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Economy debate


Smilesville

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58 minutes ago, AVRO DANKASTER said:

Are you sure you've sent the documents we've asked for?

 

Edit: I've checked, and no. Beyond the initial $125,000 we've released for the first stage of construction based on your application, we've received no additional documentation regarding the construction process, hence the funds weren't released.

Construction was complete which was when the company had to wait over 1 week to get payment, then as the plan stated, funds would be needed in order to get inventory - which was never fulfilled. No other documentation was ever asked for other than the official documents from the construction company stating they finished the job - therefore - funds for construction were released, but not for the rest.

 

This shows how the current system does not work and how this topic raises a lot of good questions and resolutions.

 

I was supposed to pay back that money too, which I did. Did ya'll ever keep track of that? Probably not. No offense to you and don't take it as an attack personally, I'm just pointing out the flaws within the government.

Edited by ALT2
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On 2/13/2019 at 11:57 PM, Smilesville said:

So you made the decision to kick the can down the road because "that was in place for far longer than I am." No government in the history of the world has ever only spent money on employee paychecks, and that's part of what a tax bleed is designed to simulate - the purchase of expendable materials for the upkeep of roads, for instance. Until a point in time comes that the economy becomes closed circle, having only cash influx without a cash drain will inevitably result in the ridiculousness you get so defensive about.

 

If we want to take this to the logical extreme, the entire government system is an OOC construct that was installed because someone, somewhere thought we needed it. Where did taxes go before that? The original purpose of the tax system was to offset the capital generated by the script to keep a relative balance - and the very existence of the government faction throws that balance out the window.

 

The quality of roleplay has no bearing on how the script brings in tax revenue. What it sounds like you're saying is "if only everyone would spontaneously roleplay better, then this would be fixed." You can throw away that little pipe dream now; the best we can do is encourage people to act in a realistic manner by providing them a scripted incentive to do so.

What makes you think salaries and government programs are our only expenses? For example, running fees for things like Palmer-Taylor Power Plant - millions a month to emulate the costs of electricity generation which we consider within the property tax have been agreed upon a long time ago. I'm not kicking the can down the road, I'm merely stating that the current state of things was designed in an OOC manner before I've assumed my IC position, yet here you are trying to lay it down at my feet. More than a year ago, I've highlighted the problems within our economy but I haven't found much support.

 

What I'm saying is that if people would choose to spend their money in ways that support roleplay projects, businesses would become financially viable. They don't do that, and that's a roleplay quality issue. Our disagreement stems from the fact you consider a script solution a better one, while I prefer a solution based on working with the players themselves.

 

That's my opinion and I'm sticking with it, because so far I've had better results working with the people rather than the script.

 

On 2/13/2019 at 11:57 PM, Smilesville said:

But that's not what I said, is it? I said their incomes were out of proportion - specifically, in relation to other incomes on the server.

 

I'd be fine with slowing the server down that much. I'll say this - that would make adding new scripted items for purchase much easier to transpose from their real-life counterparts.

Until very recently, the salaries were lower than what any freelance job would net you on a per-hour basis, and from what I've gathered most of the freelance jobs still pay similar (if not greater) amounts. 

 

Then we're in agreement, as weekly paychecks is something I've suggested before. 

 

On 2/13/2019 at 11:57 PM, Smilesville said:

Reduction of the paychecks result in a system much more in line with the rest of the server - specifically, that people have roughly equivalent income levels and have to budget to purchase the things they want. It doesn't fix economic issues, it fixes people issues.

 

How can you say in the same breath that you find the script in question "incredibly dumb" and then not want to fix it?

 

Lenient or no, that money has to be paid back. It sounds like covering construction under grants could solve both of your issues of "we have too much money to spend" and "we want to help businesses" at the same time, but you prefer instead to inflate paychecks. Why, if not for the sake of hand picking winners and losers in the economy?

I don't think we're understanding each other here. I'm against small changes that aren't connected. I'm for a coherent economic plan - which isn't what's being suggested here.

 

I'm not against fixing the script. I'm against fixing parts of it as a reactionary effort, which is what's being suggested here. Changes like this led to the situation we're in right now (eg. road tax introduced to curb high-end vehicle use)

 

I've shifted away from doing construction under grants program (that's how it started) after a series of fraud incidents. That's an IC circumstance that my government is facing, and that's the response I've opted for.

On 2/13/2019 at 11:57 PM, Smilesville said:

Combating inflation is not equivalent to shrinking the economy. A house in Venezuela is not worth more than a mansion in the United States simply because the former costs a greater number of bolivars to purchase than a mansion would dollars.

 

I remember people being upset at the notion of a $50 beer. Now, that's practically half price. Of course the prices have changed - perhaps not through script items, but items of adjustable cost most certainly have.

We don't have two different currencies in play here. On that note, a house in Venezuela can be worth more than a mansion in the United States if the said amount of bolivars is greater than the quoted amount in USD per the exchange rates.

 

On this server, by removing money out of circulation you decrease the total value of the economy by that amount - which would lead to deflation of that currency (increase in purchasing power of one unit of it) if the prices weren't fixed. Almost everything on the server is considered fixed-price, including most of the production mechanisms and supply purchases, hence the whole statement of "combating inflation" is ridiculous.

 

In real life, removing money out of circulation does not affect the output generated by the economy as a whole. Here, it does - as the output of the economy is the action of converting money into supplies. If you decrease the total amount of money, the amount of money you can convert into products - as that's how our economy works - decreases. Hence the potential output of the economy decreases. In other words, it shrinks.

 

 

The $50 beers were prices commanded by the business owners and the price mostly consists of profit - the price of acquisition didn't change, and that's what ultimately we look at when looking at inflation statistics.

 

 

On 2/13/2019 at 11:57 PM, Smilesville said:

Have you considered that, perhaps, the low quality of roleplay isn't that employees aren't spending their exorbitant salaries on expensive things, but because the individual responsible for the budget doesn't care that he's paying them many times over their actual market value? The legal org members who're actually decent roleplayers just ignore that bank account number and go on as they always have without expensive cars or spending exorbitantly. Your rationale for keeping things the way they are anticipates that the recipients of those paychecks will spend them in a fashion unsuitable for their character, thereby lowering the quality of play for each of these individuals - and the organization as a whole.

 

If you were playing an officer, I guarantee you that the mentality of "if I have all this money in my bank account, so I may as well spend it" would not be tolerated. We have evidence of this; plenty of players have been reprimanded for it.

 

If you truly believe that it's acceptable for a beat cop to have the most expensive vehicles on the server, I'm wasting my time explaining the rest of this.

 The legal faction salaries are being reworked from a script perspective (the on/off duty counter), and that's something I've brought up on page two of this thread. Additionally, given that our tax revenue is decreasing due to the script jobs revamp, the salaries will most likely go down. Not until I fully examine the city income patterns for the current period. I simply disagree with the logic of the argument you're presenting.

 

 

What I believe is that it's okay for a beat cop to be a customer. No players were reprimanded for being customers, and that's precisely what I'm stating they should be - customers, primary spenders. Not buying things from script-ran dealerships or properties, but being the customers of player-ran businesses. Interact with others. Roleplay. Is that what you consider unsuitable? Being a customer? 

Edited by AVRO DANKASTER
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49 minutes ago, ALT2 said:

Construction was complete which was when the company had to wait over 1 week to get payment, then as the plan stated, funds would be needed in order to get inventory - which was never fulfilled. No other documentation was ever asked for other than the official documents from the construction company stating they finished the job - therefore - funds for construction were released, but not for the rest.

 

This shows how the current system does not work and how this topic raises a lot of good questions and resolutions.

 

I was supposed to pay back that money too, which I did. Did ya'll ever keep track of that? Probably not. No offense to you and don't take it as an attack personally, I'm just pointing out the flaws within the government.

We review our faction bank logs to help us keep track of the incoming transactions, not to mention the payment reports on gov.gta.world that we ask for.

 

You didn't receive the funds because we've received no documents - if you are unsure as to how or what to send, you could've simply contacted us.

 

And yes, the economy as a whole doesn't work. All we have here is a disagreement about the fundamental choices we have to make going forward.

Edited by AVRO DANKASTER
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9 minutes ago, AVRO DANKASTER said:

You didn't receive the funds because we've received no documents - if you are unsure as to how or what to send, you could've simply contacted us.

 

There isn't an easy way to contact government. Just to get hold of the treasurer I had to ask around for 2 days on Discord because there wasn't any information on how to receive the funds or who to send information to. Luckily you came along and helped me out in that.

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17 minutes ago, ALT2 said:

 

There isn't an easy way to contact government. Just to get hold of the treasurer I had to ask around for 2 days on Discord because there wasn't any information on how to receive the funds or who to send information to. Luckily you came along and helped me out in that.

We've introduced both live chat and offline message capabilities to the site based on situations like that. It's not as good as a round-the-clock live chat but it works, we hope. ?

Edited by AVRO DANKASTER
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I have never in my life seen such deep back and forth argumented analysis of a IC issue OOC'ly. @AVRO DANKASTER and @Smilesville are doing God's work and should be part of a OOC Elders Council that take vital issues and suggestions from the forum and filter them through the process of logical argumentation, to steer the path of this server - so we may prosper.

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21 minutes ago, Tr1bal said:

I have never in my life seen such deep back and forth argumented analysis of a IC issue OOC'ly. @AVRO DANKASTER and @Smilesville are doing God's work and should be part of a OOC Elders Council that take vital issues and suggestions from the forum and filter them through the process of logical argumentation, to steer the path of this server - so we may prosper.

But then nothing would get solved, because they would never be able to agree on a topic.

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Just now, Thirteen said:

But then nothing would get solved, because they would never be able to agree on a topic.

There would be 9 members I suggest(Basically like SCOTUS). Arguing through some issues with actual words on paper makes people to learn and evolve their overall view of things. I'm sure they would reach a consensus on many  great things that can be very good for this server. I don't wanna undermine any authority of the server management here but I think it would be democratic(On its true form) to have some kind of a council, formed from people who truly know how an economy should work, and make them to figure out how to sync it with our cyber world so the fun and realism could be balanced out. Of course some of the members who are up to the task could be from the admin and management as well. @Nervous would be in by default to break the voting ties or cast the final decision based on the sum up of the arguments.

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  • Nervous changed the title to Economy debate
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