user: Which characters belong to DC or Marvel Universe? Norman Osborne, Joker

assistant: Joker is DC, Norman Osborne is Marvel

user: What is RTGS?

assistant: Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems are specialist funds transfer systems where the transfer of money or securities takes place from one bank to any other bank on a "real-time" and on a "gross" basis. Settlement in "real time" means a payment transaction is not subjected to any waiting period, with transactions being settled as soon as they are processed. "Gross settlement" means the transaction is settled on a one-to-one basis, without bundling or netting with any other transaction. "Settlement" means that once processed, payments are final and irrevocable.

RTGS systems are usually operated by a country's central bank as it is seen as critical infrastructure for a country's economy. Economists believe that an efficient national payment system reduces the cost of exchanging goods and services, and is indispensable to the functioning of the interbank, money, and capital markets. A weak payment system may severely drag on the stability and developmental capacity of a national economy; its failures can result in inefficient use of financial resources, inequitable risk-sharing among agents, actual losses for participants, and loss of confidence in the financial system and in the very use of money.

user: The story opens in Los Angeles in the 21st century, an unspecified number of years after a worldwide economic collapse. Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States since the federal government has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs. Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private vehicles reign supreme. Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts, while private security guards preserve the peace in sovereign gated housing developments.: 45  Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads,: 7  and all mail delivery is by hired courier.: 306  The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds, where they do tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the society around them.: 176  Much of the world's territory has been carved up into sovereign enclaves known as Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities (FOQNEs),: 14  each run by its own big business franchise (such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong", or the corporatized American Mafia), or various residential burbclaves (quasi-sovereign gated communities). In this future, American institutions are far different from those in the actual United States at the time the book was published; for example, a for-profit organization, the CIC, has evolved from the CIA's merger with the Library of Congress.: 22

assistant: Snow Crash is set in the Los Angeles of the future in which the government has collapsed and been replaced by corporations, mercenary armies, and a new type of organization, the Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entity. Examples of the latter include Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong and the corporatized American Mafia. Government functions like road building, policing, and mail delivery have been taken over by corporations.