Overall Economic Plan

Economic Reconquista - 8 Point Plan

1. Town Traders
2. Pass Minimum/Maximum price laws.
3. Abolish Taxes
4. Labor Regulations
5. Mayors
6. Dropping Prestige
7. Reducing Mine Jobs
8. Naval Supremacy

Just as a hint of what the public might think...

Shay says this sounds much too much like a dictatorship and people won't accept it

Well that's why I'm bringing everyone in . Need all you sane people to temper my crazy police state idea, lol. If they were implemented fully people would probably hate them, especially at first, but they would get us out of debt quickly. Need a good balance where we can implement something along these lines to reduce the debt, but also have it acceptable to most people.

Well you wrangled in the wrong person here, I'm all for police state

As long as you coat it with lots of feel good fluff we can force it down the hatch.

Some interesting ideas but before coming to these comments I had the same feeling that was relayed from Sullihan. It reads very dictatorial.

Aye, I know it does. This is very radical in it's approach. But it has been shown that very drastic things are required to get the economy under control. I figure if we come at it from a radical approach we can tamper it down to a mix of functionality and acceptance. That's why I want comments on it all, lol . . . use these ideas as starting points and make it into a working plan that most people will accept.

I have read ROG platform in Galloway Inn, it will influence our life differently in some areas than we were used till now. I also noticed it is changed from original Lances proposal in this forum.


Lets say this way, it shows different approach to organizing and solving our economy problems. There are parts I do not like, but who knows what will future bring and they might even be abolished before kicks into our life.

I will support it and try to implement on town level as much as I will be able.

It is important to try something new and different, to see if it works better than systems in the past.



I have no experience with County Council positions. Do not know exactly what can be done there, what kind of logs, records,.. county provide automaticaly.

But to my opinion,

Trade Minister:

- must know that is long term and full time job, not to quit after few days, weeks
- continuity, not being changed all the time within CC or each CC term
- not being mayor at the same time, to put all his time and energy into TM office
- active trade minister with mayor experience
- must keep records, finance charts,... to follow income, costs, cash flow, goods transfer, overall value,... (only way to find out where we gain or loose money)
- should moving goods via county grant from one town to another town when requested from mayor (would free our traders to be productive instead traveling)
- should have available county traders in Dumfries and Wigtown for inter county trade. Goods within county of Galloway can be moved via county grant without traders.
- should acquire a pool of goods for exchanges. Or, each town have a pool of goods in reserve, TM can buy it from town when needed in other towns or for
inter county traders.




Sheriff - breeding livestock, mines, county funds
Mine Superintendant - Mines
Captain & Sergeant & Constable - funds, goods

- must know that is long term and full time job, not to quit after few days, weeks
- continuity, not being changed all the time within CC or each CC term
- must keep records, finance charts,... to follow income, costs, cash flow, goods transfer, overall value,... (only way to find out where we gain or loose
money)




I must say that I as citizen can not find out from current county reports where we loose money! I can follow total debt, but not exactly where we loose money. Would be interesting to see which part of our economy is pulling our debt higher.

Better bookkeeping (non county form) would be beneficial for CC in first place, to see why, where, when, how much,... is lost/gained daily, weekly, monthly.
And for us citizens would be easier to see what, where, who is doing good and into positive trends, and what part needs better management.





Town Marshall/Town Army

My suggestion, but army experienced person shall tell if its even posible that kind of arrangement:

Right now county is paying Marshall to patrol town each day. Marshall can not travel, work, study, teach,.. Patrolling town is Marshall only duty.

What if we upgrade Marshall office to Army level.

One man army, only general, should be within city walls all the time.

This position would be ideal for an immediately after reset active citizen, who in case of successful revolt can kick revolter out of office before they can do any real damage to town.

Benefits:
- We could lower number of militia members who DTP each day. Those people can be productive in mines instead.
- If successful revolt happens, than revolter can be kicked out of town hall almost immediately, as soon army general is active that day. No need for
organizing counter revolt for few days to get town hall back into our hands.
- We can start prosecution of revolters same day as it happens, since we will know the damage done immediately. There will be no time for revolters to run
away from prosecution.

Disadvantage:
- Successful revolters can steal town hall wealth, if they will act quicker than our army general. But, if mayor grant locks town wealth every night, there
will not be lot to steal anyway.


In extreme emergency, county might call this already formed army to action in other places. No need to wait few days to form new one. Just add prearranged groups of soldiers to army, and its ready to roll. To compensate absence of this army, county would activate Marshall position and assign another person to patrol town as Marshall each day.

Payment: Marshall gets payed each day from county. Is Army general payed also? If not, than salary for army general should be provided via different way.

I do not know what would be cost per town to set army like that. But, if army general takes it long term, than might be reasonable cost. Specially if you
plan to form few armies anyway. Might be good to incorporate them into overall security strategy.





Cow/Milk

Proposal to discourage cow fields is not new. As long we will have cow supply from county or not high enough taxes on cow fields, you will always have
somebody who will be cow rancher.
Also, traveling traders from out of county will sell milk on our markets, since they will see that there is low milk supply. Proposed fish prices (Fish - 16.90-17.10) will encourage them even more. Milk traders will be able to compete with their milk@8,50 pounds, what is higher than today milk prices and will
give them even more profit.

Our fishermans will be happy with fish price raise, lets try it and see what will happen on market.




Minimum/Maximum Price Laws

Its something worth trying, but must be careful, because to my opinion it will have negative impact on town traders. I sure wont send our traders to other
towns to buy there overproduction of goods from market and deliver it to Kirk, if there wont be any profit made from it.
Now with load limit it is even more difficult. I hope county will start providing goods moving with county grant when asked from mayors, than we wont loose
traveling days of our travelers.

Most important will be cooperation town-county, since now will county be responsible for overall trades.





Taxes/Iron/Stone payment

Until now County wanted to get Tax and stuff payed in fodder for breeding animals. Mayors in towns encouraged citizens to have wheat and corn fields.
Now, county will take only money collected from taxes.

It will be surplus of wheat and corn on market and town will loose income from difference in prices.

As I understand changes of fields will be compensated to owners and hopefully new field products will be easier to sell with county traders help.




To give up fields

I am not for that solution. Why?
It will cost county incentives to pay citizens to close field, but you have no guarantee that they wont get new one after some time.
Better to convince field owners not to cultivate them and rather work in mines, if it will improve county economy. But back up your predictions with number
calculations, so citizens will see and feel progress of their actions.

People have trends to go into retreat or die suddenly. You can not plan it, you wont be notified in advance, it just happened. If we close fields, than one day
we will need them badly and will cost additional money to buy them back.




Prestige

Lowering prestige will sure cut down county expenses. As I understand we use stone and iron to pay for prestige.

Why we dont use other goods? Is it not possible? Are they to cheap? Does selection of goods changes over time?






Mayor access in County Chambers

Positive change. Now mayors will be able to present their view on subject.




Engineering corps

Just dont take all professionals from any town. Even regular citizens have needs for their services.





klovn

First of, thank for the input Klovn, I want everyone in Galloway to give input on this plan. We all need to be working together for this to work .

klovn wrote:

Trade Minister:

- must know that is long term and full time job, not to quit after few days, weeks
- continuity, not being changed all the time within CC or each CC term
- not being mayor at the same time, to put all his time and energy into TM office
- active trade minister with mayor experience
- must keep records, finance charts,... to follow income, costs, cash flow, goods transfer, overall value,... (only way to find out where we gain or loose money)
- should moving goods via county grant from one town to another town when requested from mayor (would free our traders to be productive instead traveling)
- should have available county traders in Dumfries and Wigtown for inter county trade. Goods within county of Galloway can be moved via county grant without traders.
- should acquire a pool of goods for exchanges. Or, each town have a pool of goods in reserve, TM can buy it from town when needed in other towns or for
inter county traders.

I will be serving as Trade Minister, and I am arguably the most active person in Galloway. This next council as a whole will be stressing a lot of communication. You can see how we already mailed every citizen in the county to go help out in Drummore. I think I fill all the requirements for Trade Minister that you laid out. I don't plan on resigning from CC and I will stay Trade Minister for the entire term to get this accomplished. Like I said I am active and have been a three term mayor that has a lot of experience with being Mayor, Trade Minister, Sheriff, and various other positions. I won't be serving as a Mayor at the same time and all my focus will be on the Trade Minister job.

I am very good at keeping records, you can see the financial information I included in my end of term report, when I was last Duke. There will be weekly Trade Minister reports as well as daily updates about our economic status. Each Mayor and town trader will be given a room in our economic chambers to that everyone is kept in the loop. I am super active and have no problems getting grants to those who need them quickly. We will be creating a pool of goods for trade, by reducing prestige we will have more iron/stone to export (we already have a huge trade lined up) and using our min/max prices, in conjunction with tax income, we will be buying up fish, wood, and other cheap goods for export. All money made off exporting will be put directly against the debt.

klovn wrote:

Sheriff - breeding livestock, mines, county funds
Mine Superintendant - Mines
Captain & Sergeant & Constable - funds, goods

We are going to have a great team in place. Jethro will be Sheriff, he is active and has served as Mayor in Dumfries for several terms now. He knows the needs of the towns and how to efficiently breed animals and hire for points. Mercury will be MS, he is also exceedingly active and will always be keeping a close eye on mines for downgrades. He will also be focusing largely on mine attendance, ensuring that we get a good rotation of workers in Drummore.

Evan_t will be Captain, he has been trained well by Physax and knows what needs to be done for defense. He also gives us someone else capable of raising a banner if the need arises. Physax will work closely with him as Sergeant, and still maintain her army banner. Hespera will be serving as Constable, she has experience being a Marshal for several months now and she knows the process. She also serves as Kirk's militia captain and knows what is required to keep this county safe. Together, those three are going to make a great team.

I think across the board we have a list full of very active and very experienced individuals. We will stress communication and reporting. We will report regularly, keep in contact with the Mayors, and take full advantages of the mass mailing functions in this game.

klovn wrote:

I must say that I as citizen can not find out from current county reports where we loose money! I can follow total debt, but not exactly where we loose money. Would be interesting to see which part of our economy is pulling our debt higher.

Better bookkeeping (non county form) would be beneficial for CC in first place, to see why, where, when, how much,... is lost/gained daily, weekly, monthly.
And for us citizens would be easier to see what, where, who is doing good and into positive trends, and what part needs better management.

Well, you can see from this report I made, how we lose money. I plan on doing similar in dept reports next term.

Quote :

Net worth dropped from (£170,274.68 ) at the start of the term, to (£186,314.97). That is a net loss of £16,040.29 . . . there are several factors that effected Net Worth. At the beginning of this term, County Council voted to allow all soldiers that had received swords and shields from the county, could keep them without having to pay the county back for them. As a sign of goodwill and thanks from County Council. That probably cost us around £2,000.00 in inventory.

There were also two upgrades done to the Girvan goldmine, as a condition of the contract signed with Ayr County. There was also one upgrade done to our iron mine, when it downgraded. In total the repairs/upgrades came to roughly £17,000.00 worth of stone/iron taken out of inventory.

Prestige maintenance contributes to loss in net worth as well. In total to maintain 5* prestige we pay £2,000.00 in stone every 10 days. So for an entire term that's £12,000.00 worth of goods taken out of net worth.

Also there was the £20,000.00 stone/iron trade we did with Sajanzv. That is around £15,000.00 worth of stone/iron that came off our inventory and as of yet, the proceeds from that have not been turning into additional goods or put towards the debt.



Cash Debt dropped from (£269,851.78 ) at the start of the term to (£288,689.72). That is a net loss of £18,837.94. To further the point that poor mine attendance is mostly the problem, I went through and got the income from goldmines verses wages the county pays out (thanks for reporting regularly Alistair )



As you can see, we lost £28,018.78 because our total mines wages exceed the revenue generated from the goldmine. It is imperative to get people in Drummore if we every want to combat this debt. That is what County Council has to try to overcome each term, before we even start talking about reducing the debt. Now the mines do give us raw resources, which effect net worth, but not cash debt. We did the big deal with Sajanzv to get £20,000.00, however that hasn't been put into the debt or other tangible goods as of yet, it's still sitting in a grant.

Additional expenses effecting the county were £12,745.40 in corruption this term and in excess of £2,000.00 spent on the hiring of marshals. Also hiring point makers effects the debt, at the county level we hire on average 7-9 people a week. I'll be conservative and say we've spent £1,680.00 on point-makers this term.

So take the sum of all expenses

£28,018.78 - lost on mines
£12,745.40 - corruption
£2,000.00 - marshal hiring
£1,680.00 - point makers

Total Expenses - £44,444.18 (really random number )

That is what the county has to come up with, before we even turn a profit in a given 2 month period. I'm proud that given all those expenses cash debt only went down £18,837.94.

Even with cash debt growing because of mine attendance we are still able to function as a county, breeding animals, and our County Council inventory has grown over the last couple months.



Mine attendance was exceedingly poor this term. Some of that is because of people away defending in Dumfries, but there were two days where only four people worked the goldmine. There were nine days where attendance was under ten citizens. I'm not even sure what all the people in Drummore are doing, I know there's got to be at least 30-40 active people there even without visitors. This is gloomy and needs to be changed, recent mine attendance has been better and picking up. I hope the trend continues.

klovn wrote:

Town Marshall/Town Army

My suggestion, but army experienced person shall tell if its even posible that kind of arrangement:

Right now county is paying Marshall to patrol town each day. Marshall can not travel, work, study, teach,.. Patrolling town is Marshall only duty.

What if we upgrade Marshall office to Army level.

One man army, only general, should be within city walls all the time.

This position would be ideal for an immediately after reset active citizen, who in case of successful revolt can kick revolter out of office before they can do any real damage to town.

Benefits:
- We could lower number of militia members who DTP each day. Those people can be productive in mines instead.
- If successful revolt happens, than revolter can be kicked out of town hall almost immediately, as soon army general is active that day. No need for
organizing counter revolt for few days to get town hall back into our hands.
- We can start prosecution of revolters same day as it happens, since we will know the damage done immediately. There will be no time for revolters to run
away from prosecution.

Disadvantage:
- Successful revolters can steal town hall wealth, if they will act quicker than our army general. But, if mayor grant locks town wealth every night, there
will not be lot to steal anyway.


In extreme emergency, county might call this already formed army to action in other places. No need to wait few days to form new one. Just add prearranged groups of soldiers to army, and its ready to roll. To compensate absence of this army, county would activate Marshall position and assign another person to patrol town as Marshall each day.

Payment: Marshall gets payed each day from county. Is Army general payed also? If not, than salary for army general should be provided via different way.

I do not know what would be cost per town to set army like that. But, if army general takes it long term, than might be reasonable cost. Specially if you
plan to form few armies anyway. Might be good to incorporate them into overall security strategy.

Well, the main problem is that it takes 500.00 to raise an army, unless your the County Captain. That's a lot of money to dish out for a banner in every town in which we currently hire a Marshal. Though, over the course of 2 months Marshal wages come out to 1,080.00 anyway. It might be feasible, I don't know if Army generals get all the sights that a Marshal gets either. But the pros make it something to look into, I'll let someone with more knowledge on army stuff comment . . . I'll stick to economics .

klovn wrote:

Cow/Milk

Proposal to discourage cow fields is not new. As long we will have cow supply from county or not high enough taxes on cow fields, you will always have
somebody who will be cow rancher.
Also, traveling traders from out of county will sell milk on our markets, since they will see that there is low milk supply. Proposed fish prices (Fish - 16.90-17.10) will encourage them even more. Milk traders will be able to compete with their milk@8,50 pounds, what is higher than today milk prices and will
give them even more profit.

Yeah, that's why I originally wanted to stop breeding cows altogether. That was one of my original proposals that got toned down. What is comes down to is communication, we might not be able to completely stop it, but we can let all newborns know not to choose cow fields. As for other people importing milk, I don't think it's a big trade item either and we can let it be known that we don't want it. Once again, just communication, it won't completely eliminate the problem, but it can stop some of it.

klovn wrote:

Minimum/Maximum Price Laws

Its something worth trying, but must be careful, because to my opinion it will have negative impact on town traders. I sure wont send our traders to other
towns to buy there overproduction of goods from market and deliver it to Kirk, if there wont be any profit made from it.
Now with load limit it is even more difficult. I hope county will start providing goods moving with county grant when asked from mayors, than we wont loose
traveling days of our travelers.

Most important will be cooperation town-county, since now will county be responsible for overall trades.

This is one of those initiatives that we'll just have to implement and see what happens. Theoretically it is exceedingly beneficial to give people good wages, cheap food, and exportable goods. We'll see how it actually works out though, we need to give it a chance to work. You can still export Fish as a mayor at 17.10, Wigtown or Dumfries would take them for 18.00. Other counties will pay higher. But as you say, it will require a lot of grants to keep trade flowing, that's where and active Trade Minister is important and I will be keeping up with it.

klovn wrote:

Taxes/Iron/Stone payment

Until now County wanted to get Tax and stuff payed in fodder for breeding animals. Mayors in towns encouraged citizens to have wheat and corn fields.
Now, county will take only money collected from taxes.

It will be surplus of wheat and corn on market and town will loose income from difference in prices.

As I understand changes of fields will be compensated to owners and hopefully new field products will be easier to sell with county traders help.

Well, wheat and corn are also goods we can export and we plan on it. Especially with lower prices, other counties need corn/wheat for breeding, or food for their armies. I don't think it will impact it that bad. I mean taxes haven't been collected in two months and we haven't seen massive backlogs of goods anyway. But yes, we need to cut down on production by asking people to get rid of fields. It's not like their selling their goods and making money off them anyway, and it's just taking away from our pool of mine workers.

klovn wrote:

To give up fields

I am not for that solution. Why?
It will cost county incentives to pay citizens to close field, but you have no guarantee that they wont get new one after some time.
Better to convince field owners not to cultivate them and rather work in mines, if it will improve county economy. But back up your predictions with number
calculations, so citizens will see and feel progress of their actions.

People have trends to go into retreat or die suddenly. You can not plan it, you wont be notified in advance, it just happened. If we close fields, than one day
we will need them badly and will cost additional money to buy them back.

That is true, people might just get new fields. However, by only giving them 100.00 to drop a field, it at least guarantees they won't have the money to buy a new one right away. As you say though, we will be communicating with people not to hire out their fields (that was the original idea by having a 20.00 minimum wage and hiring for max stats) it would cut back on how often you could hire out your field and force more people to the mines. Once again a lot of communication asking people not to work their fields. We also want to work with mayors to get organization produced in the towns, so that everyone can work their fields on a rotating schedule, but also make sure there isn't overproduction.

klovn wrote:

Prestige

Lowering prestige will sure cut down county expenses. As I understand we use stone and iron to pay for prestige.

Why we dont use other goods? Is it not possible? Are they to cheap? Does selection of goods changes over time?

We have traditionally used stone and iron, just because it's abundant and constantly renewable. Figure we spend around 5,000.00 worth of goods every 10 days to maintain 5*. Iron and stone are really the only goods county has in that kind of quantity.