Platform clarification: Printing Money, Tariffs, Expansionism
Day 546, 15:14
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Published in USA 
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by
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by AndraX2000
skip the Wall of Text and just read the conclusion.
I'd like to clarify a few points in my platform as there have been some questions.
Printing Money
I support the printing of money as it is taking place now. I would just like to see some more analysis of where it is going. It is possible that it is all being burnt by dying or banned citizens, but it warrants more investigation. Game mechanics make a deep investigation difficult, but not impossible.
As for foreign powers buying up USD, I did not intend to mean that this is an effective economic tactic. It is a possible short term military tactic. It is akin to buying all weapons on the market before invading, or buying all Q1 food on a smaller country's market to undercut the wellness of the lower class. None of these are good long term strategies, but can be very disruptive as a prelude to attack. A foreign country buying up USD will take a huge monetary loss, but flooding the market with currency can have drastic short term effects. The eRep economy is fairly robust in the long term, but extremely sensitive in the 24-48 hour range. Flooding is not the only disruptive move available, as a government could horde USD with the intent of driving up weapon prices as a prelude to attack. For the price of a few moving tickets, a government with a lot of cash can send operatives to buy up all the cheap weapons. Our current stock of Q1 weapons could be bought for less than 200,000 USD.
Tariffs
I would not raise tariffs because it would do more harm then good. I am only in favor of encouraging the President to negotiate with other Nations to lower their tariffs. This is part of the President's and his ambassadors' duties, but my duty as Senator would be to encourage them to do so. I believe that imports and exports are beneficial to our economy.
Expansionism
As an avid gamer and a Real Life web programmer, I have a unique perspective on the way the game works, which imforms my opinions on long-term eUSA strategy. I do not believe that expansionism is a sound long-term strategy. The mechanics of the game simultaneously promote war (experience for fighting, iron only being used for weapons, strength and rank) and punish those successful (the war module slightly favors resistance, alliances only activate in original regions). Indonesia may be doing well now, but in a game that is meant to go on for decades -- or so the admins hope -- game mechanics will eventually exhaust them.
Also, if the Indonesians were ever able to be completely independent without the need to purchase Gold with Real Life money, the game mechanics would be changed to rebalanced. As in-game independence hurts the real life bottom line of eRep, the game will never encourage it, and neither will I. The illusion that independence is possible is what keeps the war machine rolling, and while I would not be opposed to some US expansion, it would be hubris to believe that the doing so would somehow make us "win". Just like any other MMO, if one strategy becomes too effective (or detrimental to the bottom line) it will be nerfed.
Conclusion
Always remember before any debate about expanding, war, taxes, or economics that the eUSA has one huge cultural disadvantage. We do not spend as much Real Life money as other nations.
The common theme for my platform is that this is a complex game and we have the varied individual talents to play it more effectively. If we encourage teamwork and volunteering, the eUSA can become expert players and use our mechanical expertise to overcome our cultural disadvantage.
I'd like to clarify a few points in my platform as there have been some questions.
Printing Money
I support the printing of money as it is taking place now. I would just like to see some more analysis of where it is going. It is possible that it is all being burnt by dying or banned citizens, but it warrants more investigation. Game mechanics make a deep investigation difficult, but not impossible.
As for foreign powers buying up USD, I did not intend to mean that this is an effective economic tactic. It is a possible short term military tactic. It is akin to buying all weapons on the market before invading, or buying all Q1 food on a smaller country's market to undercut the wellness of the lower class. None of these are good long term strategies, but can be very disruptive as a prelude to attack. A foreign country buying up USD will take a huge monetary loss, but flooding the market with currency can have drastic short term effects. The eRep economy is fairly robust in the long term, but extremely sensitive in the 24-48 hour range. Flooding is not the only disruptive move available, as a government could horde USD with the intent of driving up weapon prices as a prelude to attack. For the price of a few moving tickets, a government with a lot of cash can send operatives to buy up all the cheap weapons. Our current stock of Q1 weapons could be bought for less than 200,000 USD.
Tariffs
I would not raise tariffs because it would do more harm then good. I am only in favor of encouraging the President to negotiate with other Nations to lower their tariffs. This is part of the President's and his ambassadors' duties, but my duty as Senator would be to encourage them to do so. I believe that imports and exports are beneficial to our economy.
Expansionism
As an avid gamer and a Real Life web programmer, I have a unique perspective on the way the game works, which imforms my opinions on long-term eUSA strategy. I do not believe that expansionism is a sound long-term strategy. The mechanics of the game simultaneously promote war (experience for fighting, iron only being used for weapons, strength and rank) and punish those successful (the war module slightly favors resistance, alliances only activate in original regions). Indonesia may be doing well now, but in a game that is meant to go on for decades -- or so the admins hope -- game mechanics will eventually exhaust them.
Also, if the Indonesians were ever able to be completely independent without the need to purchase Gold with Real Life money, the game mechanics would be changed to rebalanced. As in-game independence hurts the real life bottom line of eRep, the game will never encourage it, and neither will I. The illusion that independence is possible is what keeps the war machine rolling, and while I would not be opposed to some US expansion, it would be hubris to believe that the doing so would somehow make us "win". Just like any other MMO, if one strategy becomes too effective (or detrimental to the bottom line) it will be nerfed.
Conclusion
Always remember before any debate about expanding, war, taxes, or economics that the eUSA has one huge cultural disadvantage. We do not spend as much Real Life money as other nations.
The common theme for my platform is that this is a complex game and we have the varied individual talents to play it more effectively. If we encourage teamwork and volunteering, the eUSA can become expert players and use our mechanical expertise to overcome our cultural disadvantage.
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Comments
How do you know how much real life money is spent by each nation?
I do not have exact Euro amounts, but there are frequent articles in the Romanian, Hungarian, and Indonesian newspapers dealing with this. Here is one from Indonesia:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/802014/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/8020[..]1/20
There have been recent discussions about this in #usa-chat with the frequent foreign guests. There seems to be a feeling in the eUSA that paying a little real money is OK, buy frequent buying is cheating. You can get a taste of that here: http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,1904.0.html." target="_blank">http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,1904[..]tml.
I'm also assuming a bit due to overall trends in the general video game market, where free games with optional purchases are very popular in Asia, but they are just beginning to get a foothold here in the US. See: http://en.kioskea.net/actualites/south-korea-s-free-computer-game-model-hits-us-10754-actualite.php3" target="_blank">http://en.kioskea.net/actualites/south-k[..].php3
A quick note about the Indonesian article I linked to above:
It does not concern buying Gold with the RL money, but spending RL money on SMS messages and the like to mobilize citizens. This type of secondary spending can also have a major impact and is highly representative of our cultural disadvantage.
It just occurred to me, a problem with re inflation, Enemies in fact do have access to our printers. while there may be limited gold on the market at any given time, the usefulness of coordinated buying of weapons goes up because of near unlimited USD on the market to those with new gold. While I hate Keynesianism I acknowledge that our weapons have sticky prices that we would allow enemies to instantly have access to at a flat gold rate. CBO should have a policy of only allowing a couple days worth of normal trading(or something) worth of USD to be on the market at any one time. Something that allows for price adjustments in the weapons markets. Otherwise USD pools in the weapons Manu's hands. Then New money is released too late to jack up consumer prices or for the Manu himself to feel his immediate needs are satisfied. and the enemy has bought weapons at relatively deflated prices and leaves the holder of USD to hold part of the cost in the lost value of his money especially with respect to weapons prices. I wouldn't say that the problem is "akin" to buying all the weapons on the market, I would say it is buying all the weapons on the market. I like where your focus is. I also think you might be on the same page with me regarding pre-buying and owning weapons on the market that you set a higher price on so that you both buy and sell them as an individual soldier.
You do realize that the Indonesian article could be propaganda or at least biased, as a counter to the many accusations of cheating, don't you?
Given that the eUSA has players who admit to spending "thousands of dollars" (one player) and "the maximum amount every week" (another player), I wonder how certain one can be about relative spending.
This is not a video game, and it may appeal to a very different demographic. I wouldn't consider playing a video game, for example.
I agree that there is a cultural disadvantage in other ways. I worked in Indonesia and other South-East Asian countries for a number of years and have observed the strong sense of community (apologies for being so simplistic).
I'm only raising these points for discussion, I don't disagree with you in general.
Gertrude,
I will concede that it is impossible to know without exact data which countries spend the most real life gold. The foreign articles could certainly be propaganda. My assumptions are based on the articles I have read, discussions in IRC, experience with administrating web sites backed by investors, and knowledge of general gaming culture.
However, even if this assumption were proven false, it does not change the main thrust of my platform -- that we are underutilizing our citizens' Real Life talents.