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Economy debate


Smilesville

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14 hours ago, AVRO DANKASTER said:

Budget appropriations are held to a standard. Most recent example - LSPD underestimated their budget request for the 16/DEC to 16/JAN period and the high command ended up donating their own money to keep the paychecks flowing.

There's an inherent problem with this statement you're missing - if high command is able to donate enough money to cover the entirety of a department's budget, this only proves that we have a massive issue with paycheck amounts.

 

14 hours ago, AVRO DANKASTER said:

No funds leave the city treasury without a written budget request and a record of an IC appropriation meeting to discuss the request, and we sure as hell aren't refilling anyone's coffers outside of the requests. 

The manner in which revenue is drawn into the city is highly unrealistic as it is; there's really no scarcity to contend with that would make any IC actions surrounding a government agency's budget contentious in the least. I'd be willing to wager that it doesn't have to spend money on unemployment checks that go to players every hour either, despite this is (realistically) where they would come from. Perhaps the road taxes lumped into the GOV's bank account, rather than being eaten by the server with the assumption that they go to, you know, road maintenance.

 

On an anecdotal note, I've not been terribly impressed with what I've seen from the GOV faction thus far. If the half-cocked nature of particular IC events is indicative of what goes on behind the scenes, I have very little confidence that budgets are being done in a manner that is mindful of the balance of the economy - it seems more likely to me that a budget is justified by the absurd paycheck amounts and approved on that basis, though I could definitely be wrong. I'm glad that an examination is being done of the state of the city's finances, however.

 

None of this is anyone's fault in particular, either - we simply have an imperfect system and are feeling the ramifications of something that could be solved very easily. However, for one reason or another that I've outlined above, we seem to refuse to do it.

Edited by Smilesville
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8 hours ago, Smilesville said:

There's an inherent problem with this statement you're missing - if high command is able to donate enough money to cover the entirety of a department's budget, this only proves that we have a massive issue with paycheck amounts.

 

The manner in which revenue is drawn into the city is highly unrealistic as it is; there's really no scarcity to contend with that would make any IC actions surrounding a government agency's budget contentious in the least. I'd be willing to wager that it doesn't have to spend money on unemployment checks that go to players every hour either, despite this is (realistically) where they would come from. Perhaps the road taxes lumped into the GOV's bank account, rather than being eaten by the server with the assumption that they go to, you know, road maintenance.

 

On an anecdotal note, I've not been terribly impressed with what I've seen from the GOV faction thus far. If the half-cocked nature of particular IC events is indicative of what goes on behind the scenes, I have very little confidence that budgets are being done in a manner that is mindful of the balance of the economy - it seems more likely to me that a budget is justified by the absurd paycheck amounts and approved on that basis, though I could definitely be wrong. I'm glad that an examination is being done of the state of the city's finances, however.

 

None of this is anyone's fault in particular, either - we simply have an imperfect system and are feeling the ramifications of something that could be solved very easily. However, for one reason or another that I've outlined above, we seem to refuse to do it.

 

I believe I should've formulated my previous post with more clarity. They've pooled a sufficient amount of money to keep it running without GOV funding for a day and a half as I refused to fill their bank account without next month's budget request on the table. They wouldn't be able to keep it running for more than four days, give or take a few hours, even after spending every dime of private funds they have.

 

There are problems with the design of the payment scheme for the departments, one of which is that it doesn't differentiate between an hour on-duty and off-duty. That's a known problem which is being worked on for quite some time now. The delay is caused by - from my understanding - the fickleness of the script. 

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The government covers the welfare AND the basic income expenditures both from our faction bank balance.

 

The government revenues are the collected taxes and licensing fees. Period. If people do not continue to generate taxable income, wealth or assets, our revenue drops. In other words, our taxes are limited by the amount of activity and the type of activity players commit to. Therefore, the city revenue can be scarce. It simply exceeds our current expenditures by sufficient amount as to not be a problem. In other words, we're running a surplus.

 

Is it unrealistic for a municipality with sufficient revenue to appropriate all funds per the departmental requests to guarantee the best possible service to its citizens?

On a side note, we never actually approved a request in full. 

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Road taxes... aren't used to cover road maintenance. They are considered general taxation and are appropriated as so. That, of course, doesn't stop us from developing towards this area of roleplay - The Department of Public Works runs road maintenance operations on a moderately regular basis (although I admit, most of our field employees are within the US timezone).

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Why don't we discuss the background of the events that are brought up as the pinnacle of government corruption?

 

The establishment in question was making full use of all government possibilities we've presented to the public. Simultaneously, it refused to acknowledge the licensing requirements introduced on the very same platform used for the grants and subsidies it enjoyed. Was the situation escalated unnecessarily? Possibly. Was there room for a civilian complaint? Very well might have been. But, given the fact that the people strongest condemning our activity were the ones most actively sipping on our Kool-Aid when it was money-flavoured? That we have received zero civilian complaints about the situation - more than that, the claims were of no civilian complaint system being in place? And any sort of roleplay was tossed out of the window in favour of unsuccessful admin interventions as soon as trouble arose on the horizon? Hell, not to mention I've been contacted by the administration to explain myself as to why people that never were in the government act one way or another.

 

Well, I'm a firm believer in common courtesy. Extend me yours, and I shall extend you mine. It's quite difficult for me to understand how extrapolating a narrow situation in which no communication was exchanged between myself and anyone across the aisle leads to a broad judgement of all government activities. I wouldn't even mind that much that the situation in question was stopped twice for administration to review it - in both cases, our argument and the actions taken afterwards were considered a properly roleplayed endeavour. However, given the backlash we've received is of an OOC nature and seems like an attempt at discrediting us more than bringing up valid concerns after conducting careful research of our activities, I can hardly assume the perspective in which the Government is The Evil Eye and its servants without disagreeing with the mildly dishonest approach and combative attitude used to convey them. 

I'd greatly appreciate if the next time you have doubts about our policies, expenses, or, anything at all, really - you contacted us beforehand to discuss your findings, concerns or questions. I believe it would spare you quite a bit of writing.

 

For example, I invite you to contact us so you can sit in during one of the budget appropriation meetings. Matter of a fact, I invite anyone who's interested. We're here as much for you as we are for ourselves.

 

 

Edited by AVRO DANKASTER
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21 hours ago, hentai! said:

I agree that the jobs should be reworked, and be more focused on interaction. I love that they implemented it to 24/7 shops, gas stations and all that - it's awesome, because you don't have decreases in roleplay activity - if you're bored and can't find anyone to roleplay with, or your friends are offline you just go to a gas station and there will be a cashier, or even a bunch of people nearby.

Though... I think it would be better to replace the current mining, fishing, trucking and all that RPG bullshit with straight up working in a 24/7 or Gas Station. Some people want to grind money on roleplay, and you won't stop them, but we can make sure they do it while interacting with others, not driving from Del Perro to the fish buyer.

I have not yet worked in any legal factions, so I'll skip on that point. But grinding is another way to screw the economy and you can make it just a little bit less severe.

In my honest opinion, drugs are not as profitable as they should be on a roleplay server too. But since this is mostly a topic around legal stuff, I don't know if I should even bring this up.

 

You need to read this ?

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On 1/20/2019 at 4:55 AM, AVRO DANKASTER said:

There are problems with the design of the payment scheme for the departments, one of which is that it doesn't differentiate between an hour on-duty and off-duty. That's a known problem which is being worked on for quite some time now. The delay is caused by - from my understanding - the fickleness of the script.  

It seems you agree with many other players then - that solution #2 would work well. I personally think checks need to be lowered overall as well, but a conversation about the precise solution is much easier when everyone acknowledges the problem. My understanding is that this isn't being worked on at all - since a solution seems as easy as linking a different timer to the command that puts you on duty while halting the current one, since all timers are individualized. Perhaps a member of the dev team could chime in on that one?

 

On 1/20/2019 at 4:55 AM, AVRO DANKASTER said:

The government revenues are the collected taxes and licensing fees. Period. If people do not continue to generate taxable income, wealth or assets, our revenue drops. In other words, our taxes are limited by the amount of activity and the type of activity players commit to. Therefore, the city revenue can be scarce. It simply exceeds our current expenditures by sufficient amount as to not be a problem. In other words, we're running a surplus.

This underestimates just how much that comes out to; I would be curious to see the precise figure of the tax vault at this point in time, because last it was able to be checked by the public it exceeded $46,000,000 - which is absolutely ludicrous to me. A significant drop is likely the result of these exorbitant paychecks.

 

On 1/20/2019 at 4:55 AM, AVRO DANKASTER said:

Road taxes... aren't used to cover road maintenance. They are considered general taxation and are appropriated as so. That, of course, doesn't stop us from developing towards this area of roleplay - The Department of Public Works runs road maintenance operations on a moderately regular basis (although I admit, most of our field employees are within the US timezone).

My point is that the roads do not deteriorate in any mechanical way, so why is there a mechanical tax the government collects for the road? I've not witnessed any of these players once in the entirety of my play time so I'll take your assertion that they exist with a grain of salt.

 

On 1/20/2019 at 4:55 AM, AVRO DANKASTER said:

Why don't we discuss the background of the events that are brought up as the pinnacle of government corruption? 

I will get in private contact with you regarding this, as you don't seem to recognize the implications of what took place. Airing the totality of our grievances here is inappropriate, and does not contribute to the subject at hand (the legal org paychecks.)

 

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Who needs the economy when you can kidnap people. No but seriously , only thing we need to do is to make the player appreciate the money, make the player feel like the money actually matters, make the player feel like there are more things to spend money on then cars, make the players feel like their character is actually alive in this cyber world with. There have been plenty of directing the towards that path on the suggestions section. But even if some of them get implemented - they get reversed pretty soon(Job cooldown period for example).

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A way I have in mind is that they get paid for how much they work that hour. For example they have a set pay of 1000$ an hour, if they work 0 minutes in that hour they get 0$ if they work the full hour they get an 1000$ at the end of it. And if they work 30 minutes they get 500$, obviously it scales to how long they have been on duty to the closest hour e.g 23 minutes gets 23 minutes worth of pay what would be 38% of their usual pay check.

 

Obviously the number 1000$ was just a random one thrown out there!

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Another idea would be simply removing the hourly paychecks and have your employers manually pay you. This would greatly open up a lot more opportunities to accountants within legal organizations and other businesses, it will also ensure more roleplay opportunities and somewhat fix the economy so you don't get paid even when you're not working. Pretty much just how club owners pay their bartenders, security, etcetera, but extend it to larger organizations (such as PD, FD, and so on).

Edited by Shaderz
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Just now, Shaderz said:

Another idea would be simply removing the hourly paychecks and have your employers manually pay you. This would greatly open up a lot more opportunities to accountants within legal organizations and other businesses, it will also ensure more roleplay opportunities and somewhat fix the economy so you don't get paid even when you're not working. Pretty much just how club owners pay their bartenders, security, etcetera, but extend it to larger organizations (such as PD, FD, and so on). 

I'd be all for this idea, were it not for the fact that the counter that monitors the amount of time you spend on duty seems to be broken.

 

If I'm mistaken and it works fine, then the system we could come up with will indeed end up looking like most other businesses - except rather than direct supervision, there's simply a minimum amount of on-duty activity.

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