Monday, July 16, 2018

The Week 3 Commissioner's Report


On Monday the Homesteaders held a meeting to discuss the oligarchy. One of the oligarchs, Mia, resigned on Friday last week, and so the rest of the Village had to figure out which common Peep would be added to the oligarchy. After the meeting, when the Bank Manager and bank employees headed to the bank to look at the numbers and find out who the richest Peep was, they spent a suspicious amount of time checking the books for Peep's balances. They returned and announced that Hidie would be the newest oligarch, but rumors started floating around about some banking discrepancies. The Fed decided to take a look for themselves after Homesteaders left that afternoon, and they found some questionable transactions. Money seemed to be appearing from nowhere, and was being funneled into one particular Peep's bank account. (This Peep also just happened to be one of the oligarchs.) After an evening audit of the banking records, and discussion with a few suspect Peeps the next day, The Fed figured out what was going on: a small "investors' club" had pooled together some funds which they would give to Peeps that they wanted to be eligible for the oligarchy, and this money was paid to the Peep in question in the form of a “Chinchilla Loan”. The extra money was “appearing” because the bank was not withdrawing the Chinchilla Loans from one account before depositing them into another. The only thing we have left to determine is whether or not these errors were intentional, though we may never know. Federal Commissioners’ imaginations are running wild with possible explanations, but there isn’t yet enough proof to substantiate any one conclusion.

Over the course of the week the focus of everyone’s attention shifted to more domestic affairs. Houses were being finished and furnished, and there was even a mini-courtship! Land time has featured a lot of interesting transactions. One Homesteader has successfully auctioned off her old house (from a previous year); she imported it and then sold it for a substantial profit. At the next land time she auctioned off a tree house. Both items fetched high prices and were purchased by Mr. XXXIII. He reported that he is investing in the real estate to help improve the value of his property come appraisal time, though he is also willing to admit that he paid, er, perhaps more than the items are worth. Psycho Jeff and Aria both bid quite a lot on the properties at auction, but they seemed relieved NOT to be the buyers as the bids rose quickly to exorbitant heights. Many Peeps and People came out to watch the action, and we Commissioners wonder if the energy of the audience helped to push prices beyond what the buyers might have wished to have paid.The ultimate result of Mr. XXXIII’s actions are that he has spent so much money that he is no longer eligible to be an Oligarch (the rule about ‘no other Peep having more money than the current oligarchs’ seems to be defunct due to lack of enforcement).

Other items being sold at land time included the much-coveted baked goods and some very popular trading cards created by Julius Bob Peepsar. Julius Bob reports that he is working hard selling items he creates and working odd jobs so that he can afford the paint for his coliseum-house.

The buying and selling of this week has resulted in big shake up in the government. Two oligarchs were replaced with other, richer Peeps. The Oligarchs are now Angelina, Psycho Jeff, Hidie, Donald Trump, and Karanna. We can’t wait until next week to find out what happens with the new government officials!