigma of being “safe”. It certainly isn´t because it suddenly became rare(rer).
If your currency is weak you have a advantage when exporting, the other way works too of course.
Predicting and influencing money exchange rates is very potent people gain and loose enourmous summs every day just from exchange rates.
I’ll let her lick my apples before I’ll allow her to eat it…^^
Are you kidding. The US has a massive trade deficit (and has had one for over 2 decades). It may be cheaper to export but all those gains are lost and then some when the imports are counted. Japan improved with a cheaper currency because they had a completely export based economy then (and to a large extent, still do).
There is another scary aspect of a devaluation of the dollar. Currently, the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. If that goes, then so do large chunks of the US financial systems and without those, the US is screwed.
I weak dollar is poisonous to the US and the sooner the Fed realizes this, the better.
I agree but more and more countries and privates are switching their reserves from Dollar to Yuan/€uro, Exchange value is not the only thing effected by currency value.
Imagine if the opec stopped trading in Dollars. Currently Oil price is mesured in USD, wouldn´t it be funny if it were €uro instead? Not for US Americans I assure you.
The Fed is the thing that’s killing the dollar. They keep pumping more money into the circulation in order to monetize debt (in layman’s terms they keep legally counterfeiting $ for government/special interest use). This first causes inflation, and devalues the dollar (obviously, the more you have of something, the less valuable it is). Also imagine if you have a $1000 saving. Once a 5% inflation hits you literally lose $50 of wealth. That $50 wealth is transfered to the bundle of newly printed cash and will benefit whoever uses those fresh cashes first (government..etc.). The “legal counterfeiting” also lowers interest rate, which causes bank to take risks and start to lend cashes to people with bad credit rate. And when the shit hits the fan, most of them can’t pay it back, thus causing a shitstorm known as banking crisis. Their solution to this is for the central bank to act as a “lender of last resort” and bail the banks out..by printing more money! Then the vicious cycle starts again.
The good old gold/silver coins are so much more better and safe as money in this regard. As long as anything close to the philosopher’s stone is not discovered yet that is.
Well, the episode did turn a bit into Economics 101 (albeit on obsolete subjects)… and so did, it seems, the replies to this post. :)
Short selling I understand is more common in the stock market. Basically, you sell stock that you’ve borrowed assuming it’ll go down in price, then buy it back at a lower price. Your profit is directly proportional to how much the stock has lost value. Short sellers must’ve made a killing on SCO stock since it was pretty easy to see how their litigation campaign would end. As for exchange rates, our export industry isn’t exactly cheering at weak dollar as it means stiffer competition from US industry. And if oil barrels were traded in euros instead of dollars, it would mean gas prices climbing up in US as long as the dollar weakened.
Ahem, the show. So far it seems we’re heading for an episodic journey type of show, though I suppose this silver coin scheme – covering at least three episodes – qualifies as a story arc. Also, Lawrence’s prudence is understandable, after all this is a wolf goddess we’re talking about. Interesting show all in all, the Horo – Lawrence trading co. duo is very dynamic. Now if he just would drop his Zero tone.
Horo’s appetite + Yakitate Japan = ?
“it is not necessarily a bad thing that the value of the dollar is dropping. What results is a upper hand in trade where US products steadily becomes cheaper compared to, say European ones.”
What exports? The only physical products we still make in the US are vehicles, and office supplies. Everything else has been outsourced or just not exportable. YOu can’t export a lot of the service industry, which forms 80% of US commerce. For instance, the service work a cashier produces in Delaware, can’t be exported to Bangladesh.
The drop in the value of the Dollar hurts us even more when the whole purpose of outsourcing our industries was to escape paying wages with the expensive dollar. In the emerging situation, US products feature Chinese production quality, 3x in shipping and logistical costs and a less significant gain in wage costs..