Join the new world

It is not more than just over two months ago where everything was fine in Denmark. Well, okay fine may not be the correct word, but Denmark was there.
Then something happened. Denmark makes a deal with Sweden.
Take over Denmark so we can get rid of a corrupt leadership and let us form a great country together in harmony. Not long after was it done. Denmark was now a part of Sweden. This was mostly good, but has now turned out to be horrible. And why is that so? Because the Swedish government has absolutely no clue about what they are doing to the economy in the industry.

I am the owner of Flitwick Food. I started this business to have some more fun in this, let us be honest, quite boring game. If you are not a player who wants to participate in all the social activities, such as politics and discussions on the forum, then the game is pretty much about this: Login once a day. Work. Eat. Log out. Repeat this every single day until you die of boredom or never login again. Whatever comes first.
And the government knows this and wants to keep players playing, cause if players leave, there is no need for the government and therefore no need for the game. What can a government do to keep players playing? Apparently just one thing. Start wars. And what do you need to win wars? Fighters.
The only problem in this is, fighting wars are insanely expensive. Everytime you fight, you lose health, and everytime you lose health you will need to buy food to recover and be able to fight on. You also need to buy weapons, so you gain greater fighting power and thus be able to win the big battles. And Swedes do this very well. Very well indeed.

Fighting wars which cost a lot of money should be a great thing for business. One would think that when people need to buy a lot of food then the food business would florish and make tonnes of money. I am in the food business, so I should make tonnes of money, should I not? Well, one would think so, the reality is quite the opposite. How on earth is this possible? Easy. Taxes are eating everything I earn in the company and the wages have gone down down down lately. And this is bad for obvious reasons.

The market economy in this game is not working as it is supposed to. The prices on food and weapons have gone way down, which should not happen when there is a great need for both food and weapons in war time. But it has happened and it is getting worse. My food company is struggling big time.

I will now let people know about the economy in Flitwick Food. A thing which normally would be a secret, so others companies would not know about it.


I have 7 workers. All of them have level 8 in their working skill, so they are Masters.
Normally a worker with this skill should have a pay of at least 28 SEK a day. My employees have 23 SEK as their salary a day. This is very low and I hate it. I hate that I am not able to give them a better salary. they even have to pay 20% taxes of this, so everytime they work, they only get 18,40 SEK out of it. This is nothing and makes them unable to do much. But the worst thing is. I am losing money on it.

Let us do some math.
These people yesterday produced 318 level 2 Food.
The cost of this is 318 items times 12 grain each at the price of 0,1 SEK per grain = 381,6 SEK.
The cost of salary was 161.
Total cost 542,6 SEK.
To break even I would have to sell each item for 1,71.
1,71 with taxes = 1,92 SEK.
Right now the food is sold for 1,76 with taxes which is 8% less than what I would have to charge, just to break even.
Luckily it is possible for me to work in my own company. It costs me 10 health everyday, but with my working skill it gave me 46 food items today.
The cost of those items were (46*12*0,1 = 55,2 SEK). So I can add the 46 items to my budget and add the 55,2 SEK to my expenses. Let us do that.

Items = 318 + 46 = 364 Level 2 Food.
Expenses = 542,6 + 55,2 = 597,8 SEK.
To break even now, I would have to sell each item for 597,8 / 364 = 1,64 plus taxes. Including taxes this is 1,84 SEK per item, which is still 0,08 more per item, than it is sold for on the market. Which means, that I will lose 364 * 0,08 = 29,12 SEK everyday. And I am not paying my employees what they deserve at all already. How can I possible cut their salaries?

And here is the thing, I also own two grain companies. Let's look into the economy of one of those.
First of all. There is no taxes on grain. So whatever I can sell the items for, is what I get to the company.

I will use Flitwick Grain as an example, as this company has the most employees at the moment, which is seven.
Total amount of wages are 175,5 SEK. I have a mix of level 7 and 8 employees. But as you can see, the avarage wage in this company is 25 SEK a day. 2 SEK more in avarage in this company than in my food company.
The seven employees produced 1995 grain yesterday and that was sold for 0,1 SEK per grain = 199,5 SEK.
Even without having worked myself yet, I have made a profit of 199,5 - 175,5 = 24 SEK. I produced 271 grain myself, which was sold for 27,1 SEK, thus making my total profit = 51,1 SEK yesterday. Just on that company.

I lost 20 health on my profile, which had to be replenished and that cost me 5 food items * 1,84 SEK (if we take the prices I would have to pay my own company for food items) = 9,2 SEK.

So, let's see what I gained by this.
Income in Flitwick Grain = 51,1
Lost in Flitwick Food = 29,12
Cost of Food = 9,2
51,1 - 29,12 - 9,2 = 12,78 SEK profit.

I had to pay taxes of the money I took out of Flitwick Grain to cover the loss on my profile and Flitwick Food. Let's look at that.

To get 9,2 SEK I had to take out (9,2*1,25 = 11,5 SEK) as the taxes for taking out money from a company is 20%.
And to get 29,12 SEK I had to take out (29,12 * 1,25 = 36,4 SEK).
So my expenses to cover the loss in my account and in Flitwick Food was (11,5 - 9,2) + (36,4 - 29,12) = 9,58 SEK.
Earlier we found out that I had a profit on the two companies of 13,78 SEK and if we deduct the expenses to break even on the profile and in the food company, then I had a total profit of 12,78 - 9,58 = 3,20 SEK.

3,20 SEK is what I earned yesterday on my companies. I even had to work in those to companies myself to get the profit so I should have a salary for that, should I not? I think I should.
I take out the 3,20, which I again pay 20% taxes of and I get 2,56 SEK for myself.

There are people in a shoe factory in India that out earns me.
And I only get paid if everyone in my companies work with a full health, which I can guarantee is not happening everyday.
Let us say that just one person in Flitwick Food works with 90% health everyday. And let us say this person normally produces 45 Food Items. I would lost 4,5 Food Item that day, but I will still have to pay the worker a full salary. My loss is 1,64 * 4,5 = 7,38 SEK. Which is more than my profit for the day. And I am still underpaying everyone in Flitwick Food.

And what was my point with all these calculations? Easy. I wanted to show everyone how much the current tax system costs the Food Companies.
The Grain companies are doing just great. The numbers I have shown you clearly shows that. Not only are all the employees in this company earning a lot more than the ones in my food company, the company is also making money.
Where as, the food company is losing money everyday, even though all the wars should have created a fantastic market for the food companies, as the need for food is much greater in war times than in peace times.

But why is it like this then?
Well, first of all, some food companies out there sell their goods for way too low prices, causing everybody to lose money.
And then there is the taxes.
One food item for 1,64 SEK cost 1,84 on the market including taxes. Which means the government earn 0,2 SEK for every item sold. Which means there is a 12,2% tax on food items sold.
Why such a high tax on food? And I believe the taxes on guns are the same, if not higher.

First the worker has to pay 20% taxes on income. Then the same worker has to pay 12,2% extra for food, to gain health back from working. And if they go to war, as the government like them to, as the government started the war, then they have to buy weapons and again food.
What happens with all the money the government gets in from taxes? It is not like they have to pay rent for huge castles and government buildings. This is still just an online game. Well, some of the money goes right back to you guys. The ones that are fighting for our great country. I asked Stente the other day, what is all the tax money going to?
And the answer was, if you have signed up to be a soldier for the government, then you will get 50% money back, for all items you buy that you used in war. That is weapons, food etc..

50%. I am stunned. So the government is making it impossible for me to run a daily business, a business that is providing food for our people and soldiers, because they are giving money to our soldiers.
The government is toying with the most important part of the game, the companies. Without the companies, no one will have a job. And without a job, no one will have any money and without money, there would be no game.

So what do I want now? Do I want the government to stop wars? No, not really. The game is more fun for most people, when they have something to do. Do I want the government to remove the money returned to soldiers. Maybe.
Do I want the government to lower taxes for food companies. Very much indeed.
Food is needed by everyone. No one is excluded. Guns are not needed by everyone, only soldiers are in need of these.
Do I want the government to lower taxes on guns too then or make it higher? I want the government to make a whole new strategy when it comes to warfare and how this works. A soldier should not pay for his own weapon. Nor should he pay for the food costs of going to war. I want a professional army, payed by the government.
And how do I want this to work? That is not a question to be answered in this article, but I will give you an answer in another article. Just wait for it.

If the government want to have some kind of tax on food, then fine with me. Let it be 1%. Just to have something.
And I do not believe the government would lose anything on it.
Cause when the taxes are lowered, then the companies can earn more money. When they earn more money, then they can raise the wages for their employees and higher wages gives more income in taxes.

Another solution is, that the food companies go together in a union and simply raise the prices collectively. Right now the prices are at a record low. Lower than should be possible. How this is possible I do not know. I do not get why some companies are willing to lose money on their products every single day. I do not know how it is even possible to do so in the long run.
There is also the solution, that all companies go together and form a political party. A party that has the only purpose of lowering taxes. I am sure such a party could gain immense support from everyone. I believe all the workers are very tired of the high income taxes and I know for sure that the companies are. So here is the million SEK question. Do the politicians in the government want this? Do they want to give away their power to a bunch of people, who is actually not really interested in politics, but are there to secure a good tax system that makes it possible for the companies to survive.
The answer should be simple. No. Politics should be for politicians, not for company owners. But if you in the government do not do something about the problems we have very soon, then the company owners will have no other choice but to either close down business or go into politics and change the system themselves.

The choice is yours. Act quick or face a horde of company owners wanting a revolution.

Author of this article: Flitwick