eSingapore, To War on our own coin? Citizen Discussion.
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by Arbryn
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Hello eSingapore Citizens & government alike.
I believe we have a very important issue to discuss and something that may be currently being discussed behind various closed doors with different points of discussion within each conversation. This topic needs to be brought to life for us all to discuss centrally and with all the same subject matter being addressed. So I have taken the liberty to post this article which is likely to have more participants then either the forum or IRC. Everyone high and low please feel free to say your mind on this as it involves us all.
*Back Story*
Currently as I am sure majority of people know I am the sole access to the National Reserves (Singapore Holdings Bank). This is a secondary bank that was created some time back for security measures so if our Primary Bank (Singapore City Bank) was for some reason otherwise compromised we would not lose majority of our funds. When this Bank was created our nation had about 900 Gold in the Treasury in currency but majority of it was actual Gold (about 750ish). We determined that 2/3 of this would be placed in reserve and not considered part of the normal National funds month to month as realistically no president had ever needed more then 300 gold per month to operate and every president was "supposed" to try and earn more gold every month then they spent. Theoretically, this was a good plan as it let us build a reserve and safeguarded our funds from the dozens of ways they could be misused or stolen. However every president is welcome to request a withdrawal of reserve for emergency and each situation would be individually addressed by myself and I would consult Congress/Government on the matter. Myself & Woshiempire (being the 2 sole remaining citizens that created eSingapore since day 1 -Feb 11 2009-) would need to clear any big withdrawals or uses of this reserve (as well as majority of the current government).
I would like to add that part of the above loss in the past 3 terms was due to admin changing game mechanics. Not necessarily the fault of the Presidents, but regardless the facts remain during these terms we lost 1/3 of our funds to various methods. Mostly from Singapore City Bank, but I did fund as requested about 100 gold total to the City Bank from Holdings Bank as requested during these terms.
*Current Situation*
2 Days ago it was requested of me to release 250 Gold to the main bank, a request from iLord sent via Ice stated the Following.
"Malay have been taken over by a PTO and we are going to liberate them!
The President has requested two things from me to ask you.
1) 250 gold from our accounts that you control He said he had about 100 in the bank and then the 250 should cover the MMP (with the Philli) and the war/battle cost.
2) For your return your the city. He has asked me to gather our finest and have them return in this time of need! So I'll go along with him. "
I also received this request after the one above from Singapore City Bank, which I hope was sent by iLord himself however I haven't confirmed that yet.
"Hey Arbryn, we're proposing an MPP with the Philippines, can you give some of the money from the reserve bank so we still have plenty left over for day-to-day operations? "
I had told Ice (& later also iLord via Singapore City Bank) after the first message the following stance I have:
"If I can be shown that full national support is on this then yeah sure I can back this war plan. However otherwise no, we (as in recent eSingaporean presidents & nation) have eaten through about 300-350 gold (1/3 of our reserve between the Bank & the Holdings) in the past 3 presidencies on "minor" things in which none of them had any effective plan for ending their term on a positive income. We simply cannot continue to dig a hole every month, literally .. cuz it wont last. Presidents need to figure a way to earn their own income as they spend it just like we had to do to earn this gold as a nation in the first place, this didn't grow on tree's and was very hard to earn and one reason why I safeguard it so much. It isn't feasible to continue down this path as it won't last but a few months more. Your proposal would eat another 1/3 of our reserve in the time it has taken the past 3 presidents to do the same with smaller measures.
I am not against you personally on this, I understand the purpose to liberate Malaysia, and I agree. However I cannot back the payment method as we simply cannot afford what Ice has told me. Remember my job is to safeguard this and make sure it is spent wisely for OUR nation. So I cannot just release this unless there is full national support I am shown. Which is what I asked Ice/you to show me. Overwhelming congress, presidential, cabinet & citizen support for this cause. This can be in any form but it must me accurate."
After sending this message I received the following, and only the following related to what I had asked for so far.
"The Cabinet has agreed to the plan and he said no one from congress rejected the plan (not that congress is active) "
I then sent the following:
"I need to physically see where they all said they agree, have a link? Where was it discussed? Who was there?"
Since this time I have yet to see any discussion publicly, but I have received messages from a couple citizens who said they were asked about this however not informed of the financial situation. And they don't agree with the plan when I said the sum. As it seems to me not very many people are fully aware of the whole scope of the situation on either side.
So I decided to post this article so we can discuss the matter fully. I am neither for or against the plan itself. I am more of an arbitrator and I will side with whichever side is the majority on this issue, as is my job. I consider this money property of the nation as a whole. That includes down to the normal citizen and up to the highest political office so everyone is welcome to post their concerns and comments as they please.
Also please do not attack or flame anyone in this article. That is not what this is about. iLord & Ice have a good and just desire to help liberate Malay and bring more activity to eSingapore. However the financial cost to our country would be great. The reason I bring this to the public eye is because I must be convinced this is something the majority wants to do before I can hand over slightly more then half of our reserve to do so. We are not and never should be a nation where the citizens cannot have a say in major events when there is a choice in the matter. Currently we have a choice, so here it is.
If anyone has anything they would like me to add to this article please let me know and I can do so.
*Neutrality End*
*Personal Opinion*
From my personal experience in Finance & being a 4 time president of eSingapore I would like to add my personal opinion of the following:
I believe there are ways to accomplish what both sides desire but it simply takes more effort. Singapore currently has some 25,000 SGD. If sold somehow at the longtime national value of 0.02 ea. this is 500 gold. This is in the normal Singapore City Bank. If the president/finance officer was able to sell even half of this then no funds would be required from the reserve for this endeavor and both parties involved would be satisfied I believe. Such would be the current administration finding a way to fund their own agenda without leeching off of what past administrations had built up.
Also another secondary method that may or may not be plausible as I have not looked into it is if Malay has any gold to put forward themselves to add to what we will need to do this. Since we are supposedly doing this to liberate a PTO'ed Malay, it will cost gold to attack each region, and then gold to liberate it back. In the end we get very little other then gratitude for such help. While in itself is often worth it, I cannot see how bankrupting ourselves in the process is worth it. It is important to help friends no doubt, but there is a point where we can only help so much without inflicting major damage to ourselves. And without any plan to restore the lost 250 gold requested we would no doubt be inflicting a major blow to our stability.
Just my 2 cents.
Please comment
~Arbryn~
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Discussionmaxx !
About selling the sg😛 this is a really terrible time to release more sgd, considering all the madness with the economy
good article btw
I will comment later, but I agree with this. And disagree with the statement: "The Cabinet has agreed to the plan and he said no one from congress rejected the plan (not that congress is active) "
I'm active!
yes srnth it is I agree with that in some regards, that is the fault of V2 & the admin, however what other way could we earn gold?
One way (which some people might not like) is to take money out of the economy (through taxes) and then put it back in by selling it.
Yeah, I was asked to "Support" the war with out being told that the nation would lose 250 Gold for this support. After I talked to Arbryn I became rather annoyed that this fact was left out of the request to have me talk to Arbryn and say I supported this.
There are better ways to raise the money for going to war than taking out 250g from our dwindling supply in the Holdings bank. 250g is money we CANNOT afford to throw away at this point. eSingapore cannot afford to blow through gold like we did in V1. We have to scrimp and save every last gold piece because if we run out, we'll be outta luck.
Perhaps if the people who want to go with this plan donated some of their personal gold towards the goal of funding or if the government exchanged its SGD for Gold instead of just wanting 250 gold handed out it would be easier to support.
I am all for helping Malay out but it also occours to me that what do we get out of the deal? We take their land but its only for the short term, we pay to do so with our own gold. Yes we help the stongest ally we have but at the same time we place ourselves in a weakened state by adding regions we cant hope to support with politicians or logistics.
Anyway thats my input into all of this.
We *can* afford to sell a small amount of the sgd we have as our currency has only fallen 5% (which is very little compared to other countries), but 25k (or even 12.5k) would completely destroy it. It will get a little better once the new food consumption rule goes into effect, but we still can't sell too much.
you also gave away the element of surprise
Well if eRepublik wasn't some buggy mess with hackers stealing 100+ gold from me I would help funding the war, however, I would like for the government to start some fund-raising for this war.
The way I see it we really have 4 courses of action to do with the situation in southeast Asia.
1. Help the Serbs in Malaysia in the hopes they don't come after us after they're done with ePhil.
2. Do as we currently are, trying to get some troops to Philly to do the best they can, but stay off to the side officially (no MPP).
3. MPP with Philly for 100 gold apiece. This would cause a chain reaction war with Malay and we would be open for attack. At the same time, we enable our citizens to fight. Upon doing so, we stay hunkered down in Singapore City, and hope that they don't open at attack on us (if they do, we win at all costs)
4. MPP with Philly, and with their help, launch various two-pronged attacks on Malaysia, and hopefully defeat them. This has the added bonus of us eventually gaining a second region. I feel it is also a possibility that eSingapore may keep one of the gained regions, thereby giving us a high resource region.
My thoughts on the above options:
1 is unacceptable. 2 works, but at this rate ePhilippines will lose the war. I don't like 3 as it leaves us vulnerable. 4 is a huge gamble. If we win, Singapore will be much stronger, and I feel with proper support (i.e. ONE, maybe some EDEN help) we could succeed. If we lose, we're screwed and we'll have to RW.
I support 4. It would lead to huge activity boosts for all eSingaporeans, and a lot of Southeast Asians. It would give us a high region, which would better our economy, and give us more options for future expansion. However, if the people wish otherwise, I am but their humble servant.
Oh also Arbryn, the message from SCB was indeed from me.
anything you guys can give would help us, and your allies immensly 😉
We must defend our allies, we are at the point when we can no longer sit idly by and hope nothing happens to us. We must take action now to send a clear message to the world that S.E Asia and eSingapore are not just regions to conquer, exploit or PTO. Now is our time for action. As a member of Congress and MoD/CoAF I support the plan for war.
There is no element of surprise DarkAce, I had already thought about that prior to posting. But considering Philly is already involved in actions and we are a close ally and also another target for the PTOers over recent months it make sense we would partake or be attacked either way. Also if our only advantage to win is surprise then we should consider that we could waste this gold for a losing effort as well since they have more then 1 region we would also lose surprise after 1 attack and they can just counter. My other concern is that while we could only do a Philly MPP reducing the cost but supporting them, We do open our self up to attack from Malay PTO'ers. Which is fine if we are participating, however the public needs to know the situation. We may very well end up needing much of this gold in our own City's defense, so we need to be careful throwing it out early on attack as well. But again I am not against or for this. I will fully come home and fight if this war happens. Actually I am likely coming home either way. But before we decide everyone needs to know whats at stake. We are potentially on the verge of losing our land. Either way, no matter how we respond so we need to pay attention here, lol.
I don't like how V2 took away paragraphs from posts, it is stupid!
Also Logan, Personally I support the plan to MPP Philly as well. But how it is funded and going on the attack as an aggressor are different then supporting our allies battles. Also much more expensive. Such is why we need to discuss what exactly "going to war" means and what we can afford.
OK I have received intelligence of a deal brokered wherein the Serbian PTOers are stopping at the Malaysian original borders. If this is accurate then none of these actions need to be taken. More on this when I find out more.
ilord, based on threats our president recieved your intel is wrong...
-1st of all, I, who is in congress, are active which i do not receive any message about the opinion of this war
-2nd, i know of this via in media and also from other sources, however in esg, the media does not show this war a correct picture with enough information to help in decision making.This does not affect the outcome of war/military secret as other nation will get intel of it either way.
-3rd,esingapore does not have the citizens and resources to hold 1 more region and also gaining 1 more region is more of a short-term. esg cannot afford to spend so much gold as before, we will soon run out of gold.No way is the nation going to throw gold to the water with this military module
/me raises hand.
Congressman.
Bad idea.
This is ONE's first real military test. Whatever course we take will set the precedent. We must not seem weak or ONE will be neutered and no one will ever take our alliance seriously again. Military action is a must, the only question is whether we ought to do nothing more than an MPP, or go on the offensive ourselves. I suggest we concentrate our forces (and that of our allies) here in Singapore City. We gauge our strength; if sufficient, we attack Peninsular Malaysia. If not, we stick to a Philly MPP.
Ideally we would form a SouthEastern Asia super-state with enough population to ward off individual countries PTO's.
An SE Asian superstate would not work. It would depend on massive numbers of active citizens that we collectively just don't have.
The only Longterm solution is to either broker a deal with the PTOers (Which there are conflicting reports of what their country of origin is) or to get help on a much bigger scale than we or the ONE Alliance can provide so that we as a collective could remove Malay from the map (Which would be problematic).=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=---😛aragraph break ==-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=
Some people are too focused on the "Gains" part and see this as a chance for eSingapore to get a High region. The reality is that eSingapore could not support or take full advantage of a High region. We are barely scraping by with our current population and after being told the state of things in eSingapore doubt we could sustain a military campaign or occupation.
1. Woshie wasnt asked because he doesnt go on IRC enough, Flaco I haven't seen him in a few days, but idk. I know 6 were asked, said yes, so I presumed all were.
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@Arbryn's comment at 13:53, there is no point in having an MPP and an open war with malaysia, yet not attack? That is a bad defensive move. No way I would/could endorse that
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In reality attacking costs 250 gold, MPP 100 gold, and the possibility of a either 50gold or 90gold hospital, I can't quite remember, so it could total to be way more.
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@all this talk about military power, and ONE standing up, yeah, well I think that is a large sum of rubbish. Firstly, we've had that "first challenge" it was in Czech republic. It wouldn't prove anything, we start saying we're a military super power, what's Indo gonna do, laugh and slaughter?
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@ Comment above from Leo Schultz, it would boost taxes as people buy weapons, so more goes into the economy and taxes. So more money would come in, this is a big reason why people have gone to war in the past
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In general, I think with how it's all happening, we don't have anything concrete. Nothing to stand on, and seeing how a majority of the population is AGAINST it, I do not think we should. Even though I am personally for it.
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LONG COMMENT
I'd also like to ask why Ice was alerted, he hasn't been active for months...
my comment's kinda too long to post here, so: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/balance-the-scales-1485714/1/20
Also, the economic side shouldn't be a problem, I THINK the income from tax figures out to be 11 gold. Not totally sure, but I think so. If we have the region for over 5 weeks, then we'd see a return, no?
OK the decision I am leaning toward now is for eSingapore to remain "neutral", but finance the deployment of troops to ePhilippines if they are attacked again. Also, we should save our funds and ready the troops in order to have a chance to retake the regions.
1. Woshie wasnt asked because he doesnt go on IRC enough,
--Well, i online most of the time in singapore time, of cos u cannot see me enough as i do not always stay up late in the midnight just to hog the irc
--about the economy part, it far lesser and not that simple
I shall try to be polite.
I shall demand for the other ONE countries to chip in for the moneh. What else would an alliance be good for if NO one is willing to help out a fellow ally? Seriously, if the other members of an alliance are expecting one of their tiniest members to fit the bill, the rest of the guys can really just go home. I think that's 'nuff said, I don't want us to be paying the entire bill.
@ Ice, sorry, I haven't seen you around much. Just sayin'. In response to your comment, signing an MPP with a light chance of malaysia attacking philly, so them we have an open war and we're sitting duck? If we do sign an MPP, we should attack, with allies of course chipping in, and the RW Malaysia WOULD PAY THEMSELVES. There is no point in opening ourselves up to Malaysia, and spend 100 gold doing it.
@Tda .. The Hospitals from what I have seen so far in V2 are pretty useless, I wouldn't even consider that as an option. I saw a big one purchased in 1 battle and it ran out in like an hour. As for the MPP with Philly, IF they are to be attacked or are attacked then yes it would be a worthwhile expense. However no if it was just for precaution and they don't get attacked it would be a waste, I agree.
I really cannot comment on ONE's position as I don't know their agenda or take on this but if we have to rely on another unknown factor then we are taking a big risk I think. I do agree wholeheartedly though that if we are part of the spearhead of a larger operation, those other nations involved in this should also help with some expense. If there are any.
here's a little ray of sunshine: i have er, "hidden information sources" in eIndonesia, and their govt. according to what i can gather, there are no plans to attack eSG as yet. they're not decided on whether to continue the war by attacking Philly regions either. it might be a better idea than for us to take advantage of this lull and contest the congressional elections instead.
OK considering Philly MPPed with Ireland I think they are safe for now, and there is no need for us to MPP with them. Thus, I think option 2 is the best choice here (in case they are attacked again).
I say no to helping to that extent... >.>a
Not sure how Malaysia fell prey to the PTOers but unless we have someone here actually willing to spend RL cash to bail them out it's too risky on our economy... (Which is kinda trippy as it is...)
It would be very foolish to waste all our gold reserves on this war. If you want to send troops to Malay, fine. However, eating our gold reserves now will leave us wide open to attack.
As a Congressman, I was not asked for an official statement on this war. Do not declare war. Keep the government out of it. eSingapore has no strategic importance whatsoever, which keeps us relatively safe. However, pick a fight with the larger beast and you are dooming us all.
I had also discussed with Tommy last month about the need for further research and practice with the new military module before doing any military action or deployment of an army. I see that Relorian and Tommy both went out to research that, so I trust their observations and recommendations on any military strategy.