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Citizens! Buckle in because this is a long one! (or you can scroll to the very end for the quick summary).

Congress has chosen to try a new budgeting approach, and although it is too soon to say whether the next Congress is happy to adopt it wholesale, I thought I’d save some time by pre-empting the monthly budget debate which Congresspeople have towards the start of each term by publishing this review of the Government’s proposed spending.

The new way is to receive a budget proposal from the Government and then, if anyone has anything to debate, it can become a full discussion. Otherwise it gets a fat rubber stamping and we move on - the proposed budget has been published and I think it should be debated! No rubber stamping exercises this month, sorry all!

I am pleased to see the budget continues to adopt and endorse the Moneyflow Transparency Recommendations, which is a step in the right direction for people knowing what money has gone where and why! However there’s a few gaps and questions I have about finances, and some suggestions I have for where money would be better spent.


Mr Woldy after seeing the account books

Income Fax

The Economy tab of the ‘My Country’ page has a bar chart showing income, which you can choose to view as a table if you prefer that sort of thing (I do).

It shows the eUK’s income last term was £3,859,292 (an average of £124,493 a day over 31 days), up on the term previous, which totalled £3,790,283 (averaging at £126,342 daily over 30 days). That does not include money paid or owed by partner countries whose regions we occupy, as the sum owed/paid has not been disclosed by the Government when it has been raised previously.

So, money owed notwithstanding and assuming the summer event increases activity in the next term it is likely the eUK will take in about 4 mil in cash. The economy page can show you how that income is made up across occupations and taxes.

International Expenditure

A significant chunk of this cash goes to TW partners. This is because if one country owns original regions of another it gains a chunk of their income. As such when we occupy a region of a TW partner to run battles, we agree to return the chunk we earn. If you enjoy formulas you can see the specifics on the official wiki. Likewise if a resource concession is in place (the eUK has two concession agreements) some nations agree to return some or all of the fee.

Very little has been shared about the payments returned or received due to Training war arrangements, but from the suggested budget we can infer a few things. The proposed budget states the following TW payments will be made:

‘£10,939 to Italy
£15,698.00 to Australia
£720,757.00 to North Korea'

North Korea is the easy one - the 720k is a fair estimate of what we may owe them if fully returning the income we get from owning one of their regions (we earnt £871,624 last term and £712,135 the term before). Italy and Australia both contribute significantly more than we are returning (£73,458 and £502,437 respectively last term) - presumably there is an agreement around why this is the case but I will seek to confirm exactly what this is from the Government during the debate.

We also now have a TW with Egypt who have been missed from the proposed budget - according to the TW arrangement pitched to Congress when this was raised there would be income to return, which is factored into my suggested budget below which assumes we will pay them over 650k unless an agreement has been made not to return their income in full.

The two concession agreements we have in place quote a percentage of the concession fee which we return, which is how the two figures in the proposed budget have been calculated (the agreements are here and here). They are VERY wordy and no doubt you’ve had a good stare at the formula in paragraph 3 and felt your mind melting - but effectively all it is saying is that the 1% of Spanish GDP we get out of the agreement we actually return most of it - keeping 15% of the 1% we receive (or a lump sum, whichever is greater as in the following para). Still with me? Good!

Training war/Occupying nations reimbursement

What has not been made clear is what agreements surround our Training Wars - I have mentioned three above, but of course we also have countries who occupy us, and so who gain some of our income. Just as we return the incomes of nations we occupy, we are told that we receive this back too - but no figures have been provided nor payments confirmed. If we expect this money back, our income could increase by the following amount (based on how much they earnt last month for occupying one of our regions):

Brazil (TW) - £241,065
Bulgaria (TW) - £241,065
Cuba (TW) - £241,065
New Zealand (TW) - £241,065
Taiwan (TW) - although £241,065 of eUK income went to Taiwan last term, we get big bonuses from their occupation of Scotland so this may be considered even-stevens.
Armenia and Macedonia (illegal occupation of NI) - £132.939 and £108,125 respectively

You’ll note it is the same figure for each occupier as they own 1 region each. That is because of how partial income is calculated back in that formula Plato designed. Congress hasn’t been informed of any specific agreements that would impact what we could reasonably expect to be returned, as such, (excluding Taiwan from whom we get productivity bonuses) we could reasonably expect over £1.2 million returned by our other TW partners and occupiers. That is a million pounds of income not factored into the Government’s budget. I would suggest this income could go into a eUK Defence Budget (see next section) or added to the Money Market trading orgs.

In the interests of transparency I think it would be best if these countries sent their funds to the country accounts so the economy page can record its receipt and then donated from there (or propose donates to an eUK Org, however they may run their finances differently so that may not be possible).

In the budget debate I will seek to confirm what agreements are in place for this income and whether we expect to receive it and when, however previous attempts at finding this info have not succeeded - wish me luck!


Mr Woldy approaching Congress about TW reimbursement after calling Armenia an illegal occupier

Alternative Budget

Well that is the boring maths-y part out of the way (sorry for the lack of fun graphs), as a Congressperson I am one of 40 people invited to input on the budget (Congress after all has the donate power, not the CP!). I have outlined below the donations I think Congress should be making, to where, and when it is materially different from the budget proposed by the Government I explain why.

Over the last 60 days the eUK has averaged an income of approximately £125,000 each day. This means over a 30 Congress term there will be funds for around 9 £400k donations. This may rise slightly given summer events and the commencement of the Egyptian TW.

Donates to the Bank of England - Gov Proposal is 4 £400k Donates, Woldy proposes 5 £400k Donates.

This reflects the inclusion of Egypt as a TW partner whose income, I assume, needs to be reimbursed. The eUK received £654,355 in income from Egypt, assuming a similar sum is to be returned (TBC by Gov as Congress has not been informed otherwise) it would be covered by the extra donation to the Bank of England plus what is held in reserve (2 mil in donations plus 1.4 mil in reserve). The estimated requirement for income and concession repayments therefore rises to roughly 3.45 Million.

Ministry of Health and Strategic Command - Gov Proposal is 0 Donates, Mr Woldy agrees!

These are well resourced. My only point of deviation is in the description of the MoHealth funds, having coordinated the Food Drive that saw much of those funds enter the MoHealth Org, they are held sort-of-in-trust for any health scheme that applies to use it. I would encourage the Gov to proactively advertise the availability of the Health Fund and approach potential beneficiaries to offer assistance.

Ministry of Defence and Department of Munitions - Gov proposal is 1 donation of £400k each. Mr Woldy agrees!

I agree in principle for funding the programs, but I do query whether they need to be run out of separate orgs. I would suggest running them both from the Ministry of Defence and the MoD Newspaper, so people know where to look for the programs and guidelines. I would suggest the Department for Munitions is used to procure Q7 guns and funded accordingly, and additionally that the Government identified suppliers who may provide guns in bulk at below market rates. This will assist in building a weapons stockpile at a below market rate, both for schemes and to use in the event that we are attacked.

Ministry of Home Affairs - Gov proposes 1 £400k Donate, Mr Woldy proposes nothing!

Gov reports there is over £600k in the MoHA Org (reward payments have been made today and the Org now has £22,367) and over £400k in the Ministry of Entertainment Org, originally for a Wheel of Fortune game but sadly MoEnt Archie Andrews has gone AWOL. I suggest the MoEnt funds are used to cover the 5th of September giveaway. I do not think that blanket giveaways achieve the aim of election incentives; they are very expensive (todays has cost approximately £550,000) and typically they reward already very active players (22 of 24 recipients signed up years ago). I will not support more funds being sent to the MoHA without a clear plan for how social and election incentives can be made more targeted and more gamified so as to not be blanket giveaways, reducing cost and increasing fun whilst still driving new player engagement.

The final 2 £400k donates…

Assuming there are funds generated for an eighth and ninth donate, I propose these are both sent to another eUK Organisation, and the funds therein are held as a UK Defence Fund, The UK has been subject to DoW’s twice in two months, which have been averted not through diplomacy, but through invasion strategies rendering them pointless. There could plausibly be a situation in which UK regions are required for someone else’s plans and that world-events do not save our skins. As such, we may as well be using surplus funds to build a dedicated war ches to be spent in the event we are invaded.. This will complement my suggestion that the Department for Munitions be used to build a gun stockpile. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.


Mr Woldy continues searching for the invasion response plans

Quick Summary & Sign off

The main points raised above are:
- What agreements are in place around getting funds back from our occupiers, how much is owed and when are payments made? Over 1 million may be outstanding/expected each month which does not feature in the Gov report.

- What agreements govern nations we occupy?

- The Egypt TW hasn’t been factored into the Gov Proposal (assuming we need to pay them back too).

- I suggest we don’t donate to the MoHA this month as they have some funds available but incentives should be targeted.

- I propose an org is nominated to hold a eUK Defence Fund

I do not suggest an order of donations as I think the Government will be better placed to know what payments suit them when, noting of course that with current income levels it is likely there can be a donation proposed every 3-4 days max.

My hope is this budget will be discussed by Congress as an alternative to the Government's suggestion. Congress has the keys to the coffers, it should be as entitled to suggest a budget as the Gov itself. This proposal is more complete in its account of financial obligations, but of course questions remain about if and when (and how much) we are reimbursed by occupying nations and what other agreements may be in place surrounding TW's which Congress is not currently appraised of. There is a bit of a transparency gap!

I appreciate Armenia is a difficult conversation to have, and it will be interesting to see how a new Congress approaches this issue, as the departing Congress has seen TUP support a no-strings giveaway of Northern Ireland whereas TRS and UKRP have led a cross party ensemble pushing for assurances that NI is acknowledged as a UK core region and for talks to happen about what we get out of its occupation (returning tax income would be a good start!).

Nevertheless, this is predominantly a talk about money and where it goes so I look forward to constructive discussions on the budget and our full income picture!

Thanks for reading,
Mr Woldy.