2. Minimum/Maximum Price Laws

And that is great.. But.. what about the debt? It continues to grow.. because we have our money on the side?

The debts growing anyway, thats just side trading though, we hope to sell off iron and stone which we have in excess in europe too for a pretty penny. Also as the grants of trade get bigger we can use them to buy a lot of goods and then deposit them into the county treasury.

Ceana wrote:

And that is great.. But.. what about the debt? It continues to grow.. because we have our money on the side?

We use tax money to buy up cheap goods for export. The money made off exporting gets put directly to the debt, plus the income from regulating the mines system properly.

I have to say it... Wasn't this the plan with the extra cash that was taken from the marshal pay? And we saw how much of the goods were bought and sent to Dumfries. And if it was, I didn't see it.

Not saying that to be facetious.. just making a point. I hope you can see why I am very hesitant with things...

I understand Ceana . . . and really the best answer I have for that is that the top 8 people on our CC list are exceedingly smart and active. Debt reduction is my passion in this game, hell I almost quit back in February, when people complained about forced closures of the mines and the debt continued to increase after I had started making a dent in it, in the beginning of my term. I know you can't "win" this game, but winning to me would be pulling a county out of this debt. It is something I feel strongly about and I promise I won't be half assing it, I don't care if I have to mail every citizen in the county every day to explain to them the pros and cons of all this. I joined the game for the economic aspects and I know you don't like the word "promise", but I promise I will do everything in my power to reduce the cash debt, I understand I can't do it alone though. It's not worth my time however to spend all my free time being an exceedingly active TM, when the results aren't showing. I have promised for this term, but beyond that if we can't get anything in place, I'm probably going to retire from CC for good.

We do need the support of the people for it to work. If it comes to it that people really aren't that interested in making a couple sacrifices (and really I don't think they're that bad) to combat the debt, then it's a lost cause already and we should just throw the entire section out of the platform and replace it with "we'll do what we can to keep the County slightly above water as long as we can". What's the point in exporting goods, when you can't make a profit? What's the point of even wasting money to upgrade the mines, when you're losing money on them anyway? What's the point of taxing the poor citizens, when in a 15 day period the amount of taxes doesn't even come close to covering the cost of the mines?

I am serious I will be on CC and do my best to keep this County afloat, just stall for time until we eventually hit 660k. Then what? Galloway closes? I'm not trying to attack you Ceana, just trying to throw out my thought process here so that you can at least see where I am coming from. It's not about a dictatorship or just having power over people. If I really wanted that I'd continuously run for Duke instead. I want this County work TOGETHER to achieve this goal. I already know CC is active and willing to do it's part to work with Mayors, export, communicate with the citizens, manage the mines properly, and do everything we can to reduce the debt. But without the citizens putting effort into it as well, it's all for naught.

Alright, I'm willing to compromise on this a bit and implement it in steps. How would everyone feel about just starting this out on a few key goods (corn/bread/wheat) junk like that? Then seeing how acceptable that is before working in more on stat food and other goods.

OK.

I'd say start with corn, bread, wheat, wood, and fish so we cover the basic necessities and begin on the path of getting fish and wood priced for export.

I'm fine with that, I'll do away with the other prices for now and see how these go.

I am a bit late to this forum but will give my thoughts on it anyway.

I personally am against most market regulations, they seem a waste of time and go against economic freedom that is the hallmark of Democracy and Capitalism.

However, having said that, there is a definate need for price caps on Corn and Bread, these are the two goods that vary hugely between towns and in my travels I have sometimes been forced to pay nearly 7 pounds for a loaf of bread (though that is very rare), which, for a non stat food, is pretty steep considering I can get the same loaf of bread in Drummore for less than 5 pounds (again, this is the most extreme example, prices usually float around the 5.30 mark).

So I am in favour of regulating the basic goods, food that level 0's and 1's need, but most other things should be left in an open market.

Market regulations do go against democracy but it is for the good of all and we will make it abundantly clear that were doing it, if people dont want it we dont get votes. However i dont see this whole argument against Capitalism (for one the ideal of capitalism hasnt really been invented then back then there were huge trade tariffs between countries often and most control was in the one or two peoples hands). The fact is these caps will give people better wages instead of a few mooching off others, it puts down the average earnings or wheat fields but its only fair to pan out the wages. A free market economy doesnt do much for us in terms of trade, if we buy a lot from the market the prices will go up, simply because they can, that helps no one and then goods stagnate again, they drop then we can afford to use them for trade and they go up again, this is an unhealthy economy. This way we give everyone good wages, were guaranteed these prices to trade with and it means the local markets wont be hurt. With such a small population town economies can be run by a few, say 3 butchers all decide to sell high, we dont have that much production of meat in other towns to be able to force them to lower, who loses out, the people.

To begin with we will only do staple foods and necessities but if we can we will expand that to all goods over time. Just because its needed doesnt mean you should take advantage of people.

And yes people dont like government interference, but to be frank all i can say is tough, you want the county to survive and be prosperous well you have to do this, its not that hard, everyone will be doing it.

Quote :

I personally am against most market regulations, they seem a waste of time and go against economic freedom that is the hallmark of Democracy and Capitalism.

Exactly . . . and where has economic freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism got us? It has gotten us to -300,000.00. Capitalism is great IRL, because everyone is self serving, everyone's staying competitive to make themselves the most money. IG however you have odd behavior . . . like people working their own fields just because it's something to do, when they know they're not going to be able to sell their goods. What does that accomplish? That take a worker away from the mines, gives the citizen 0.00 daily wages, and creates more overproduction on the town market.

In pure capitalism you still have stuff like sweat shops and trade going to countries that can underbid the most. If you want to look at it from a purely modern standpoint, there is no pure capitalism, even governments regulate minimum wages and have trade tariffs (our min/max prices) to ensure that their citizens are treated fairly. In my opinion some government control is important, as long as it's not a complete dictatorship. These are not in place to control people, these initiatives are to ensure that the citizens get a good wage, that they can sell their goods quickly, and that Galloway has cheap prices to that we can export, and also so that more traders WANT to come to Galloway to buy cheap.

For me it's a win, win and I haven't heard an actual argument as to why this is economically a bad idea. Everyone just keeps playing the "freedom" card. I mean come on really, you don't move to a new country IRL, just because your country implements minimum wage laws and you think that's unfair. I don't leave the USA, just because I'm not allowed to import stuff from Cuba. We all make sacrifices for the greater good, even in societies that would be closest to pure capitalism.

Now in the interest of getting everyone on board I am willing to compromise on some of these issues. But I'd like some facts or figures as to why they wouldn't be good ideas. The argument that it just cuts down on freedom, isn't enough justification to me. It blows my mind that someone would rather make 15.00 a day and preserve complete freedom, instead of making 20.00 a day and doing little things, like hiring for max stats.

Sorry that's my angry rant for the day

Ugh.. Lance.. it is sounding worse and worse when you try to convince people now that your thinking is correct and theirs is not. :S

If common rights are not a good enough reason for NOT doing it, I don't know what is. You want someone to come up with solid proof that it wont work. You don't even have proof that it -will-.


Here is a figure for everyone:

Work the Mines for 17 (Max pay that anyone can make at a mine.) Yet Hire for your field for 20.

Now.. you tell me who is going to be making on this deal. Your argument to that was that you wouldn't have to work the mine every day. Ok.. Point. You are saying that there is over production.. so lets pay people to -stop- productions on their fields.. Guess what? Now I don't have a choice BUT to work in the mines.

No. Sorry.. Just no.

Well we've scaled the price limits back to just corn, wheat, bread, fish, and wood. Can you get on board with that at least? I won't throw any more of my crazy rhetoric at you .

Yes I believe strongly in my ideals, but in the interest of getting people on board with this, I am willing to cut back a bit. I'm not inflexible, can you agree on the price regulation for just those items until we see how it goes?

The topic is named min and max prices.
I"m not sure if anything has been desides on the max prices but it will be harder to move a grant or get goods to people you made a deal with if you can not ask a higher price. Exhcange 2 goods each way for a spoken amount higher to make sure the goods end up in the right hands.

Caps are for the free market, if your grant shuffling or making a specific deal with someone you can break the caps.

Okay, thank you for clearing that up. I know I'm kind of new here/at this so am trying to learn.

Its alrite