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Interesting.
I am happy with your support for NHS MU. It is a non-partisan place for new soldiers and that is good.

For dropping income and citizens: holiday time, no adds by game admins for new citizens and no game improvements are guilty to that. Hopefully more activity soon (except for tax changes 😁).

Good luck with negotiations for new alliances. I am looking forward to a referendum once it is clear.

A tax increase will stop people selling, therefore will have a negative result, prices will rise and people will buy less or buy from other countries. I think you need to drive a new erepublik recruitment campaign for eUK. This will make the country stronger financially and militarily.

You missed out about half my question, although im not suprised considering BA didn't respond to the part you missed out

Which part was that KCirp? I was copy pasting as it went along, certain people made that difficult to do. Thus in future it will be held in #MoHA and no one but myself and BigAmy will have voice, questions will need to be queried to me. I would've preferred not to do that but I have sadly been left with no other choice.

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Great job Ayame!

Re: The NHS question and if independent MUs comments were one of self interest...

Most people in independent MUs approve of the principle of the NHS MU, but questioned its affordability in the current form. The recent decision to only supply food does unfortunately prove those people had a point - despite some people being hostile in their unblinkered defence of the unit. I don't think anyone would deny there have been success stories - but it came at an unaffordable cost.

Mr Knee, i don't doubt that publicly all Independent MU's supported the NHS, though it appears that the majority of questioning came from those same independent MU's. The articles coming out were very contradictory and i can understand why those MU's would prefer members to join them, i was even a supporter of the notion that the NHS isolated newer players from experienced ones, but to claim it as unaffordable is incredibly short sighted. Especially considering that it was perfectly affordable

Just a week or two ago, sure our economy has tumbled but so has the rest of the New World's. Nothing worth while is ever cheap. And the fact that BigAnt has now seen fit to cut the NHS budget doesn't necessarily justify calling it unaffordable, perhaps in this economic climate with these taxes. But taxes can always change. It's really a matter of balance.

No one is calling the BEF unaffordable, though now i've mentioned it i expect to see a clamouring for that to be cut too :/

Ayame -

Naturally all MUs take pride in having as many players as possible, but the independent MUs are all self sufficent who will stop taking on people upon hitting the edge of their resources. The NHS and BEF is heavily dependent on taxation and as we have seen recently, it can swing quite a bit due to things outside of the government's control.

The NHS is unaffordable (in terms of sending weapons and food). It hasn't always been unaffordable, but *right now*, it is. I am talking about

unaffordable in terms of providing 5 x Q6 weapons (to be upgraded to Q7) daily. If there are going to be spells of high tax, and some of low tax which will see a cutback, then it isn't long term affordable and the structure needs to be changed in such a way so that what the new player gets the same consistant supplies, rather than a load of weapons one week, and nothing the next.

As you comment the economy has tumbled in line with the rest of the world - how do you know the economy will

recover to past glories enabling weapons to be supplied again?

Should the BEF have its budget cut too? I doubt many will call for that, although at a time that cuts have been made to the Flagship NHS MU, I'm sure the announcement from Big Ant that we are "officially entering a recruitment stage" for the unit will raise a few eyebrows. I wonder how many NHS players will move from the NHS to the BEF - therefore negating the cuts. Whether or not any national MU gets its funds cut comes down to

one major thing - "does taxation trends suggest that the country can afford it?"

If the answer is "no" then there will be comments suggesting that what the MUs are trying to acheive in tems of supplies needs to be reviewed. No independent MU is against a national army, but it makes no sense for the government to say it wants the players to be best equiped so they can level up quicker, but then encourage the player to join a unit which is being supplied with inferior level weapons.

I'm confused on the one hand you are claiming that players shouldn't be asked to join an under supplied MU but on the other you are asking for that MU to have it's budget cut. Now that to me screams of abolishing the scheme by means other than just admitting you want it abolished.

Now i know your own personal opinion is that the NHS should be cut. You've made that abundantly clear in many articles, which are generally full of pro comments for cutting from members of your own MU.

To me that goes some way to validating the idea that it is at least somewhat out of self interest.

As at the moment no product is profitable to employ with other than Q7's. And with prices dropping does a VAT rise really have a major negative effect? Sadly though i believe you are right that government income will always be chopping and changing but instead of that leading to increasing and decreasing spending i believe it's the governments role to provide some stability for new players and

The national force by negating the volatility of the market with slight increases and decreases in tax to respond as opposed to restructuring national schemes every few weeks.

No doubt this debate will carry on for a long time and i personally don't have enough of an understanding of the history of Government finances to see the extent of the fluctuations to truly say which is a better option, though MU's and Communes are of course always unaffected by tax increases as the goods aren't sold.

@Ayame I followed up with a question about why the MoLA does not post on the forums when that is a key part of the job

Ayame, you cannot have stability when you rely on day to day donations to supply MU members.

@KCirp, i apologies for that, as far as i remember that was one line amongst several unrelated at the same time and i didn't pull it out i'm sorry for that.

@Jamie, I didn't say we have stability, I just said that the Government's job should be to create a bubble of stability for new players to avoid the pitfalls of the economy module.

' which are generally full of pro comments for cutting from members of your own MU.'

We are more against the NHS MU rather then the old style NHS. The NHS MU could work, providing it had enough money and players online to answer queries and to pass on other supplies when need much like the private MU's. But it doesn't, instead we had guys saying they lacked the supplies promised, they were stuck with others that had nothing to give, and to TOP it all off they were stuck in a MU that had...

very little in terms of experienced players, 2-3 guys looking after 40+ guys needs vey active players to help catch those that feel ignored. the guys coming out of the NHS MU were very uninformed something the NHS MU should have had made a priority. This whole we argued for he sake of our own MU is bullshit, I couldn't careless if the players come to the RN or not, I would rather have informed BEF members then uninformed RN members. Those that state that we are arguing for the benefit...

of ourselves are totally off the mark. The NHS MU in the form it took was unbeneficial to the eUK. The old style NHS (which i was and still am a great supporter of) gave the new guys the best of both worlds. The food in which to get a few kills each day and the chance to join in with the community and the chance to gain weps supplies on par with the rest of us.

Revert back to the old style NHS, and rever back to it now! Let the fantastic Private MU's take on the burden!

"Those that state that we are arguing for the benefit of ourselves are totally off the mark." -> "Let the fantastic Private MU's take on the burden!"

Hmm you do realise you are proving a point here right? just it might not be the one you wanted to.

There is absolutely nothing stopping any other MU from providing a similar service.

The point of what? I'm stating that the private MU's are better equipped to supply weps and information (more important then suppiles imo), then the NHS MU.

The BEF costs over 70% of our daily income, stick the NHS MU's players in that will not get rid of the problem of affordability only prolong it. Your a member of the PA, could they not ease the burden on each and every eUK tax payer?

I'm not talking purely about the RN when I state Private MU's, to all intent and purposes the RN is stretched. There is many private eUK MU's capable of taking the burden, ESO Legions, TUP Family, Bulldogs, The Royal Dragoons, Liberty and the newly formed Royal Airforce even your own MU the Peoples Army can help the economy by taking the burden off the tax payer and the government coffers

With Canadurp NE-ing us if we spend 90% of our income on retention how are we to supply allies that are wishing to fight for us? We need to be able to put a bit away as well as spending on worthwhile projects. The NHS will do a fantastic job of providing newbs the chance to fight (health is cheaper and more important then weapons) , the NHS MU is not worth the expense!

Wayne, i don't have a burden as i don't partake in the economy to a large extent, as i doubt you do either. Everything i need comes from the commune so taxes only affect the slight extra income and tbh i'll just raise my prices as everyone else has done.

And we spend nowhere near 90% on retention, BigAnt released numbers the other day; our income is around 25k Daily and 5k goes to the NHS, that's 20%.

Where would you rather see that money spent, especially seeing as taxes are rock bottom.

Ayame Crocodile - Seriously, there is no hidden agenda here. The basis of all our arguments about cuts is that the NHS MU should be supplied etc on the basis of what it can afford. The whole defense of "The NHS is broke, can't supply any more than a bit of food but we wish to expand our numbers" is crazy.

Those running the NHS etc say they care about the new player but then insist the new player is better off receiving 500 food from the NHS than to receive 60-70 fights of Q6-Q7 weapons...

and donations of food if requested in the unit's IRC channel.

In the old days, the NHS gave enough food for all the daily fights and the MUs provided the weapons for the day. Nowadays for those in the NHS MU, they get food for about half the fights they'd want when going for the daily order and no weapons.

You seem to be adopting a very communist view here that only the state can provide. As per the end of my main article,

the newer players would be better served by co-operation between the NHS and the independent MUs and spread the burden of funding and supplying the new players.

But the fact remains, the economy is not strong enough to do all the things you wish to do with the NHS MU and cannot afford to employ more - and this fact remains regardless of what you perceive to be the motivations of people pointing out this uncomfortable financial fact.

AC wrote: "I'm confused on the one hand you are claiming that players shouldn't be asked to join an under supplied MU but on the other you are asking for that MU to have it's budget cut. Now that to me screams of abolishing the scheme by means other than just admitting you want it abolished."

If your income is only £10k, and your current spending is £15k, then do you not think it is rational for calls to drop the budget to £10k rather than keep it at £15k?

Mr Knee, i don't think you quite get what i was getting at. So i'll say it as bluntly as i can. Clamouring for having low Taxes and Cutting the NHS MU to keep affording those low taxes is counter productive. Those who are selling will compensate for a VAT increase and are better equipped to survive this economic module than the new players the NHS is trying to help.

ie. Raising VAT to make affording a working NHS MU (or unit inside BEF) is a worthwhile trade off.

Now it may not be a hidden agenda, but it is clearly an agenda that is very popular amongst the RN crowd. As we can all see here. Now it's perfectly valid to question how the NHS is run and whether it should be at all. But please don't use all your critique of it as a means of self promotion. It does your arguments no favours whatsoever.

AC - I think you are simplifying the economics slightly. Doubling the tax rate (for example) won't double the amount of money gained in tax. We are not arguing to cut the NHS in order to keep taxation low. The argument for keeping the tax rate low is so people don't run off to other countries and sell their raw supplies elsewhere - if people remain in the UK, then you keep supply higher and hopefully where supply equals demand is a low affordable price. I couldn't say what the optimum tax rate

is for the eUK right now.

I say again, there is no link in people's minds between keeping taxation rates low and the optimum set up for the NHS MU.

Is it worth setting the VAT rate *purely* to help fund the NHS worth it? Difficult question. Yes, funds should be diverted to the NHS, but not at the cost of stuffing up everything else. There has to be a balance somewhere.

In terms of the accusation of self promotion, about 90% of the time I used the term "independent MUs"

to mean all MUs and not just my own. True, I did mention my own unit now and again, but usually in the context of "in comparision, the (ahem) supplies this....". Although there will be an element of promotion, it is no more than there have been in promoting of the NHS....

Oh, and in terms of:

"Those who are selling will compensate for a VAT increase and are better equipped to survive this economic module than the new players the NHS is trying to help." then that might be partly true - in

terms of older players being able to cope better. However, the NHS's resources (even before the cuts) weren't enough to complete a typical 25 kill daily order so once the food etc runs out, then the NHS player will struggle to buy the extra resources needed - more so with a higher VAT rate and increased costs. The theoretical raising of the VAT to pay for it will only work if the NHS is giving their members 800 health worth of food so they won't need to self supply once the donations run out.

I don't really have time to keep up with this. But i just want to make the point that i don't mean you are self promoting here by any means. But your last article was styled as a critique of the NHS, however half way the article became a recruitment article for the RN, that was what i was referring to.

Your right about taxation, of course it's not worth raising just to fund the NHS, but while income keeps dropping what else can be done? The BEF has had supplies cut, MPP's are barely afforded.

Also i'm thinking at this point, perhaps it would be best if we took this to the forum or IRC as it's getting pretty epic in length xD

I've enjoyed it though!

Raise supply in the NHS MU to 800 health (as Mr Knee said) is not a bad idea, but only for the ones that do a reasonable amount of kills. Food prices are dropping, so it is affordable. Weapons supplies for NHS MU must be on IRC only so those that get them are involved more in our community.