As an addendum, if you think other workers are getting after deal than you, that's a problem with your union, not theirs. Get organised, get involved, fight for what you deserve.
I do enjoy seeing the 'oh, this is why' feeling in people. I got much the same reading Dracula, and I recommend it if you have yet to have the pleasure. You might think you know it, but trust me, give it a go.
2050s for 1st edition, I think current edition is 2070s. Dragons started waking up in the early 2010s though. There has also been significant geopolitical upheaval, especially in the Americas and Europe. The general assumption is that a nuyen being about 1 modern dollar is about the right ballpark.
Shadowrun probably throws these assumptions off a bit. Dunkelzahn's net worth is hard to pin down but I think the listed cash dispursements in his will exceeded 1 billion nuyen, plus all the real estate and the establishment of several foundations, several items of extreme power and a number of 'wishes'.
Lofwyr owns a AAA megacorp that he assembled out of purchases made within about 30 years of waking up. My personal he'd cannon is that he ate Musk at some point in this process.
Even the less well known ones have serious stock portfolios and including multiple point shares in megacorps. Dragons took to business rather well as soon as they worked out what share certificates were.
"Greed is not the issue here" - actual dragon sitting on literal pile of gold.
Unfortunately that is more a symptom than a root cause. Even if we could the infection would remain.
But if I don't have American politics to distract me I have to confront how generally fucked the UK is.
I wish you were further from the truth.
Man, I can't even agree with myself most days.
Sounds more like a Yu-Gi-Oh thing...
Yeah, this is much the same kind of use. If you work on the assumption that it is just something that has read everything, and everything that has been written about everything you can find it's utility. Folk want it to be some kind of fact genie, but the only facts it knows are what words go together, and it literally doesn't know the difference between real and made up.
AHH yes, the classic peninsula maneuver.