Is This What We Have Become?
![Canada](http://www.erepublik.net/images/flags_png/S/Canada.png)
Armour144
Are we that selfish? Are we that greedy? What about our long-time friends and allies? Are we really becoming the type of people who won’t rent out a region so that we can “control a monopoly” on it? Is that how low we have sunk?
If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is all about Titanium.
Ah yes, Titanium. The moment it was announced that diamonds would become titanium, and that titanium was needed for some weapons, eCanada went crazy. All seemed perfect, we have two regions with high titanium, so we can keep one for ourselves and then rent the other one out to one of our allies.
It’s a perfect plan, right? Apparently not. Apparently, we don’t want to give away one region of Titanium. Apparently, we’ve all become greedy and selfish overnight.
Ever since mentioning the word “rent” eCanada launched into a rigorous debate. “Should we keep the region?” “Should we rent it?” Then along came the bromance talk, where some Canadians and Americans expressed their joy in the possibility of Canada letting the US inside of it.
Among the cries for renting are “it will give us gold”, “We want the US inside of us”, “We want to be inside Canada and make some Bromance”, and numerous other statements like that.
If you listen to the reasoning for keeping all the regions, you quickly notice one thing: it looks out for Canada, and only Canada. “We’ll have a monopoly on the titanium!” “We can earn tons by exporting to Eden markets!” “We’ll all become rich” etc…
For simplicity, we’ll call Option 1 renting out the region, and Option 2 not renting out the region.
It’s pretty clear here that business owners would benefit the most from option 2, as the only other competition on the Eden markets would be other Canadian businesses, all of which are paying their employees the same amount, and they all have the same amount of taxes. Who else does this benefit? The government might make a bit from taxes, but it would never equal he amount that they would receive from renting. Our allies would be forced to buy higher-priced titanium than if it is made in another country with lower wages, which directly leads to a higher cost for helicopters and artillery. This would then make it harder for them to afford these types of weapons which could hurt eCanada in the long run.
By this point, some of you may have realized that I have yet to mention the titanium that Australia possesses. Australia actually holds 2 regions of high titanium, but many seem to be keeping them out of the picture because they are currently PTO’d by the Indonesians. But this is only temporary. At some point in time, it is inevitable that Eden will go to free Australia, whether it means a massive Anti-PTO, or through conquest (if Indonesia has swapped to bring Titanium under its own borders.)
So, if one of the arguments towards not renting the titanium is that we will “have a monopoly”, does that also mean you don’t support our Australian bro’s in regaining their own high-titanium regions?
If you do support our Bro’s, then our possible Monopoly on titanium will fall the moment that Australia comes back under friendly hands. The AUS is a weaker currency at the moment, so they will be able to produce cheaper titanium. They’ll export it everywhere, or even rent out one of their two regions like we should be doing
If you don’t support Australia, then I am wondering just which Phoenix country you’re here spying for.
Now, for option 1.
If we do rent out a region, our treasury will grow to be fatter than a kid who only eats at McDonalds. We were offered some 2-3k for Manitoba - a region that doesn’t produce raw materials that are related to weapons, so I believe that the amount of money we could receive from Titanium would be enormous. We could use that gold in so many ways: increasing the CAF budget, providing more social services, etc.
However, renting out a region will hurt our ability to compete on the world-wide market. That is a fact, but no matter what we do it is inevitable. Australia will get their regions, and if we decide to not rent out a region, we’ll just hurt our relations with our allies and look like big, selfish idiots who tried to put themselves first and failed.
But, that being said, it will provide cheaper titanium to our allies, which creates cheaper weapons, which means much more powerful allies, with better relations towards us because we helped them achieve all that.
So, what do we want to become? The stereotypical nice Canadians who everyone loves? Or the greedy businessmen who care only for themselves and their profits?
Armour144
Comments
You rent we all win. The more we have, the more we have.
I wanna be a slumlord.....rent it!
$0.02 from a Cabinet Minister & Congressman:
While renting is not my call, I will not vote yes on any such proposal unless I know the exact details. There *are* renting arrangements that would hurt Canada, and I won't vote for those. Yes, it's important to help EDEN, but if we're of the ideology "always EDEN, never Canada", then we should just retreat all of our regions to the US now.
You can imagine why I don't support *that* arrangement. 😛
Rent = more $ for CAF, social programs, Bromance, -> Guns Against Peace -> FUN=WAR and once more $ 😃
@Sperry: There's a difference between doing everything for an alliance (such as giving our regions to the US, as you said), but renting out one of our regions does not spell the end for our titanium industry. Through all of V1 we competed against nations with weaker currencies in wood, diamonds, and oil, so why couldn't se continue to do so while bringing in a few thousand gold per month?
Canadians thinking about someone else than themself? NO WAY YOU BUNCH OF TRAITOR YOU WILL ALL BURN!!!!!
That's what we normally get told from the ''protectionist''... But let's stop the renting= selling out the country.
It's a virtual game made of bit and pixel. If it give's something better to canadian in a tangible way, let's just do it.
And I don't believe in holding our allies by the balls if we control the market of titanium.
"Renting = might as well sell all of Canada" is the same kind of argument as "we should always rent because it's always good for us"
It isn't. If it were we wouldn't squabble over prices.
Are there renting deals that would benefit us and EDEN? Absolutely. But not all of them do, and personally I'm not comfortable with blanket accepting any deal just because *some* deals would be a good idea.
As I said, We need to consider it, last time we we're there, a lot of congressman didn't even checked the proposal and blatantly refused it on the ground of ''keep Canada for Canadians'', it sure was quite an argument to there honor...
Anyone who votes on any sort of proposal without knowing why is a git. 😛
Armour144= Logical.
They were just following orders.
RENT
Rent it to the American's, and sod EDEN.
NOT a chance......if they want our materials...buy it off the open market like everyone else
if the government rents out the regions..the gold should be given to companies to compensate them....they should get 5 gold to buy the export license at least...the idea that renting it would allow us to eliminate income tax does nothing for companies...wages will not drop and we lose some of our economic power
@Petz: Giving companies a chance to get a license to a large country for just 5 gold is a bargain in itself.
And lets say that theoretically the gold earned from this did remove the income tax, then it would benefit the WORKER. Not everything in eRepublik has to revolve around if it benefits the businesses or not.
Armour144, the Americans won't pay more than 1500 for the region a month (and because they have so few harvesters, its likely they'll need to renegotiate lower after a couple months even at 1500).
Does that change your opinion at all?
The time to rent is past. That doesn't excuse the shitty attitude that the executive has about the US.
Quite honestly I don't trust the government enough to use whatever gold they get in an equitable manner. There's quite a bit of precedence for the handful of people in charge of the government money orgs to misplace it, send it to friends, or even outright steal it.
well according to the erep world map, the admins gave US and Poland titanium.....
make that most of the world.....
Never rent, go whore out your yourself, not my country