The Merc Fund: Make War, Not Cookies

Day 1,685, 19:07 • Published in Canada Canada • by Plugson

The Merc Fund: a cookie jar that costs 12.5% of our military budget

This article is based on…
CPF Tenet #2: Make the accounting of government funding more open and important

A proposal is now up to donate 50,000 CAD from our treasury to the Ministry of Finance. This is the second transfer of 50,000 CAD as part of three scheduled to out during the current budget, for a total of 150,000 CAD. Keep in min😛
i ) An average MU of 50-60 soldiers (CoI, HOPE, TCO) gets 65k CAD/month, half of what the Merc Fund receives
ii ) Total MU Budget is 1,200,000 CAD
iii ) Merc Fund = 12.5% of MU budget
iv ) MPP Fund = 150,000 CAD (after recently cuting MPPs to save cash)
v ) The Merc Fund is no small amount of petty cash by these comparisons



An army marches on its stomach…and a mercenary’s belly is full of our cookies


It’s important to support our soldiers. After all, this is a war game and we need tanks to get big kills in order to turn the battle in our favour. When eCanada has an important battle to win, we do need our soldiers equipped to make timed strikes, and a Mercenary Fund is designed to accomplish these time sensitive goals of winning crucial battles.

Of course, when hiring mercenaries, sometimes we have to pay for the big guns from MUs located in other countries. In those cases, we don’t buy tanks from our own market which generates taxes back into our treasury. We simply pay a lump sum to the Gold Tank or Merc MU. Again, sometimes this is called for when it is needed for key battles that eCanada needs to win. Right?



Money for nothing. Cookies for free ~ Dire Straits (of eCanada)


So what’s missing from our 125,000 CAD Merc Fund that takes away from 10% of our Canadian MU funding?
1) Battles we have to win…heck, even a War we have to win.

2) A spreadsheet describing how the money is handled

3) A list of requirements explaining who is eligible for the funds or what the 125,000 is to be used for. Right now it’s just for “Mercenaries” and these could be any Canadian MU/soldier or any foreign MU/soldier.

So this raises some questions…
A ) Why are we allocating money to a Merc Fund when we don’t have any eCan battles to win?
B )Will we be paying for supplies/fees for foreign soldiers in non-eCanadian battles?
C ) Shouldn’t this money be used for MU supply during a time of “peace"?
D ) Whose supplies are being bought and how much are we paying for them?
E ) Who is getting these supplies? Can a supplier buy&supply to himself?
F ) Are we trying to keep the Merc Fund “in Canada” and if so, why not make the Merc Fund transparent to eCanadians?



A camouflaged cookie is a well-hidden cookie


If we are going to sacrifice 10% of our MU funding, we should at least know the details of where that money is going. For half the amount of CAD, a regular MU would have to:
1 ) keep an up-to-date roster
2 ) keep a spreadsheet of expenses and current supplies
3 ) submit info to an auditor by a scheduled time

By all comparison, the Merc Fund has no such records, takes a sizeable piece of the treasury, and has complete freedom as to who gets those guns and when. We don’t even need to be in a war for a treasury transfer to the Merc Fund. Canada doesn’t even have to be in a battle for there to be Merc Fund hand-outs. There’s nothing describing who buys supplies and who gets them. It could be going to foreign MUs at a prenty penny in a war that has no relevance to eCanada. Not saying it is, yet that is the freedom the Merc Fund potentially has.



Not allowing an open-ended cookie jar should be a no-brainer


This month ask for more oversight and transparency. Either that or the Govt should ask for less taxes from its citizens to pay hand-picked soldiers by the CP. The Merc Fund is the most dictatorial thing about the recent administration. A shame it costs us 12.5% of MU funding to support that role-play, if that is what it is.

If it isn’t meant to be dictatorial, there here are some requirements that can be provided and which the current Comptroller agreed to in a general way:
(see here/click~~ http://tinyurl.com/MercFundDiscussionTake2):

1 ) Total funds allocated
2 ) Total funds spent
3 ) Total supplies distributed
4 ) List of suppliers
5 ) List of MUs contracted (tracking players would be good, but too much)
6 ) Supply Dates/Schedule
7 ) Supply Requirements
8 ) Predicted Expenditures and Funding Needs

I’m not crazy about more forum laws. I’m also not crazy about more taxes and more programs that eat up those taxes. Finding a balance that aims for necessary expenses with basic oversight is a goal that should be striven for. Anything less would be like delivering an open-ended cookie jar to the Govt. at the tax payers' expense.

Sure, keep the Merc Fund. It can have some practical use when the battle needs to be won at greater cost. But let’s get some regulations that show the money is spent when necessary and it prioritizes Canadian businesses and soldiers (when possible). I’m sure Rylde and Simon do that already, yet I’d like some transparent assurance that it is so.


Our New Players/Babies pay the taxes to fund our Mercs/Old Players ~ shouldn’t they be asking some questions where their MU funding is going? Or maybe we need to do it for them...

"Patty cake, patty cake mercenary man
Bake me a war as fast as you can!
Roll the cookiedough and mark it with a B.
Put it back in the budget for the babies and me!"