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<blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 4262157" data-attributes="member: 2011">I didn't forget it.If you read my first post, I explain the economic reasons why billionaires in the real world do indeed become billionaires. Leverage over vast numbers of consumers. But, if there were only 10 million people (or other intelligent creatures) on our planet (like potentially in a fantasy world), instead of 6 billion like in the real world, the richest people would be millionaires instead of billionaires because they would not have the labor force to build up that amount of wealth. And, they would not have leverage over the entire world, just their local community.If you only have 2 people in the entire world and one of them makes a wage of $50, the other (i.e. the lord) should not be able to tax that person $100. The economy just does not support that. If the lord found a ton of gold, gold would be worth next to nothing for just 2 people on the planet. It would be a common item because each of the 2 people would average 1000 pounds of the stuff.I do not disagree with your top 1% statement. But, top 1% in a Points of Light setting should be relative to the number of intelligent creatures found in all of these scattered communities (even if the communities are those of monsters).A non-PoL metropolitan setting where there are billions of intelligent creatures on the planet? Sure. I could see the 4E economy as written as being viable. Even in a setting of &quot;the empires of the past collapsed and the population dwindled&quot;, I have a hard time justifying such a steep wealth gain curve.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="KarinsDad, post: 4262157, member: 2011"] I didn't forget it. If you read my first post, I explain the economic reasons why billionaires in the real world do indeed become billionaires. Leverage over vast numbers of consumers. But, if there were only 10 million people (or other intelligent creatures) on our planet (like potentially in a fantasy world), instead of 6 billion like in the real world, the richest people would be millionaires instead of billionaires because they would not have the labor force to build up that amount of wealth. And, they would not have leverage over the entire world, just their local community. If you only have 2 people in the entire world and one of them makes a wage of $50, the other (i.e. the lord) should not be able to tax that person $100. The economy just does not support that. If the lord found a ton of gold, gold would be worth next to nothing for just 2 people on the planet. It would be a common item because each of the 2 people would average 1000 pounds of the stuff. I do not disagree with your top 1% statement. But, top 1% in a Points of Light setting should be relative to the number of intelligent creatures found in all of these scattered communities (even if the communities are those of monsters). A non-PoL metropolitan setting where there are billions of intelligent creatures on the planet? Sure. I could see the 4E economy as written as being viable. Even in a setting of "the empires of the past collapsed and the population dwindled", I have a hard time justifying such a steep wealth gain curve. [/QUOTE]

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