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Papers I Like:
Cooking with Flare
The Pundit
Rod Damon was Writing
The Paper Mache
The Way I See It




Hi kids!

Sorry, no pictures today. The following is meant to be educational/motivational.
Updated Edition: Due to complaints pictures have been added!


Introduction

The last two 'adjustments', by the Admins, to the Economic Module, have had a negative effect on eBusiness owners. It also has produced adverse affects to workers/consumers, this compounded the problem. The latest change allowed easy access to companies by those less able to understand business. I am no expert by any means, however certain aspects of business are common sense: 1) If you produce product beyond demand, people stop buying the excess; 2) If your costs exceed income you will go bankrupt; 3) If you sell at a loss there is no profit.

The over abundance of companies (because just about anybody could start their own) produced an over abundance of products. Prices fell through the floor. This, coupled with the fact that wages sky rocketed because of a shortage of workers (who wants to work when they can own their own co.) and the profit went out the window. These new owners had no reserves and cried foul because they were drowning in debt.

Sorry, no help here for you guys. Most will, in my opinion, end up dissolving their new 10 gold co.'s to get 5 gold back from the game. 🙁 For the rest of us, this is good news. We can get back to business as usual, until Admins do something to help us enjoy the game better! XD


Some hot tail!

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I cry in my beer.

I lost 20+ gold when Admins did this change. B-b-b-b-but... Let me explain. I was buying co.'s that the owners were forced to sell at a loss. This can be seen as underhanded, but it happens every day in real life. I'd troll the Companies for Sale Market, when I found a likely suspect (someone offering a q1 at 1-2 gold below everyone else), I'd PM them and offer 2-3 gold less than advertised. If they responded I had them hooked. We'd dicker on price, I'd act disinterested and let them PM a couple of times without responding and I'd end up buying (except the one guy who stiffed me 2 gold) a perfectly good q1 co. for 18-19 gold. I'd staff it, collect some profit and build some employees then sell for 22-23 gold. Sweet! Easy money! @$$hole Admins $#it in my nest. I had two co.'s for sale, one I kept the other sold for a loss of 9 gold actual, 13 gold possible worth.


You want to do WHAT with my banana?

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What's out there?

House, Stone, MT and Oil co.'s can't be bought new and used ones are higher than ever because of it. These ventures are iffy in my opinion. The Admins are not through crapping up the Econ Mod yet. Look at the half finished tab bar on the main page if you don't believe me. Do you think they intend to leave it half 'mouse over' and half 'click to tab menu'? Besides, Houses and MT's have been fickle markets. I could never figure out the trend. Possibly because of the customer base. I plan to stay away from these until I figure out what Admins are up to.

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Weapons and Iron are great when important fighting is going on. Weapons become very profitable and Iron follows along. These are great secondary investments when run without employees. Working a weapons and/or iron co. as a manager costs nothing but a little food and a few clicks every day. Your best bet is to own both and supply yourself with iron.

There is a strong market when people are buying. Selling off extra inventory is almost pure profit. Don't forget, buying from yourself basically costs only the sales tax and it's fun to have cheap guns available when daddy wants to go tankin'. No more working in communes for you, sweetheart!

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Food and Grain are staples. Everyone consumes food everyday, if they are actively playing. Some more that others. A few are self sufficient, but still everyone eats. As mentioned above, if you do nothing but have a food & two grain co.'s, supply yourself and sell the leftovers, very soon (at today's co. cost vs. food cost) you've paid for them. And don't forget to work as an employee for someone else, you get to keep all your pay to buy more co.'s/land or weapons if you're inclined to be a fighter.


It is news to me!

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My Ideal Start-Up Plan.

Please note: The economy is just now stabilizing. Wages (overhead), cost of consumables (more overhead) and product pricing are the way to determine profit. This is only a good idea when there is a market for your product. If no one is buying or if wages are high and prices low, don't do it!

Like I intimated above, Food is king as far as I'm concerned. If you intend to make a go of it, buy a grain co. but be prepared to not sell grain everyday. If you sell at a loss, you're a loser. (Look it up in your dictionary, bub. A person who has loss is a loser. Their definition, not mine.) You must operate with a cash reserve of several days (at least a week) to pay employees. Also, don't mess around with the lame ones. If they won't work, every day, at or near 100%, can them.

The next step would be buying a food co. so that you have a steady market for you grain co. It's harder to manage a food co. but well worth the effort. After you get the food co. going you'll want another grain co. because you be starting to run out of grain and will have to buy from an outside source. It is more profitable to buy from yourself if everything is working right. (I'm not going to tell you how to be profitable, that's up to you to figure out.)


Take a BITE of the economy!
Hmm... Tasty!

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My long term plan

Major emphasis on Food production. Expand (diversify) into different quality (q) levels of food production while supplying my own grain. Selling excess grain on the open market without 'needing' the profit from that sale. Continuing to manufacture (q2 or higher) weapons, with no employees ($0 payroll), for my own use and to sell on high market demand (read when expen$ive) using raw material I produce myself as a manager in iron co.'s (again, $0 payroll). I might be tempted to invest in used companies again if the markets remain stable.


Finally, BOOBIES!

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Well, there you have it. If you read "The Wall of Text" I hope you gained some useful insight. Like the title of this article says, I'm uneducated. Trial & error, tips from people smarter that I and paying attention to what's going on around me has paid off. I can guarantee nothing. You may not get my advise to work for you.

One thing I must admit for the sake of transparency. I have paid for gold with real money. When ERX disappeared, with about 40 gold of mine, I was pissed. When Resources were added and the economy stumbled, I was just getting started good. I did make a windfall from the gold market going over $95 USD (another example of paying attention) but was stupid 'cause I wanted to be Mr. Bigshot and spent most of it tankin' instead of investing it. I decided to replace that lost gold by paying RL money (bought the 65 gold pack). I invested heavily in companies to run and to sell for a profit. Running on a shoestring, the last disaster caused me to buy 65 gold (again) to stay afloat and invest in the new bargains. Good news is it caused me to restructure into the new plan laid out above, which is working very well for me at the moment.

I've said my piece. Now, what do you think?


I'm so relieved that's over!