Alternate Monopoly Rules

I’ve been a fan of Monopoly all my life.  Getting brothers and sisters, let alone parents, to play this long game has been hard.  Whenever I had the chance, I would play.  One year for Christmas I got Deluxe Monopoly, the board, box, and various parts of the game wrapped separately so I would have plenty of presents under the tree.  I own a book about Monopoly that gives secrets to the game, among which is the hint to buy orange and red properties, statistically the most landed on spaces. 

 

Before I had real money to speak of, I decided to budget when I played Monopoly.  I kept a ledger and gave myself a $200 allowance each time around the board.  The allowance rolled over, but this budget was not the best strategy for Monopoly.  Property is, as you might expect, key in Monopoly.  (Allowances reduce spending power when the most properties are available.)  In Monopoly, finishing the game is important.  Long term strategy requires that you invest cash now in the future, planning to finish the game as the only player not bankrupt.  Stopping earlier cheats the strategists. 

 

Learning financial principles and investment strategies can be useful, and Monopoly is a versatile tool.  We know there are versions of Monopoly for all sorts of things, changing the wording and the pictures on a board to match a theme: Golf, Disney, Dinosaurs.  Some of these, like Lord of the Rings Monopoly, even offer optional new rules.  Inspired by these game-twisting ideas, my friends and I have come up with some of our own new rules.  Far different than “house rules” (using Free Parking as a lottery), these are made to challenge the way you strategize, and how you think about capital, commerce, and taxes. 

 

Here are a few Alternate Monopoly Rules. —  All games must be finished.  Early terminations necessarily end in a draw, with no winners.  Versions are meant to be played one at a time, and not combined.  However, feel free to modify these rules for your own use.  Unless stated, all rules are as printed in the Monopoly Rule Book.  As a general rule for inventing alternate rules, keep things simple. 
 
Inflation
Every time you pass Free Parking, your cash will be assessed and 25% will be returned to the Bank.  Properties will not be assessed.  Your salary upon passing GO remains the same. 
 
Ultimate Portal (Aughenbaughs)
Use 2 Monopoly Boards, preferably with slightly different cards (vintage, specialized version).  Landing directly on Go on either board shoots you to the opposite board.  Also switch the chance and community chest cards from the two versions.  When a Chance or Community Chest card tells you to go somewhere, go there on the opposite board.  Everyone starts on one board. 
 
Swiss Bank Account
Play like Ultimate Portal with these additions.
Any cash COLLECTED while your piece is on the SECOND board goes into a Swiss Bank Account.  The player may take cash out of that account at any time, but cannot arbitrarily add money.  Income Taxes and Bankruptcies cannot touch any cash in the Swiss Bank Account.  It stays there through the whole game, even if you are bankrupted in the main game.  At the end of the game (when only one player in the main game has any money), the initial winner adds his main game money to his Swiss bank account.  If his total is greater than the balances of his opponents in their Swiss bank accounts, he wins. 
 
Criminal Justice
When you roll three doubles, get a “Go directly to Jail” card, or land on the “go to jail” space on the board, if you do not have a “Get out of Jail free” card with which to bribe the judge, your game is over.  You are capitally executed and your assets are returned to the bank in full. 
 
Wartime/Draft
All taxes are doubled.
If you land directly on any of the four corner squares, you have been drafted.  Roll the dice to determine your fate:
1-Tour of Duty.  Sit out 3 turns.  Come back (to GO) exempt from future service and any taxes.
2-War Hero.  Same as 1 with $1,000 bonus.
3-Casualty.  Game over.  Return assets to the Bank.
4-Draft Dodger.  Sit out 3 turns.  Resume play from GO.  If on any turn afterwards you land on a street property, you may buy any unowned properties in that color group.  If you subsequently land on Go to Jail or get a Go to Jail Card, your game is over.
5-Amputee.  Sit out 1 turn.  Resume play from GO.  All future turns, roll both dice and divide by 2, rounding up. 
6-Did not Qualify.  Proceed with game as normal. 

 
Socialist
At the start of the game all properties are shuffled and dealt to the players.  All rents are the prices posted on Indiana.  Chance and Community Chest cards that involve spending or receiving money apply to everyone.
 
Triggered Socialism
If at any time the least propertied player has 3 or more properties LESS than the next richest player, EVERY player must return his lowest-priced property to the bank.  
 
Economic Stimulus
Pay taxes and fees to Free Parking.  If anyone lands on Free Parking, the pot is divided evenly among all players, with remainders going to the player who landed on the space. 
 
Jubilee
Every time a 7 is rolled, all mortgages are automatically forgiven.  Every 7th time around the board, all rent is free. 
 
Savings Discrimination
Every player must spend money on each trip around the board.  If he completes a circuit without spending money, he must pay a fine of $50 to the bank. 
 
Debt Incentive
If you own a mortgaged property, you do not have to pay any taxes.
 
Foreclosure
If a player lands on a mortgaged property, he may pay 110% of the mortgage value to the bank and acquire that property. 
 
Libertarian
Taxes and jail are cancelled.
 
Mobster
Make up your own rent.  If you own a property, you have 2 options.  You can charge a tenant the printed rent.  Or you can make up your own rent, at which point you have a shoot-off with the tenant.  You each roll one dice.  The higher number wins.  Winner (landlord or tenant) collects the made-up rent from the loser.  In case of a tie, both players pay printed rent to the bank.
 
2012
Put a sticker on a community chest card, and one on a chance card.  Shuffle both decks (separately).  Play Monopoly as usual.  When the special Chance card is drawn, 2012 has arrived; the End of the World has come.  Clean up the game.  There are no winners.  If you draw the special Community Chest card, you can play it as written.  Or you can keep it as a Cycle Card.  If the holder of that card so chooses at the End of the World, he can play his card.  Instead of the world ending, it merely begins a new cycle or phase.  The game is still over, but assets are summed and a winner is declared. 
 
Freaky Friday
Whenever doubles are rolled, players keep their same pieces but all assets shift clockwise (to the left).  No new rents are paid as a result of the exchange until the next turn.
 
Insurance
Optional: Each player has the option at the beginning of the game of receiving a reduced Go paycheck of $150 as insurance against Utilities and Railroads.  The extra $50 goes into the middle of the board and pays Utilities and Railroads charges unless there is no money in the pot, at which point the rents/fees are still charged at $0. 
 
Mayor
When someone rolls a 12, he becomes Mayor.  He holds the special mayor piece.  Property improvements (houses and hotels) are half price to him while he holds that piece.  Mayors are exempt for the duration of their term from property assessment cards.  The next person to roll a 12 is elected the new Mayor.  No special privileges are retroactive.  

 

Feel free to share your own special rules in the comment section!
 
To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Federal Reserve and the End of Capital

The Federal Reserve is a collection of banks that loan money to the Federal Government.  Don’t be confused by the use of federal in both terms.  One is private, and the latter is public, run and (at least hypothetically) regulated by the US Constitution as ratified by the states. 

If the government wants capital, they call up the Federal Reserve, who prints out “federal reserve notes” that we call dollars.  They’re legally backed as usable on any transactions in the United States, but they have no other intrinsic value.  They are good towards commerce and payment of debts, but their value is not fixed, and the more that are printed, the less value each “note” has.  The Federal Reserve is not taking money from one place and loaning it to the government like you or I would have to do in order to loan money.  They are inventing it out of thin air. 

And here is the interesting thing.  The Federal Reserve charges interest on the money they print for the government.  A loan has been made, that could be called up.  To repay this loan, we would have to give back the dollars plus interest.  Do you see a problem here?  To repay a loan with interest, we have to give the Federal Reserve more dollars than we got from them, and they’re the only source of dollars.  Even if there were another source of dollars, those dollars would be a note on some other group, even the government, backed by nothing.  It’s all Monopoly money that people use to control each other.  Kind of strange.  This isn’t even a case of the power of the richest.  They own nothing of value, but wield all sorts of authority. 

I don’t like it.  A partial list of banks that make up the Federal Reserve (many of which are foreign) is available.  On that list is my bank, Chase Manhattan.  This leaves me conflicted.  On the one hand, I don’t want to help the criminals that propagate the Federal Reserve.  On the other hand, it is virtually impossible that my bank will go under.  When you can print your own money and are in on the biggest racket in history, you’re in pretty good shape.  This is worse than Batman, let me tell you.  The only way that my bank would be threatened is if other members of the Federal Reserve were to turn on them, and I believe that will not happen until there are no other banks.  For there to be no other banks, there would have to be no more capital. 

This is my best bet for boycotting the Federal Reserve: set myself up in a situation where I can be self-sufficient or barter whatever I need, living entirely without capital.  (Even this is impossible because the government charges property taxes payable only in the form of Federal Reserve Notes – the government is compounding their own problem.  Why?  As long as the game is still going, the government also wields power using the Monopoly money.  Just like the idea of debt in the first place, or economic stimulus packages, or bailouts, or bankrupting social security – the government does not think about long-term consequences.  Their value is not liberty and justice, but control.) 

But there is another way of eliminating capital.  We could go to a digital currency system.  Belonging to a bank (probably only one central bank) would be mandatory in a legal sense, and almost in a practical sense.  Accessing the account would require a password or a physical scan (fingerprint, iris) or a digital key (like they use in hotels, or in your remote access car key).  And anyone who has studied any kind of end times prophecies has heard of the “mark of the beast” on hands or foreheads used for buying or selling.  Can’t you imagine a world leader who decides to throw off the yoke of the banking industry and replace them? 

To God be all glory.

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Economics, Investment, Inflation, and Debt

My brother and I were talking the other night and I had an insight (being only informally trained in economics – I could have been taught it if I’d just taken a class).  But I don’t know if there’s a name for it.  So I’m asking. 
 
I heard an ad for investing in gold.  The price per ounce has gone up a lot in the past couple years, and is understandably predicted to continue to rise.  Right now I think the commercial said the going price is $700 an ounce.  But while I might have $700 free cash to invest waiting for the gold to increase in value, I’m not allowed to buy gold one ounce at a time.  So there is a minumum amount of money I have to have before I can participate in investment.  Buying a home is very similar.  Debt makes money more available in larger amounts (paid back in smaller increments), thus raising the minimum line. 
 
Bartering went out of fashion because having one cow didn’t work as a trade for one spear, since the cow was really worth say, 300 spears.  So we have capital, money, to be the fluid in between and prevent us needing a minimum number of available cows to trade in order to participate.  Capitalism, therefore, should have fixed the minimum line problem. 
 
But then we add inflation (caused by debt on a national level), which depriciates the money someone below the minimum line has, so that they are, rather than gaining worth by saving money, actually losing ground.  They must continue going to work (as an employee, most often) just to get enough money to survive – if that.  And there’s no way out.  This is the modern equivalent to serfs, or the slave class. 

Marx saw this, I assume (never read Marx myself), but his solution doesn’t solve anything.  It emphasizes inflation and simultaneously erases any home of overcoming it through investment.  Marxism is like bailing water from a still-sinking boat. 
 
So what’s it called, the minimum line to participate in investment that would protect your income? 

And what should we do?  
 
To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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