Ever Changing eEconomy

Day 425, 05:14 • Published in Thailand Thailand • by Bl1ndn3ss

This will come as a surprise to no one but I'll say it anyway: Our economy could be better.

There is a lot of THB floating around, not enough gold in the country and most importantly we can’t produce enough to sustain ourselves.

The very direct connection between production and economic strength is well known and can be found in several articles around the eWorld but that doesn’t do anything for us. So I will try (and please forgive any mistakes) to point out the main issues and, with any luck, some solutions, of our eEconomy.

I use the term eEconomy because there is a huge difference between Economy and eEconomy. The biggest one being the size. Economy deals with millions and millions of people where our eEconomy deals with at most 60000 (including fake accounts). The variables in the economy are always changing and never ending; there are political, geographical, military, human variables, which I will not go into, that influence a lot every aspect of the Economy of the world.

The price is, supposedly, based on supply/demand but nowadays, and most times (if ever), that isn’t the main reason. Where is in eRepublik that is the main reason, if not the only reason. Because, although the option of “embargo” exists in has no effect. No country solely controls a product or a raw material. And like many GMs found out there is ways around an embargo.

Only raw materials could make an embargo viable, but as I said, in every case more than a country controls that resource and even if only one country controlled a resource a simple trip with an Org to the “embargoing” country, buying there the raw materials and then donating them to the company would solve the problem.

All of this to explain in plain terms that eEconomics are much simpler and much more linear than real life Economy. But simpler isn’t always a synonym of better. The simplicity of it could prove to be a problem in the long run because being more simple means it’s a lot easier to destabilize or destroy. And that was proven when, back in beta, the printing of millions in currency destroy the Greek and the German economy and only the admins intervention made the recuperation of the eGerman eEconomy possible. (For good or for worst the real world doesn’t have “admins”.)

The way I see it the main problem with the Thai eEconomy is the value of the currency. Although, GMs are comfortable with the current value, the low value of THB compared to other currencies allows them to sell with a much higher profit, the rest of the country isn’t happy with it. It makes imports almost impossible, and that can be seen by looking at our market place very few companies are willing to export to Thailand and of those companies most of them are owned by Thai citizens that want to help the country. The ideal value of THB would be, in my opinion, somewhere between 100 and 150 THB for 1 Gold. That allows Thai GMs to make a profit but it also allows for foreign companies to make a profit (or at least not lose money) when exporting to our country.

This is a difficult problem to solve. There isn’t a sure way to influence the monetary market and there is no way to change it. This situation asks for “government intervention”. I’m sure some of you aren’t very happy with this idea and I have to admit that government reaching this level of influence isn’t always a good idea, but this is the solution we have left. The value of THB isn’t going to fix itself and we need a lot of gold to do it. I don’t think there are a lot of individuals that have the necessary amount of gold. (But if you are swimming in Gold and want to lose some of it… Can you lend us a hand (and some gold)?) The government needs to start buying the huge amount of THB floating around and start to sell some of its gold at a lower price than the rest of the offers currently on the market. But, as I said before, for that you need a lot of gold. Gold that, I believe, the government doesn’t have. So, priority one is to increase the national gold reserve and then use that reserve to bring up the value of THB.
From what I’ve “heard” the government is already pursuing this course of action.

The lack of production in our country is a problem that can only be solved by bringing more citizens to Thailand. And in that area I think we are doing all we can. We lost a lot of citizens in the past week or so but we can always bring more. The current campaign to bring skilled or not so skilled players to Thailand is, more or less, working, but a lot of people aren’t willing to move. This is a problem that, I’m sorry to say, has no obvious solution. We have to continue our campaign in foreign countries and hope for the best. In the meanwhile we have to rely on foreign companies to provide some, very needed, products.

Taxes were also a problem, discouraging foreign companies to export to Thailand but there is already an “across the board” tax change/cut being approved. I wish we could maintain the taxes the way they were, allowing for more of that THB floating around to go to the country’s deposits but we need the food, gifts and other products more than we need THB.

I believe these are the main problems in our economy. These problems are not unsolvable and we are not doomed, but it will take some work.

Every problem as a solution.


B.



Because I’m in “Hemingwayish” mood I’ll leave you with this:
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.” – E. Hemingway (When he was good he was very good.)