Reactivating eAustralia's Military Supply Companies
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by Chris Carnage
The executive government and congress recently agreed to upgrade a few of the government owned companies (GFCs) to take advantage of admin's good graces in temporarily halving the cost of upgrades. This was a good decision, even though the companies are not currently in use, and I applaud all involved.
eAustralia's new Q5 weapons factory, but where's all the workers?
I now call upon the presidential (prime ministerial) candidates to consider reactivating at least some of these companies for the benefit of eAustralia.
Back when I was a member of the ADF there was a "work for weapons" program. Various militaries around the world run weapons and food communes, as do most militia groups. Why? Because it makes sense!
Military companies can be used to build guaranteed stockpiles of weapons and food, and there is a willing and committed workforce in the soldiers. Committing yourself to a military group involves sacrifice. A long time ago it meant giving up the opportunity to run for congress/senate (because senators couldn't deploy to other countries), it meant accepting a low wage in a military commune in return for supplies. But that didn't discourage me, quite the opposite. When you make sacrifices to join the military, and you know your colleagues are doing the same, it helps to build a sense of community and spirit.
The program can be as large or small as you want it. In Crimson Devils every soldier works in a militia company and share the supplies. The old ADF work for weapons program was voluntary allowing soldiers to work for a reduced wage in an ADF company in return for extra supplies. It could even be run like a commercial company with a portion of what is currently spent on purchasing supplies from the market used to pay for wages. There are many other models I'm sure...
The 2 largest components of expenditure in every budget are funding the military and activating MPPs. That is as it should be, but think what could be saved if the productive capacity of military personnel was put to work in providing those supplies. ADF funding for supplies (excluding MPPs and tanking support) was over a third of the March budget forecast expenditure.
Game mechanics is a little different now, but admin has committed to maintaining official government orgs. I'm sure there are challenges associated with running GFCs for military supply, but most militia have been able to overcome them and I don't see why eAustralia couldn't.
I hope each candidate for President / PM will think about this, and consider running at least a trial program.
Disclaimer: This article represents the opinion of the writer only, not the policy of my party
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"Disclaimer: This article represents the opinion of the writer only, not the policy of my party"
Relax chris, only people like tim and tj norton etc think "OMG! SOMEONE GIVING THEIR OPINION! MUST BE THE PARTIES POLICY!"
This would go against my policies, but I guess it could work if employees are paid well. I'd definitely consider it if elected; good work Chris!
I have a fair bit of support for Chris's arguments here, especially the intangibles like "sense of community and spirit."
In the past I have been wary of work for weapons/supplies where the offer values are well above the normal market and create enough distortion so that the private sector has no choice but to raise wages to match. This just puts businesses out of action and creates uneccessary inflation etc.
The main problem that we have with government owned GFC's is the lack of citizen productivity bonus. Although not insurmountable, an extra 25% in cost makes this approach substantially less attractive. There is some hope that admins will create some mechanism to overcome this as they "fix" government orgs - lets hope so.
If I get elected Prime Minister, I will certainly be looking to fire up Q5 weapons production as the GFC option that is the most efficient use of labour.
Weapons for work is basically a way to overpay military workers. All GFCs should be paid market salaries.
As one of the original authors of the work for weapons scheme (Cottus instituted it, and I modified it during my terms as MoD) I support this for various reasons.
Firstly, it did have an impact on the community of the Military. Secondly, it did defray the costs of supply - when the appropriate remuneration was applied (Infin's point is that the wages to Military workers was tinkered with later on, and this led to questionable savings).
However, I do think that you need to very carefully consider the cost-benefit and ensure it is correctly applied. When WFW was in full effect, there was a balance between Dropbears (who, usually had a high skill as well as buff strength - which meant the production of Q1 weapons exceeded supply, and gave us a bit of a buffer for additional supply when needed). You also need to now consider the impact of new game mechanics, which are a bit different to when we ran WFW in 2009. Not the least of which was that previously, weapons were only valid for one hit at a time, and that hit directly translated to an impact on the wall. You now have 5 uses for a Q5 which equates to five hits, which may or may not be used in one score to the wall through taking out a player.
I'll be interested to see how this discussion continues : P
Oh and that is the personal opinion of the author of my comment, and not affiliated with any crazy old people running down the street telling kids to stop using the hoses. : P
Not sure about the history, I recall taking a pay cut to join W4W program, but that's ancient history. I'd definitely think the whole program would need to be reviewed to be sure we get better value for money than currently.
I'm happy to work in the q5 weps gfc doing 100 wellness and 0.99 gold booster for 5 aud a day.
When I was in charge of the Work for Weapons program it was highly successful - paying lower than market wages in return for extra weapons for soldiers who worked there. This ensured that we had decent stockpiles of weapons when we needed them. It was also cost effective.
It would make for a good discussion in the Senate.
This is really up to the executive and not up to Senate though.
I want to work for the NBN.
Neil.
Lols you'll notice GFC also stands for Global Financial Crisis
The current idea is to let soldiers work for the equivalent of their training supplies in cash + Income Tax. This essentially means the QM themselves daily in return for no additional income other than their own companies - so strictly for the experienced and patriotic.
The weapons will also be for the stockpile so that the existing weapons market may continue growing. As our wonderful wizard of oz mentioned, the 25% citizenship bonus is a concern, but may remain cost effective considering the labour cost. But rest assured, we will be the dudes and do the math to estimate the labour market impact as well as the base cost per unit.
Thanks everyone, must say I'm very happy at the response I've had to this and excited to see it is being actively worked on. I kind of expected a jolly trolling, so really great to see the constructive responses.