A look at how we do things - Raw materials
Day 828, 11:15
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Published in Singapore 
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by
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by Tommy Aquinas
Hello, and welcome to the second edition of The Road Less Travelled, From time to time, the paper will be publishing ideas, opinion and analysis of Singaporean life. Feel free to follow the advice of the picture above
🙂
As part of my efforts to get to know the country and how it works, I've been analysing the economy to see if we could discuss any ideas on how to help improve it. Particular attention should also be be paid to the upcoming changes in V2, and how we should prepare for them. They could be within the next month.
Today lets focus on the raw materials industry. There is always a bit of a 'we have no high regions, raw mats are worthless' attitude in countries like ours. But as other countries soon discovered, not having a balanced economy and skewing the economy purely towards manufacturing leads to overproduction, companies closing down, lower wages and lower prices, and then repeat. With V2 coming up, we should not readily dismiss it.
Workers:
Singapore has, give or take, 25 active raw materials workers. Of these, only around 7 are of Skill 4 or more. Altogether, it is enough for 2 and a half land companies to be at optimal production.
Companies:
- There are currently 5 active raw materials companies in Singapore - 3 grain, 1 wood and 1 oil. Of these, one is government owned, and another has just one worker (presumably himself) - which narrows it down to 3 proper active companies.
- Of these 3, 2 of them only has two active workers each, whilst the other has 10.
- Only 1 company has any job offers on the market.
- 5 raw materials companies are for sale for reasonable prices - 3 grain, 2 oil and 1 wood company.
- 2 active companies have export licenses (wood to Indonesia, grain to China), and one inactive company for sale for a reasonable price can export oil to Bulgaria.
State of the raw materials domestic market
There is 1 wood offer, 2 oil offers, 4 grain offers, and 3 iron offers.
Taxes:
This is what our current taxes for raw materials look like:
New version changes to raw materials:
Although there hasn't been an official update dedicated to raw materials, this much is known:
1. Diamonds will no longer be a raw material.
2. Wood will be changed to stone.
3. Unlike manufacturing or construction, raw materials only has one type of worker (raw materials worker!)
There has also been a lot of rumours (which have been confirmed privately by admin testers of the new economic module) that high/medium/none raw materials regions will be a thing of the past. All raw material regions would have the same production capacity, or else it depends on how they are utilised. Either way, this could be a positive thing for Singapore.
There is also the possibility that raw materials regions may be changed, but so far, this is unknown.
Ways to help our raw materials industry - Discuss:
1. Would it be possible for our top land skill workers to work in one company to help increase production?
2. Message companies to ensure they are aware that the optimal employee number for running a company is ten, if it it needs to be made up with zombies.
3. Attempt to co-ordinate with the companies to make sure two companies are filled with actually active employees.
4. Worldwide article/advert campaign to sell raw materials to Singapore via the market - increased competition will lead to lower prices and better value for manufacturing companies. Also included could be the option of setting up a raw materials company in Singapore where there is little competition for workers or prices, with V2 coming up, it could be marketed as a smart move.
5. Another look at our income taxes for raw materials regions? Can they be upped or lowered? How much revenue are we actually taking from our raw materials companies?
Altogether, not as many practical points as my previous article on construction, but just a few things to think about. If you read this far, thanks for essentially reading me thinking out loud!
Tommy Aquinas
Singaporean citizen
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Comments
Good article, voted
This article really has no point in my view. With out high regions we cannot and should not encourage our people to go into land work. We can import raw materials cheaper than it is to produce them domestically.
And you better pray we dont get a high region when the new Econ mod comes out... otherwise I think we'll end up as "Singapore City, Indonesia"
'There has also been a lot of rumours (which have been confirmed privately by admin testers of the new economic module) that high/medium/none raw materials regions will be a thing of the past. All raw material regions would have the same production capacity, or else it depends on how they are utilised. Either way, this could be a positive thing for Singapore.'
Read re: 'high regions'.
And did you read the points in 'Ways to help our raw materials industry - Discuss:'? It's more constructive than saying something is pointless. The ideas in the last paragraph are viable, not pointless.
The most productive thing we could do with our RM companies is to shut them all down, and move anyone with skill 6 or higher into an oil company, and then pay them wages low enough that the company would be profitable.
New workers in Singapore should ABSOLUTELY NOT get a Raw Materials job. So letting privately held companies operate in the RM sector isn't desirable as they'll post offers for Skill 0 workers.
However, if companies can be profitable on High Skilled immigrants by paying lower wages because they are less productive here, that's fine.
I'll still insist it is pointless to have people in Singapore work in land jobs. You want a discussion then attempt to tell me I am wrong for my point of view that this is pointless. That seems less like wanting a discussion and more like wanting people to just mindlessly post "I agree... Good Job" or similar things.
"There has also been a lot of rumours (which have been confirmed privately by admin testers of the new economic module) that high/medium/none raw materials regions will be a thing of the past. All raw material regions would have the same production capacity, or else it depends on how they are utilised. Either way, this could be a positive thing for Singapore.'"
You again had better hope and pray that we dont get anything useful in the land department. Our existance to this date has a lot to do with the fact we dont have High anything, making it practically worthless to invade and occupy our nation for its resources. Should this change and we gain something strategically important, Our nation will likely be attacked and swallowed by our neighbors in eIndonesia (Or eSerbia if they capitalize on their PTO victories).
I also do not believe the admins when they claim that High Regions will be a thing of the past. Eliminating bonuses granted High Regions would not only throw the entire game into chaos, but it would ensure the mass ragequit of business owners who then lose their investments from companies set up to maximize production. The admins may be a lot of things, but their greed prevents them from being that idiotic.
I get that you want to open up discussions and commend you on it, but most of us old timers have been here long enough to have had these discussions two or three times or more by now.