[ALFA4CP]Finance
Grampa Alfagrem
Let me preface this latest addition to the campaign by reminding all eUKers that the prosecution of the war with Norway will run to its natural conclusion and will overide all other considerations.
There will be no 'cutting and running' in order to implement my own programs and continuity and respect for the previous decisions made will be the order of the day.
Recruitment and retention is about getting people to join something. wheter its eRep, a Party, an MU, a channel or forum and to keep clicking away.
The responsibility to recruit (if any) lies with the benefactor of the activity. Whilst the eUK national body benifits from the recruitment work, the executive is only one of the stakeholders with a vested intrest in recruitment and very much on the fringes of receiving the benifits.
Retention kicks-off where recruitment ends. Retention is keeping our players around by engaging them in the game them. The best way to engage a citizen is to develop a relationship with them;
+Commanders should have a relationship with their troops.
+Party leaders should have a relationship with their party members.
+Employers should have relationship with their employees.
+Congress should have a relationship with their electorate.
Too many instances have I seen of well meaning and intentioned government programs being run only to have them corrupted either by abuse of power, special favours and personal or monetary gain or indeed by tiredness and apathy.
It is counter-productive for the Government to attempt to provide an apolitical social system when one of the keys of retention is in the offering of political or MU avenues of exploration.
It is also wasteful and a duplication of effort in funding such programs when the nation is already blessed with many private schemes and programs that (driven by competition) offer rewards far in excess of what the Government can offer.
Income tax
Currently we have a riduculous situation where we have a group of citizens who pay a proper wage with the intention of giving their employees the werewithal to invest in themselves free of market fluctuations or just to have the ready cash on hand to actually shop freely on the market and to buy those items that are sold by low paying communes to raise cash or low paid commune workers to try raise money for investment.
Every percentage rise in income tax restricts their ability to do this and over a calender month these citizens are making a contribution 100x greater then the min. wage worker and yet receive no relief for the greater contribution.
Import Tax
I was recently part of a small experiment whereby a number of congressmembers voted to increase the import tax levels on WRM to the maximum permissable level.
The results were the dissapearance of foreign competition on the markets and a brief, tiny spike of 0.01 above the world market price which was stabilised by the buying of foreign stock abroad for re-sale at the 0.01 mark-up making for a tiny profit for would be export/importers.
VAT
As the main source of our income and as the preface made clear - I don't wish to touch VAT (other then levelling across the market) until we can properly review the effect on income caused by the other changes, the swinging cuts in executive programs and a period of relative calm.
As we angle towards a period of less intensive fighting we'll be looking to cutback on the amount of MPPs and make the hard decisions on merit rather then when forced by the crumbling economic conditions we live in.
To that end we'll be certainly looking to retain our MPPs with our TWO allies - Spain, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Hungary as well as our allegiances with Macedonia and Indonesia.
All other MPPs will be up for discussion and will only be proposed by myself if a super majority of congress agrees to proceed.
As already discussed - CtA will no longer run on a continous basis. Therfore any funding for the occasions when CtA is called for comes under the purview of 'Emergency funding'.
The MoD will therefore be granted a fund of £50,000 to be held for activation of CoTA when required.
Any amount over this total will require congressional clearance to access and any unspent amount or supplies will obviously be returned at the expiration of my term.
AGAIN this measure only applies if/when the Campaign against the Nordic hordes of EDEN has been resolved.
I'm on the part of the 'divide' that believes in small government and personal responsibility in economic practice this means;
A very firm focus on cutting expenditure.
Establish the conditions to allow player, party, MU, corporate and benefactory schemes to flourish and grow.
Stopping waste and duplication of effort by acknowledging the work of private schemes rather then trying compete with them.
Greater Congressional responsibility.
Providing the freedom for citizens to choose their character development.
in TL😉
R / Policy bar format;
Disclaimer : In all these matters I am one small vote without a clear mandate (+50% of the cast votes) that is how I will remain with only the power to advocate for these changes.
~Alfagrem
Comments
Next up..........Domestics!
😮
That's what i like to hear
Might be a two-parter as well
yay
Finally someone with s clear vision. Sounding good so far Alfa.
CTA is wasting too much money. I like that idea!
Are you going to republish these later, when the campaign heats up?
you realize we don't have a crippling debt problem if we simply have no war at all. That way we make money.
Problem is finding the balance of having cash for Wars and supplies when needed and not losing MPP's and friendships and cutting CTA altogether.
Other then that only NHS costs money, and that's donation funded anyway.
Alfa 4 CP
Nice, voted. 🙂
'It is counter-productive for the Government to attempt to provide an apolitical social system when one of the keys of retention is in the offering of political or MU avenues of exploration.'
So you intend to end what schemes exactly? There is only one I can think of that actually receives government funding, that being CTA, which you already said would run during war times. If you are implying you want to end the NHS, can I ask what benefit there is in such a move?
It's already funded entirely by donations and has been for several months. If it's a different program you are talking about, can you be more specific?
Although perhaps you are saying what could be the most bewildering thing of all; that governments should be partisan and seek to promote their parties interest over that of the nation as a whole. I hope to god that isn't it.
It's troubling to think that you see such government programs as competing with the private ones, when the whole point of government programs is that they are applicable to all irregardless of party or mu affiliation and are supplementary to any private scheme a player might be part of.
In regards to your section about Income Tax, It's also worrying to see that you seem to not understand that the reason communes pay the lowest possible wage is so that the supply itself can be as high as possible. Are you really so against people coming together voluntarily and creating networks of mutual supply as opposed to employing people?
As for the 1% income tax policy, Without having some stats about the current revenue from that it's hard to decide on, perhaps someone could enlighten me. But if it's cutting the expenditure whilst keeping a safe reserve that you are looking to achieve then cutting both income and expenditure might not be the thing to do right now. Government revenue is incredibly low as it is.
However I agree with your preface, Protectionist Import Tax and VAT policy. So at least there's a few positives.
Schemes> I'm saying there will be no additions (or extensions of ownership by the executive) to the current cut-down CtA.
NHS as BA has pointed out is a benevolent fund and not exec. funded.
Competition - State Vs Private > Quite simply the state cannot compete!
On the assumption that we raised taxes to do so and ran policies to clamp down on private companies, min. Wage communes and Foreign bonus seekers (which would be awfully police-state of us) we would be only supplementing private programs and it is in these private programs that friendships are made, associations forged and intrest in the game (retention) made.
>"It's also worrying to see that you seem to not understand that the reason communes pay the lowest possible wage is so that the supply itself can be as high as possible."
I most certainly do understand the thought process behind communes but I am against minimum wage communes.
If you have a commune that offers 30 Tanks and 1,200 food a day on a minimum wage then for the worker thats fantastic as they can sit back, collect and click it away on the battlefield.
The trouble comes when the worker wants to become a CEO, increase his/her training or just get hold of some CC or Gold. The only path open to them is to sell the supplies given them.
They go to the market and list their goods but the price they receive for them will be low as everyone else is on minimum wage and doesn't have the cash to pay for these goods or they are well supplied and don't need your wares.
Eventually however you sell them and decide to go the CEO route and start on the path to becoming an MU supplier yourself - Again you run into the lack of purchase power or desire on the eUK market and you learn what the previous private companies learnt before they folded - you cannot sell.
The whole 'marketry' point behind certain communes/MUs offering a wage is to increase the amount of fluidity in the eUK markets so that Private and min wage employees have someone who will buy their wares and will do so freely without association (as opposed to a commune which buys WRM only from its members).
Whilst min. wage is efficient in the extreme it is also a process that turns our nation into a bunch of zombie drones, lurching around waiting for the next handout or directive from our benefactor.
We want to inject choice and the ability to make their own decisions into our players as well as encourage interaction with the game and other players.
I am glad to see you are pro saving, that is good for our future.
Some very interesting points raised too.
I only have the one question, I know you will not ask me to be your MoF, don't worry, I am not disillusioned, however who will be your MoF and take over the MM?
Voted, another well written and interesting article, Alfa
Lots for everybody to carefully consider, these policies could be of great benefit to the eUK.
I'll vote for you.
Cynical summary:
Cut government schemes as they compete with "private" ones (mine)
Lower the amount of income tax paid on my £50 jobs for OV members
Let my ministers tell new players to join OV
By "level" VAT do you mean to bring it all to 15%, 8%, 5% or 1%?
danie, you are trolling. the import tax means that some blackmarket guys are getting the money the government was getting by imports. and less MPP means less strong Foreign Affair. I'd cut CtA badly.
Lots of reasoned stuff here. You've always had a good handle on finances, and as a Congressman I'd support a leveling of VAT, Income Tax changes (since we're talking about a very small amount of government revenue which disproportionately impacts new and casual players), and Import Tax changes.
Low Import Taxes on FRM we might want to keep. FRM value is so low, there really isn't much incentive for UK producers to make large quantities of FRM. Case in point, even with 2% Import Tax we only have 1 1/2 pages (much of which is very small quantities) available at the 'world average'. Increases taxes would further reduce that and cause players to shop outside our marketplace.
Voted
"I'm on the part of the 'divide' that believes in small government and personal responsibility in economic practice this means"
This is usually the case for those who are at the top end of the system.
If you were a new player who did not want to spend rl money on this game then you would probably want a government that had the capacity to help out when required.
The government should be able to fund MU's that need and request additional help to keep them able to properly supply UK fighters. That being said the government also needs to spend wisely and so the Call to Arms should end.
voted
1% income tax?
Ehhh
voted good one
Alpha, I bet your hands hurt from writing too much.
Take a sip of lemonade