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Recent Econ Module Changes Leave Citizens Wondering

We've had some interesting changes come down the pike with the implementation of the long-rumored and confirmed-yesterday plan for "unified storage." I will explore briefly how this change will affect everyone after today's updates. The current numbers:


Current Monetary Market Snapshot



A few day's data now indicates that currency-gold exchange rates are seeing much reduced volatility and have settled in at a sustainable rate. Whether the current market equilibrium is the most efficient is a matter of debate but I don't expect to see deflation/inflation expressed in the monetary market as it has been for the past two months. Rather, I am now expecting it to move to the traditional product marketplaces.


Current Marketplace Snapshot - High Volume Industries



Iron prices in the ePH continue to remain high in comparison to the eUSA. This effect will be mitigated, in my opinion, by the eventual reoccupation of Mindanao by the ePhilippines and the ability of iron producers to export cheaply abroad. I will have a recommendation to small-countries around the world after discussing it in detail with other econ-minded citizens. My initial inclination is that import taxation is counterproductive and only increases the competitive advantage that countries with large resource basis currently receive. While grain and iron regions gained importance with today's changes import/export operations became the great equalizer. Look for an analysis on this topic this week.

Coming this Friday: increased markets tracking.




Today's Feature - Unified Inventory, Productivity Formula Changes

eRep citizens are awakening to some dramatic changes to the economic landscape. For starters, everything you produce and purchase end up in the same location. Prior to this it was a pain in the proverbial ass to get items from your companies into your citizen. Now it happens automatically whenever you work for yourself in one of your companies or when an employee does. You can post whatever you have in your inventory for sale on the market, including used houses or items purchased in other markets.

The impact Unified Inventory will have on the world economy will be dramatic and far-reaching. Why is this? For starters, economic arbitrage abilities (the ability to exploit differences in prices between markets) has now increased. I could, for example, purchase a Q2 moving ticket and relocate to the eUS and purchase all the iron I could find and resell it on the ePhilippine market for a significant profit. Or I could simply supply my weapons companies from abroad and reap the profits there through reduced costs. The choice is mine but the implication is obvious - we're no longer tied down by location and restraints on inventory.

Another element of the Unified Inventory implementation to consider is the impact it will have on export licenses. Previously we were forced to purchase export licenses on a per-company basis. This limited the amount of product we could sell overseas and most of the time the investment was not worth it - 20 gold for access to a market that was subject to import taxes and a slower rate of consumption, usually. Only the most savvy business owners exploited this for arbitrage. Now, however, this has changed. Everyone's export licenses have been wiped clean and we receive one license PER COMPANY. I have twenty licenses I can now "purchase" for free and once I obtain one ALL of my inventory can make use of the license. Naturally one of the first I obtained was to the USA, arguably the largest and fastest economy in eRepublik.

The fact that I can now target whole economies instead of minor sectors in another economy makes exportation much more realistic. It also allows for smaller countries to make a viable effort to attract imports as a valid economic strategy. In previous economic models I had concluded that encouraging domestic production of raw materials and keep foreign producers out was advantageous. Now, however, due to the change to export licenses and the implementation of the 10 gold daily limit on the monetary market means that small economies no longer have to worry about massive currency movements affecting their aggregate domestic gold holdings (as opposed to their government gold holdings). I am currently leaning towards advising smaller countries/economies to drop import taxes to their minimum.


EDIT: The following sections were analysis of a bug, not a feature change. Production has not changed and has been fixed.

The second major change apparently occurred to the base productivity formula. Prior to this morning my base productivity was 422 points. This morning I went to do my commune 1 PHP work in the Mabuhay Rice Company and found that my productivity had dropped to 282. That's a 33% decline in productivity and I can only imagine if Berritas had been paying me "market wages" what a financial hit he might have taken. Yet another reason why I don't like paying employees to work for me. I may come across as someone who likes doing a bunch of complicated math and analysis, but honestly, I'm not. I'm lazy and like to keep it simple. Keeping up with the profit margin associated with paying wages is just a headache.

I believe that the productivity change is due to the admins calculating the global production and evaluating it against the new openness of markets. I believe they are expecting materials and goods to be flowing much more rapidly through the marketplace and are seeking to avoid severe overproduction. Any business owner worth his or her salt would have noticed that there has been a "price floor" in effect via an automated purchasing of materials/goods in increments of 20 for some time now. This is because overproduction in eRepublik was endemic. It shall remain to be seen if this automated price floor will still be needed or not.


Finally, the changes this morning don't affect the self-sustainability strategy whatsoever. If anything they underscore how valualbe the ability to provide all needs for oneself can be. My recommendation remains the same: follow a course to produce 300 health daily as cheaply as possible and for most people this will remain working for oneself as owner in four grain companies and two food companies.

I will have a revised estimate of production levels at which self-sustainability is achievable later this week after the Productivity Formula is reverse engineered.

Until then, stay dirty, piglets.


Small But Mighty

The ePhilippines can never match the total damage of a large country like the eUSA but rather can exceed her in per capita damage. It's like being Manny Pacquiao to the eUSA's Muhammad Ali. Both kick ass. But Manny Pacquiao is this generation's BAMF. Let's make the ePhilippines this eRep generation's BAMF.