Capital pools

[orthecreedence]

This is an offshoot from the "abolishing regions" issue (#72). Effectively, by generalizing companies, we also make it so companies can have their own pools of currency/capital. This capital can never be distributed directly to members, but rather would be used for purchases into the market system.

Thoughts:

• Any company can have a capital pool, but it is not required.
• Capital pools replace the idea of a "bank"
• Companies can freely send capital from their pool to another company's pool (mutual aid)
  • When company A orders company B's widget and the widget has a currency cost, company A's capital pool automatically reimburses comapny B's pool
• A company does not need to have a capital pool, but rather can be a member of a company that does
  • How might spending limits/rates be enforced systemically?
  • How would pool membership work?
    • Can a company be a member of more than one pool?
    • Linking this comment for visibility

Distribution

(Adapted from this comment)

Capital gets distributed to and from various capital pools based on individual membership. Basically, for each company you're a member of (well, really each capital pool, but let's keep this simple), your share of the profits/losses for that company are realized proportionally by all of those companies.

For instance, let's say you're a member of the Super Tech company and the San Francisco Housing company. Now, if Super Tech has 10 members, you control 1/10 of the profit, and if SF housing has 1000 members, you control 1/1000th. So if Super Tech makes $8000 profit in one month, you control $800 of that. Because you're a member of the SF Housing company, the profit is split proportionally between the two companies: 50/50. So $400 goes into Super Tech's capital pool, and $400 goes to SF Housing. Now if SF housing has a few apartments it rents out at market rate and makes $10000 of profit, you control $10 of that profit, meaning $5 stays with SF Housing and $5 goes to Super Tech.

In this way, capital is distributed equally, based on membership. Your share of profits/losses is distributed in equal ratio among the companies you are a member of. If you are a member of two companies, it's 50/50. If you're a member of 4 companies, each gets 25%, etc.

Thoughts:

• Share of profits in a company might be tempered by a few things
  • hourly contribution to company (see Membership, companies, and labor hour tracking #91)
  • vested time at company
• Capital pool bankruptcy
  • What happens if the housing company runs out of cash? Would the losses at Super Tech would need to be covered by its own capital pool? Need to think about this in more detail. The success case is easy, the failure case is somewhat complicated.