[TUP] What do you do for money, honey?

Day 1,216, 12:57 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by The Unity Party


Dear friends,

TUP’s last article was a little gambol through the political countryside, and today is going to be a trek up to the meandering hills that collectively make up our economy.

To start off I want to announce a new scheme led by TUP, and inspired by our brethren in the Canadian Paradox Party. They run a program called shooting stars, whereby to get people started in the game, players under level 18 are offered 100 wellness and two weapons per day, along with tips about fighting, getting involved, and so on. The program lasts a week, and upon graduation you’re added to the yearbook (thingy) and you’ve hopefully learned something.

Well in TUP we have a long history of supporting new citizens through our Welcome Baskets for new players and our government sponsored food programs. When we heard about this idea, we thought it was a great way of combining our education and gifting programs and supporting our (regrettably small) number of new players.

So with that in mind, I’d like to announce the opening of The Unity Party University (TUPU for short). Any citizen over Level 10 or under Level 18 can apply to enrol in TUPU simply by sending me a message on the back of a postcard saying why you want to enrol. We will be taking on an initial enrolment this week as a trial, and if it goes well we will expand it on a permanent basis.

I would like to add that this in no way commits you to join TUP, though if you want to help with the program there are ways for any citizen to help out.


This is a university picture I found on google image search.

Next I would just like to briefly talk about a trend in budgeting in this country which is a constant source of frustration to all of us here at TUP. As most of you know, the UK collects taxes from your wages and a smaller percentage from the goods you buy. Collectively, this makes up several thousand GBP per day. By adjusting tax levels, we adjust the national budget of the country.

Two things about this always struck me as strange: firstly that despite fluctuating national income, the taxes themselves are rarely adjusted; secondly the only time that the national budget is changed is to expand spending on the military. As most of you know, the two major costs to the UK are the upkeep of the armed forces, and the payment of mutual protection pacts (MPPs) which allow us to ally with other countries and cost 100g each. Because we maintain a number of MPPs, it’s necessary for the UK to raise a certain amount of gold each month. The rest of the coin taken goes to the army.

This is taken for granted, but it’s a system which essentially means a small percentage (the army) get all of your tax money. I have clashed with the army personally in the past, but as an institution I accept that the defence of the country is a good way to spend taxes, and that as a whole they’re fairly selfless and give up a lot for their positions. However, I have in the past seen budget requests for £200-300 for gifting turned down, whilst in the same week 200-300g for new military companies gets stamped through without thinking twice.

Despite being (at most) 5-10% of any budget, the non-military expenditures are nearly always the first to be squeezed. This really makes no sense.


Search result 1, “budget squeeze”. If you search “budgie squeeze” like I accidentally did, you get a picture of a man squeezing a budgie. Google has everything.

I believe we should make two major changes to our budgeting policy. Firstly, we should ring-fence ten percent of our total income (I can supply income figures) as non-military spending. That budget will be stored separately from the bank of England, and essentially 10% of all monies donated will be sent to that org. Then we will sit down as a country and a congress and work out how we should spend it. Whether it is on gifting, on tax-rebates for exporters, on new-starter grants on the forums- it doesn’t matter. The point is that we’re using a small (just 10%!) of our taxes for something which benefits the whole country, not just a small group.

Secondly, I propose that we stop all government money market sales. It is unnecessary. Instead, we will raise gold by creating a system similar to the Valletta system of stock sales. We will buy up products from the UK market using gbp, and sell them abroad for gold. By ensuring all citizens purchasing the items are non-British, we essentially increase our exports by x amount of gold per month. I have seen people on trade channels buying 200g worth of products at once. That is 200g of exports essentially, and will improve our balance of trade and over time the value of our currency.

Anyway, I think that it’s a trait of many of the UK’s other parties to largely ignore the economy and focus on foreign affairs or military issues. People forget that although there are a large number of soldiers, the vast majority of the UK are just working, paying taxes, and fighting. For them, the most important factor is the economy, as it dictates wages, prices and everything in between.

Iain Keers
TUP Leader