Alright kids, let's all freak out.
Day 2,092, 08:53
•
Published in USA 
•
by
•
by Kortanul
Or don't, because, y'know, this work tax really isn't that horrific. The max rate, lack of bonuses, and no congress all rolled into one is a terrible situation to be in, but it's not permanent.
For this article, I'll not bother with the pretty pictures as I'm not out to make friends or gain favor, simply stating my opinion on the matter in a form that allows longer, more elegant posts than the feed.
Complete with skim-friendly bold text throughout the article due to lack of pictures for entertainment.
We'll get our territories back, reclaim our nation, all that jazz, but first we've gotta reclaim our right to a functional government. First, we need to get our congress, as long as we do that every month we can keep on going without much worry. Roll with the punches, don't be collapsing into a weeping pile of self-pity because the big bad adults took away your candy.
Once we get our congress, we can fix our tax rates--25% income tax was fine since most anyone that mattered worked as manager or communed anyway, but 25% general work tax is something we can't handle in the current economy. We all know this, even our whale on the throne knows this, and we'll fix it, so don't go running away just yet. Lie and wait, grit your teeth and keep working, whatever, but stick around. Things will definitely get better.
All that fluff about motivation and understanding aside, here's what I felt needed saying.
This work tax had to happen. I know that, you know that, everyone knows WaM was an economy-breaking thing, especially tax-free. Workers get taxed, product gets taxed, why didn't we as managers? What's the point of any tax if there's such an easily accessible loophole to all of it? Why could we just produce all of our own stuff for free and sell it to the market cheaper because our personal costs went down to near nothing? What good does that do us long-term? How can you expect employees and products to remain of any value when you can just work free?
Do I feel 25% is a good rate? No, not now at least. Should we have taxes? Yes. I feel around 10-15% would be good for the market. Once we get our bonuses back, that amount shouldn't even make anyone flinch, but should definitely continue to help boost the economy.
Now among the remaining issues is far too many producers--completely going over any possible level of demand. We need weapons factories off the market, and I know many of the players owning them feel they need to work their factories to make SOME money to justify having them, lest they be forced to dissolve and lose large sums of gold. That doesn't change that there are too many. We can't all be producers of the same product and expect things to go well. It can't work.
Seriously, this is what we look like.
The other issue? What the hell is with all this gold raining out of the skies with nowhere to go? How can we expect values to ever balance to anything at all reasonable when there is so much gold that it pretty much can't drop any lower in value? We need a few good gold sinks, something enticing and rewarding that will permanently reduce the gold available. That or we could just demand that we pretend by inflating the amount of CC available, it would likely have the same effect for a while--though not a permanent fix at all.
That is all, my friends. This is the end of my entirely too wordy opinion article on the current issues at hand.
For this article, I'll not bother with the pretty pictures as I'm not out to make friends or gain favor, simply stating my opinion on the matter in a form that allows longer, more elegant posts than the feed.
Complete with skim-friendly bold text throughout the article due to lack of pictures for entertainment.
We'll get our territories back, reclaim our nation, all that jazz, but first we've gotta reclaim our right to a functional government. First, we need to get our congress, as long as we do that every month we can keep on going without much worry. Roll with the punches, don't be collapsing into a weeping pile of self-pity because the big bad adults took away your candy.
Once we get our congress, we can fix our tax rates--25% income tax was fine since most anyone that mattered worked as manager or communed anyway, but 25% general work tax is something we can't handle in the current economy. We all know this, even our whale on the throne knows this, and we'll fix it, so don't go running away just yet. Lie and wait, grit your teeth and keep working, whatever, but stick around. Things will definitely get better.
All that fluff about motivation and understanding aside, here's what I felt needed saying.
This work tax had to happen. I know that, you know that, everyone knows WaM was an economy-breaking thing, especially tax-free. Workers get taxed, product gets taxed, why didn't we as managers? What's the point of any tax if there's such an easily accessible loophole to all of it? Why could we just produce all of our own stuff for free and sell it to the market cheaper because our personal costs went down to near nothing? What good does that do us long-term? How can you expect employees and products to remain of any value when you can just work free?
Do I feel 25% is a good rate? No, not now at least. Should we have taxes? Yes. I feel around 10-15% would be good for the market. Once we get our bonuses back, that amount shouldn't even make anyone flinch, but should definitely continue to help boost the economy.
Now among the remaining issues is far too many producers--completely going over any possible level of demand. We need weapons factories off the market, and I know many of the players owning them feel they need to work their factories to make SOME money to justify having them, lest they be forced to dissolve and lose large sums of gold. That doesn't change that there are too many. We can't all be producers of the same product and expect things to go well. It can't work.
Seriously, this is what we look like.
The other issue? What the hell is with all this gold raining out of the skies with nowhere to go? How can we expect values to ever balance to anything at all reasonable when there is so much gold that it pretty much can't drop any lower in value? We need a few good gold sinks, something enticing and rewarding that will permanently reduce the gold available. That or we could just demand that we pretend by inflating the amount of CC available, it would likely have the same effect for a while--though not a permanent fix at all.
That is all, my friends. This is the end of my entirely too wordy opinion article on the current issues at hand.
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
Hello folks \o
Wat Dot Dootle Duttle Deetle Dota Yeedle Yuedle
Pbbt Pbbt Oh Pbbt Eh Pbbt...
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcKdsvYbgw0
I like it! Well the one picture was too much for me!
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist using at least one picture to depict the overcrowded market. I *almost* made the article picture-free, but it couldn't be done.
I hate the reality of your article. As a WAM producer and the CO of a MU that has invested heavily in WAM, the idea that high tax on it is a good thing sucks. But there is much truth to it. Just like I did for Corrigan Brown's article, I'd like to buy you some votes to encourage excellent writing. Thank you.
Votes purchased. Now a few shouts to push it up a bit. Good writing deserves exposure.
I'm really appreciating your vote bumping for good media Cubby.
I also share your begrudging acceptance of the tax as a potential economy fix.
The reality of things sucks, and I know it as a newer player as well as member of an MU that the taxes hit hard, but once we get over our while of suffering the game should turn out that much better for it.
That said, the votes are appreciated, though entirely unnecessary.
Good writing deserves exposure. 🙂
I suppose, and this does help get my point across. Thank you sir~
v
Voted and subbed.
Voted and subbed.
Good article.
Thank you.
Voted
A vote from Kemal on this is a hell of a motivator.
Thanks :3
Voted and shouted. Great article man.
Yup
v/s
"Workers get taxed, product gets taxed, why didn't we as managers? What's the point of any tax if there's such an easily accessible loophole to all of it?"
So, by that logic you should also be in favor of taxing gifts, so as to close the loophole that allows employing workers tax free by gifting wages instead of paying them the default way. Right?
Not at all my point. Production should not go without costs. WaM should not be a free alternative to employing. How you employ is one thing I don't care much about, but for in-game functions it only makes sense to tax all workers equally, be they managers or employees. If you work and earn something from it, it should come at a greater cost than simply 10 energy.
So you didn't at all mean what you said, which is that all production should be taxed. You made it sound like you were trying to be fair and logical, which is good, but I figured that you probably wouldn't mind the huge exploit used by the commune system. That makes this change mainly just one more way to screw anyone trying to run a business independent of communes.
See, either we tax all taxable incomes, or we get rid of the tax entirely. It makes no sense to tax only some. If people choose to pay wages by gifting it, so be it, there's currently no real way to control that. But if we're to have a tax system at all, it may as well be fair and cover managers as well as employees.
Personally, I feel communes should die off, but there's no way to set higher wages for private companies usable only by specific groups. Until the economy becomes more complex, communes are the only way to do that. You can't tax gifts in real life because it's already been taxed, but in-game you can't because there's no way to tell whether it's been purchased and sent over, or used to pay wages. There isn't a separate system. I'd be pretty pissed if I got a friend playing and got taxed for sending a hundred Q7 weaps and a thousand Q3 food to my new friend just because communes use the system.
There should, ideally, be a way to take jobs off the market and make them private instead of gifting. There isn't.
One small problem.
TWO is much stronger than CoT.
They can wipe New York and Connecticut in short order.
Why would they let us have a Congress?
Why would we expect any occupier to just *let* us have anything? We've come back before, we'll do it again. We've helped other countries get congress plenty of times, it's no different getting our own.
TWO countries have congresses and can adjust their tax rates.
We can't. The Admin has made another "improvement" which will destroy the economies of the wiped countries indefinitely.
Fighting takes weapons and food. Both take money. Eventually, we will run out of money, unless you're all ready to whip out your credit cards.
Unless the Admin changes the rules yet again, the outcome has been predetermined. TWO wins, everyone else loses. With an outcome in sight, we can all stop obsessing about this stupid game, quit, and go back to our real lives.
Also, a final "winner"; or winning alliance, results in the end of the game.
Maybe it's gone long enough. In RL, Kosovo is a free nation. But Serb players will always be able to revel in the notion that for a short time, in an extinct browser game, Kosovo WAS still a part of Greater Serbia.
Voted and subbed. Good writing and interesting point of view.
Plato wants to sell you gold for real currency, so what does Plato want regarding the value of gold?
Think about it!
He should want the gold to be more valuable, and thus more enticing to buy. The economy benefits from higher gold values, and so would Plato.
Give me an example how Plato benefits from higher gold value and how it motivates people to spend more real money to buy gold?
It's quite simple. The more valuable gold is relative to in-game currency, the more exclusive and valuable it is to players, in turn motivating people to buy more due to the gold being, well, worth more.
OK, so for now I have spent 500.000cc by buying gold from Plato. That takes care of all I need in a month. When gold will have more value I will get 700.000cc with the same amount of bought gold. The question is on what do I spend my cc!
Fight more, use more rockets, help your country in battle. Donate to a program you like or have benefited from, donate to your MU, start an MU if you want, something. There's no end to what you can throw your money at.
I don't agree with you on the work tax completely. Other the other hand...FINALLY someone that understands the basic law of supply and demand! Our problem was basically too much production in the market. Thank you for writing this article. 🙂
Way I see it, work tax closes some of the workaround of WaM, making it harder to produce and sell at such slim margins, and will force away much of the producers through such. The market will have to adjust, and values should balance to something more reasonable. The work tax only partially adresses the problem, though, being primarily targeted towards the government getting the revenue it should.
Excellent article, voted 😃
http://i75.servimg.com/u/f75/17/76/65/65/workta10.jpg
Excellent article...\o/...
"Workers get taxed, product gets taxed, why didn't we as managers? "
we did get taxed as managers. As a manager, u get your money when you sell the product, so the product tax was basically a tax on managers.
The tax on sales of product is effectively 0, and a sales tax is no alternative to a corporate/business tax.
I produce my weapons and have the resources to feed them, unfortunately the last year has been hard on my erepublik currency. I used to be able to fund rebellions, fight, move where needed and hire workers. As the economy is now I'm under 1000 usd and rapidly heading toward bankrupcy! Soon I'll have to take days off from fighting, so I can sell weaponary to fund the next days combat. Due to this I'm not a big fan of the new tax.
This is a painful step towards recovery, one step towards helping the economy become a functional one. It needs work, and the more areas we cover--the more complex it becomes--the more sustainable and functional it will be for such a large playerbase.
Personally I feel the business/corporate tax should be managed separately from standard employee income tax, being that the two are handled so differently, but the tax was a long time coming. I know it won't be easy by any measure, but once we get our congress we'll be able to balance this some.
This is an issue of being a wiped country with no ability to set the rates than an issue of the new tax itself, but it does lead to harsh responses--and the admin's inability to understand and offer a solution is a serious problem which deserves all of the complaints. That the tax is there is fine, that we can't set our own tax rate for the new tax system thrust upon us is not.
Too many players, that's the problem. But it will be fixed soon, new players can not play at all. And NO, the government will not help them. Don't mind about overproduction, there is none. This idea with work taxes reminds me of a solution for heavy traffic on roads, toll taxes. Not everyone can afford now to use those roads. Same here. How about increasing taxes to 100%, and then the government will give us what we need only? Is that OK with you?
I'd really rather not get into talk of such extreme hypotheticals, so I'll instead share my belief. We have too many players for so simple a system--people naturally want to succeed, but cannot when there is only one way to succeed, because too many taking part in the same business effectively destroys everything, as we've seen.
There needs to be more to the economy to offer alternatives to producing weapons and RM as the only business options. Without that, raising production costs and killing slim-margin businesses is a crude but effective solution. Hell, overhaul the moving system to something distance-based and give us vehicles and fuel to produce, everyone needs to move, so it's a system that would be used, and increase market diversity some.
I agree their needs to be improvement to the games economic side. I just don't see how this is going to help. The way i see it peeps will become frustrated at the lack of progress as they have to decide whether to fund their factories, moving tickets, or war effort. most peeps will decide they can't ever be competitive and just quit I'm afraid.
That's true, many probably will, but that's again because we have no congress to lower the rates to something sustainable.
any tax is no good
Then we should dismantle the government and any laws we need made and MPP's signed will come out of private pockets. Enjoy watching the country crumble and live on foreign donations, forced to work with anyone that'll send money. Taxes are a must if you want a functional government.
But we don't have functional government, neither we have functional allies, those two comes in this case in same package. Look at CoT, they even don't have MC. I still don't know for what reason we have MPP-s with them.
Having taxes just to have functional government 😃