[WW] Change...

Day 3,165, 00:20 • Published in USA Canada • by Ilene Dover



It’s been awhile folks. Sorry ‘bout that, but life keeps rolling on. Resoula’s excellent idea for a writing competition has dragged me back into the media. I’m a sucker for trying to get e-rich...


This game that we all play together has changed a lot in the last month, and I wanted to talk about it. Some people hate the changes, but that’s inevitable with any change. I haven’t seen many people applauding the changes. Frankly, most people seem to be somewhere between confused and ambivalent. I hope I can shed some light on the details...



So, what’s changed? The economic module was the first big change, so let’s start there. The new distribution of resources have been done to death already, so let’s look at something new - company placement and holding companies. You can read about the factual side of things (what, how, why) here. I’ll assume you already did, or learnt by trial and error. What are the practical implications of letting citizens put their companies wherever they please?


The obvious implication is that your citizenship no longer determines your production bonuses. A Serbian citizen could set themselves up in the USA, or vice-versa. The big winners here are producers from small (or smaller) countries like Australia and Ireland. The opportunistic (and capitalistic!) residents there could and probably did establish a holding company somewhere with stronger bonuses than they have in their home country. What does that mean? It means more goods are produced by these morally upright folk, which can then be sold on their home market.


There are less obvious implications too. If small-country producers setup in a country with strong bonuses, the benefit of work tax paid through work-as-manager (WaM) mostly goes to the host country. While that’s great news for any country that earned a good set of bonuses, it’s terrible news for small countries - only 20% of the WaM work tax is remitted to the citizenship country’s treasury. This is going to be a big problem for economic minnow Israel. As you can see below, their tax revenue has dropped to about 200 CC/day. That’s not enough to pay for one MPP...



And, of course, if you want to WaM you have to be physically present at your companies. Everyone knows that nobody does any work unless the boss stands over their shoulder. Consequently the price of Q5 moving tickets has gone from about 2-25 CC to over 50 CC. Y’all know you can now move without a ticket, right?






Still on economic changes... This time looking at workers, salaries, housing and the aircraft industry. Since holding companies were implemented, an employer’s job offers are posted on the job market of every nation the employer has a holding company. What does that mean?


Since holding companies are concentrated in countries with strong national bonuses (Romania, Iran, Serbia, USA etc), there is strong competition for workers in those countries. Salaries are 175 CC/shift here in the USA (as I’m writing), and I’ve heard stories of a few offers posted at 200 CC. Contrast this with the job market in Italy and France (130 CC), the UK (under 120 CC) and Greece (160 CC).



Average salaries in countries with strong bonuses are skyrocketing. In the USA they’re about 80 CC now, compared to 45 CC a few months ago. That means your work tax paid per WaM click is increasing, because it’s calculated off the national average wage. Do your homework folks - you might find a lower average salary in a smaller country gives enough of a tax break that it offsets the reduced production.


The elephant in the room for salaries is the aircraft industry. Profits on the Q1 air-to-air weapons are staggeringly high (for three shifts [cost 525 CC] to produce 16 weapons [income 1920 CC @ 120/missile]), even at market salaries. Congress hasn’t even got around to taxing that profit! So it’s no surprise that people are building as many missile factories (and Neodymium mines) as they can afford. Since it’s only possible to produce in the aircraft industry using workers there is something of a wages breakout going on.


By popular (well, singular) request in the comments, this table shows you the rough cost price per air-to-air missile for a range of bonuses and salaries. A missile factory uses 20 ARM for each Q1 missile produced, while the Neodymium mine (don't build any others...) has a base production of 250/shift like the Granite quarry. It conveniently works out at about 2 factory shifts for each RM shift if you self-produce everything. If you want to get cute and fancy, send me a PM.





Over the past years people have invested thousands of gold into housing companies. These guys have, so far, been the losers in all of the horse trading. Why? What does that mean?



As employee wages have climbed (see above, re: the aircraft industry), previous employers are losing out. That is, they have to pay more to their workers to get the same (at best) or 8% less production (because of pollution) at worst than they did last month. The Q1 house is always a bellwether in these scenarios - their price hover around 5 to 5.5 times the current market salary. That’s because under the old economy, it took 4.5 work tickets to produce a Q1 house (if you had full bonuses). Under the new economy it takes 4.65 work tickets, and the aircraft interlopers are making each of those work tickets cost more.


Q1 house prices have responded accordingly and are about 640 CC at the moment (from 500ish before). That’s 3.65 times the current market salary of 175 CC. In other words, Q1 houses are not profitable at present. One of two things will therefore happen, in my opinion:

1. The price of Q1 houses (plus HRM and other houses) will shoot up again. Around 875 CC for a Q1 house would be about right. The big winners would be MU communes, who don’t really have any wage costs and would therefore have a licence to print money, and governments, who would collect much more revenue through VAT on houses.
2. The price of Q1 air-to-air missiles crashes to somewhere in the 35-45 CC range. This puts profit from aircraft industry companies about inline with profits from housing companies.



Only one last section on economic changes before I think you’ve all had enough. Taxes. Everyone hates them until they take a turn in the CP chair. Then they aren’t high enough!


To the best of my knowledge, no country has looked at it’s tax mix in the wake of the new economy yet. It would make sense, to me at least, to follow these general guidelines:


Larger countries with strong bonuses should concentrate on work tax. With more WaM clicks happening in their borders than ever before, work tax will stay the biggest revenue earner.


Smaller countries, with entrepreneurs that setup offshore for bonus reasons, might do well to finesse their VAT rates. If nobody other than e-patriots are running companies, revenue from sales of goods produced offshore could be a big ticket item.







I wanted to write about aircraft battles and the Maverick Pack too, but this article is already too long. Tomorrow will have to do!