[Presidential Address] Sacrifice and the Community
Day 2,800, 19:41
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Published in Canada 
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by
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by DMV3
This is my response to this article.
We have been accused of raising taxes under false pretenses, but the fact is when I asked for the tax increase we did not know exactly how much fighting off resistance wars against Germany would cost. To give you an example of how costly, I will put it in perspective of what I spent in an entire month of fighting the eUS and invading India during my last term. For that entire term I spent around a million cc. So for someone to say the cost of this war was foreseeable is blatantly false, because this was a much different war and a different opponent compared to what we're used to fighting.
When all was said and done I spent just under 600,000 cc for the entire week of fighting. The vast majority of this came from personal funds, 25,000 came from Tembutt, and about 15,000 came from Molly Jo. Rylde spent some as well, though if you want a direct accounting of that you will have to ask him. Several other private citizens and MU commanders also put up COs, but I did not track any of their spending as it did not flow through me.
As I stated before every opponent and battle is going to have different costs depending on the factors involved. What they're spending, when their primetime occurs, and how much they're willing to spend are all major contributing factors to how much a war will cost us. Other factors to consider are whether or not it's an offensive or defensive war, and whether or not our allies are involved directly.
Oliver is right that raising taxes for this war probably would not have made a difference, but that is not to say those funds will not make a difference in future wars. Given what we know about COs and our opponents in past wars there are offensive war that will yield better results while costing us less money. This is without mentioning the obvious, we need funds to repel any future hostile acts by our enemies. So for the time being lowering taxes would be irresponsible and dangerous.
So my question for Canada is this; do you want another war in the near future? If so we need to be able to pay for it. I believe in the Canadian Reich, the Canadian Empire, as nothing short of our manifest destiny. In order to fulfill that destiny all must be willing to sacrifice a little so that our nation might be prepared to gain a lot. Wars don't just provide territories and resources, they also provide activity, stimulate the economy, provide True Patriot money to our troops, and bring us closer as a community. So do we want a stronger community where we all pitch in and work together or do we want a fragmented nation where everyone is only concerned with what is best for their personal interest?
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I used to be such a principled eLibertarian.... lowest taxes possible and all that jazz...
But this game has been designed to suck the real life money out of people's real life wallets, and it's unfair to expect the same ol' suckers to contribute all the cash.
Raise those taxes and Raise 'em high!
~_^
I'm the same way. If everyone remembers my first CP term I advocates a 1% 5ax and donations to pay for government spending. It helped increase our immigration and then everyone shouted PTO and scared away that growth.
wow, you single-handedly convinced eCanada to change taxes by 24% in your first term! Times must have been different then.
I also got elected CP of Canada a week after emigrating from the eUS. Those were different times indeed.
I even read that back then Congress ran a series of public surveys over a couple weeks to gauge the community's opinion about potential tax changes. A different time indeed.
A very different time indeed
uhm tem butt, you live in eRomania...not the best place to be calling for higher taxes in eCanada...
I came for the Epic War tournament.... and I stay for the resource bonuses huehuehue
Taxes are a necessary evil if eCanada wants to keep the top fighters and True Patriot hunters satisfied. Transparent expenditure and reasonable forecasts are necessary to keep the taxpayers satisfied. The dissatisfaction we've seen lately could be from these groups not understanding/appreciating each other's expectations. Can't say it's an easy job reconciling the two.
oops... sounds like austerity to me.
Why must you make everything sounds so negative?
Voted for MoJo lol
Tough love needed
Anyone who falls for this deserves what they get. I'm just here to fight against the next coup.
Falls for what exactly?
Falls for raising taxes? Who here doesn't know how to obtain food or weapons from ecanada or their mu? What else do we need money for? And really, a couple bucks ain't gonna kill even the greenest of players but collectively, it means a lot to eCanada.
Put plainly, if your congress selections aren't going to stomach higher taxes, leave them off the list.
You need to find an article with the information? Just click "Search"
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/you-need-to-find-an-article-with-the-information-just-click--2539770/1/20
I say drop all taxes to 1%.
That way when the US and UK divide us up they will not make much off of us. Of course after the foreign dictator takes over they'll probably raise the tax again so they can take it out of the treasury.
I love the new game mechanics.
^ sarcasm
^idiot
Meh...we don't need to divide up Canada. Our full bonus set in our native regions is somewhat of a curse. We don't need war for resources so it is kinda boring these days. It's not worth the headache to occupy Canada to gain nothing.
Molson and Tim Horton's.
"My platform is very simple. I currently have the funds to combat Germany with CO's giving us a better chance at victory. If elected I'll put forward my 700k cc for war funds because I like war. If the going gets rough I will also release war bonds to be paid in August." -- Rylde
"So for someone to say the cost of this war was foreseeable is blatantly false," -DMV
--- cost of war ~ 700,000 of private funds --- see article above.
maybe not so blatantly false after all?
He uses the word if, implying uncertainty. As I stated each opponent and each battle is going to have different conditions that effect our costs, so to say any of us knew for a fact it would cost more than what we had isn't really the case.
oh stop trying to make us believe you are an idiot. In non-idiot world no one expects anyone to be able to estimate future costs with absolute precision. That isn't what "foreseeable" usually means.
So, lets make friends. Obviously every war will have costs which are difficult to estimate with precision. If you are being responsible you need to make estimates. Sometimes the best estimates turn out to be profoundly erroneous because "stuff happens". We hope, however, that leaders do believe that costs are generally foreseeable within a range of error. Otherwise, seems foolish to plan in the first place. Make sense?
Of course I'm still not happy about that "blatantly false" comment of yours so ..... maybe "friends on parole"
Going it alone makes you sound desperate. Taxes are the appropriate way to fund wars. Using your credit card makes people feel subjugated to the president. Are you trying to subjugate us?
Appropriate if people have the patience for it. From what I understand, with the current tax rates, it takes 6 weeks (not including MPP costs) to fund 1 week worth of war. Can people wait 2 months or more between battles while we collect the cash?
Paying eRepublik to play this game is absolutely insane. Now that I got that said.. You are making my point. With the current tax rates, we might as well throw in the towel. Taxes need to be much higher. The economy will follow and wages will go up as well. Higher taxes are a good thing all around.
"The economy will follow and wages will go up as well. Higher taxes are a good thing all around."
There's a fairly narrow margin of 0.4 CC between the cheapest and most expensive Q7 tanks across the global market.
See here:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/worldwide-wq7-prices-2-2540198/1/20
Various players have already said that they travel to other countries to buy cheaper supplies. There's also an added incentive to shop elsewhere with free moving tickets available from the weekly challenge.
If wages go up, it will have to be because eCanadian products are selling at a better profit. That profit is possible if you reduce costs or increase sales. Higher taxes don't reduce costs, but rather increases them.
If you increase costs, sales will decrease (people will pay a little more, but there's a limit until they start shopping elsewhere).
The only way increasing costs and increasing wages can work is if people keep buying eCanadian products. You'll be relying on players to spend their higher wages on higher priced eCanadian products. (good luck with that)
Hiking the tax rate by a huge amount will provide a short-term increase in tax revenue. However, once players adjust to how they do business in eCanada, those tax revenues will stay flat or even begin dropping off.
Granted, eRep has a goofed up economy. Nevertheless, people still act like smart consumers, especially when they start having less fake cash to play around with.
o7
I find it interesting the direction you all are taking....This is what I see. It's a war game and instead of enlisting and supporting the economy of the eCanadian supply chain and the up and coming fighters of eCanada you all seem to be more interested in paying someone else to fight the battle for us? And Why did Germany need wiped? IMO, Cause DMV wanted it. How is that a reason to goto war, and raise taxes on the folks that had no part of the decision and only were given higher taxes. Why isn't the eGov of eCanada looking to pay eCanadian Merks.. And the current administration only sees eCanadians as the source to collect money from and nothing else.
That is seriously broken and messed up.
I am not against war, thats what the game is about, but what I am against is waging wars and paying outsiders for help long before working the eCanadian Citizens on the battlefield. The only reason we are a good place to encourage Award hunters is the fact that our eNation isn't that big and there are not as many other players competing for those awards, like they have in places like ePoland and eSerbia for a few examples.
Lower Work Taxes, increase import taxes and rebuild the fighting force in eCanada! I was there when London fell and back then we didn't spend half what we are spending now on outsiders.
First Germany attacked us, not the other way around. Mechanics dictated that for the war to end they needed wiped. Canada does not have enough to win wars against stronger opponents and we have no Canadian Mercs, if you're going to just talk out your a** make sure your head isn't already inserted there first.
You really need to listen more! At one time eCanada had a huge Merc crowd. Find a way to fix your problems with people. You apparently still only need the taxes that eCanadians generate and not the eCanadians themselves. If you valued the people in eCanada you would find a way to bring back an eCanadian Miltary. So you need to get YOUR head out of your...
You're reminiscing about days of old. Our active population is a fraction of the size it once was. Game mechanics have changes so much since then that very few nations even have a national military. COs have replaced national armies as the means to win wars. If you can't understand you haven't been paying attention to the game.
Why can't the government just seize all private assets in the name of national defense?
They are doing that with the current work tax structure...if you want to be an eCitizen of eCanada you have to either not work and play the part of noob or give everything and get nothing by region bonuses. The DMV administration isn't about people, its about supporting guys who spend tons of real money. It's a pay to play CP. And he wants everyone's CAD and doesn't care if he is breaking the eNation. He is colder than Rylde and Rolo ever were or could be. At least they tried to motivate active players to participate in the wars we are in, DMV is happier paying others to fight for us.
Every successful wartime CP spends money on COs. You really have no clue what you're talking about. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
One day we ought to get over the assumption that it's so important we go to war under our own banner to make this game worthwhile. Maintaining and strengthening the community, making and helping friends and just generally being prepared for a day when circumstances allow us to do something big would be better most of the time.
Wanting a CP to force an attempt to bring us glory is usually a pretty big let-down leaving us moaning and sniping in the aftermath.
I can see the other side - not sure how much longer we'll be bothering with this game so let's squeeze out of it what we can ASAP. I dunno -maybe we should just save up a while, say until Dec 31st and we all go off with a big bang.
But DAT true patriot do
I think the really disappointing thing about the current CP is his inability to work with his people. He sees there only value being what he can take via the work tax. Why isn't he rebuilding the Military Structure and Slave Pits from the days gone by so that our tanks would cost way less than you could buy them on the open market. IDK, it appears to me that this CP isn't trying to work with eCanadians, he is buying all his Merc tanks from other eNations cause he hates the eCanadian that pays a high work tax. His attitude is really souring me on the game. Everything was so much better when the TCO was a powerhouse...
CP isn't a miracle worker. What you're asking requires much more effort than just the CP pushing a few buttons. It's very easy to blame the CP for our problems, but what you should be doing is hitting the pavement and getting some work done yourself. Bring back TCO or start your own military unit. All i've seen you do is complain.