=A= discussion nr.2: Money

[swediot=)]

well thats what i was saying its good to have democracy we knew at the start that everyone wouldnt agree about everything but as long as everyones voice gets heard i think we will be very successful as a pa because we will build a very trustworthy and an understanding environment just to let you know i will be wookie and like han solo said the wookie will rip your lims off if he doesnt win:D

[Zendjir]

I think Í'll "let the wookie win", I agree with you Swediot, Democracy is the way.

 

Therefore, it seems odd that lord helmet has not spoken yet.....where is he?

[setsuko]

Ha! I'm about to commit the cardinal crime #1: posting in a discussion without having the time to read all prior posts. Oh well. Moahahahaa!

 

Q:What is most important when thinking out a fair taxation?

 

A: Realizing that all occupations won't have the same possibilities to earn cash. Who will have the easier time? Dunno, haven't played the game yet.

 

Q: How high will the percentage be?

 

A: Depends on one thing mostly: what are the money collected supposed to contribute to? Think about that for a while, and it should be easier to figure out. If we want to have communal houses, equipment and even ships, then we need a lot of money. Which means higher taxes. Advantages: we will all have access to a lot of neat things. Disadvantages: you won't have money left for the cinema.

 

Q: But what about if someone cheats, and doesn't pay properly?

 

A: Then the rest of us are screwed. It is easy enough in the real world, and a cakewalk in a world without the IRS. Live with it.

 

Q: Shouldn't everyone pay the same percentage?

 

A: I'd say no. A beginner needs more resources, because he/she has a harder time gaining new resources. However, a really rich person can easily tire of a PA if he/she has to pay 80% of their profit. Now HERE is what I propose (and sort of the point of this rant):

 

Rich and/or influential players shouldn't necessarily pay a sum of creds . Oh no! But then the poor players has to pay for everything, right? No. The rich and influential players get responsibilities. For example, if I became a wealthy player, the PA could ask me to stop paying taxes, and instead make sure that I supply new members with basic equipment. Or that I am responsible for building and maintaining a store facility to all members. Or that I arrange interstellar travel for members. This could either replace taxes entirely, or substitute parts of the payment. It would also be a good alternative for occupations that have a hard time earning cash, but who can perform valuable duties.

 

Ouch. Too long post. Anyway, am I only rambling, or is parts of it reasonable?

[Lord Helmet]

wow setsuko when did you come back??? anyways good to see ya

[Jan Gaarni]

Ha! I'm about to commit the cardinal crime #1: posting in a discussion without having the time to read all prior posts. Oh well. Moahahahaa!

Yes, you're a bad girl.

 

Ouch. Too long post. Anyway, am I only rambling, or is parts of it reasonable?

It's 12.30 am now, so I don't know.

[setsuko]

Originally posted by Lord Helmet

wow setsuko when did you come back??? anyways good to see ya

 

Hm. I am sort of semi-back. From like, last week. After this week, I might be back fo' real.

[Wraith 8]

*views results*

 

Hmmmm... this will be a discussion for later on.... this thread will stay stickied in case old members decide to poke their heads in here.

[Wraith 8]

oops... double post

[setsuko]

A wise decision, Wraith. I think the financial decision should be made after we have at least a bit of experience of the game. After that, we'll know how money will be made (i.e who will get money easy and who won't), and how much money our PA will need to run smoothly.

[Zendjir]

Yeah, maybe it's best to let it rest (yay! that rimed! (sp?))

 

Maybe we should focus more on things that we can arrange pre-game (now). Like some basic rules for =A=.

[Wraith 8]

Originally posted by Zendjir

Yeah, maybe it's best to let it rest (yay! that rimed! (sp?))

 

Maybe we should focus more on things that we can arrange pre-game (now). Like some basic rules for =A=.

All ready working on it

[Lord Helmet]

zenjdir...the spelling is rhymed

[Zendjir]

I'm learning something everyday here

[Wraith 8]

hey.. dont bad mouth the dutch in here Helmet

[Gaalgoth]

I'll tell you what lackeys....scratch the whole bank idea and just give your money to me.

[Lord Helmet]

yea...and me!...err um..yea..

[arguile]

i just spent about thirty minutes putting in an eloquent reply, then the reply thingy asked me to log in for the third time, then it said i didnt specify a link and lost my AWESOME reply.

 

now im frustrated and youll never know what i was gonna say

[Lord Helmet]

try it agian...im really bored and want to hear your wonderful post! TRY goddman you TRY!

[swediot=)]

no dont give into the darkside

[arguile]

ok ill give it one more shot.

 

your plight amounts to the simple and age old question of which is better: capitalism or communism. on one end of the extreme you have capitalism where the gov't (in this case the chosen leaders of the various sections of the PA) has a very limited amount of control, thus, to get the benefits of the gov't, one only has to pay a percentage on ones total assets. on the other end of the spectrum youll have communism, where the success of one member of the PA amounts to the success of the entire PA.

 

now, to relate this to SWG let's take a look at some historical gov't forms of taxing/instituted economic systems:

 

first off you have the articles of confederation which loosely allied the 13 original colonies. in this system, the gov't relied solely on the donations of states. this system resembles one of the methods for payment to the PA bank account suggested in a previous reply. clearly this system would fail again, simply because no one is realistically going to pay their profits out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

secondly, you could look at "communist" Russia under joseph stalin. this system was not actually communism ,however, in reality it was a system known as totalitarianism. through violent practices the masses were controlled by gov't military police. though brutal, these tactics produced staggering results. the soviet union finally had an induced industrial revolution and its productivity increased 25% in a mere five years. now, this system would represent option one given by wraith: pay every cent you make to the PA. of course, i doubt anyone here wants to be ruled by one person, greg g in particular.

 

now, since ultimately these first two options must be rejected, the only real option left is capitalism. keep in mind that the cities with the highest standard of living are the ones with the lowest amount of red tape. hong kong specifically is arguably the fastest growing city in the world, largely due to the ease with which entrepreneurs can start businesses. in SWG terms, that means the more rules you make and the more complicated you make your systems the harder it will be for your current and prospective members. to be more specific, you should run your system like a simple business. your members should pool ther money as they see fit, which is essentially their donation. however, when you reap your rewards, you should pay back a percentage based on the amount donated. thus, if someone risks more and donates more, that person would make a higher profit. basically, you would get your own little stock system going.

 

...or you could make a simple flat tax, but there would be no way to moniter that as opposed to an investment system where records would be easier to keep...and what would be the fun in a flat tax? theres no hard math there....

 

if you made it this far youre my hero for listening to my history/economics lesson. next time i will talk about new members as "investments."

[swediot=)]

i said dont turn to the darkside and what do you do? you walk straight in and sit in its lap

[setsuko]

That was a long post, yes, Arguille, but I have to point some things out about communism:

 

First, Stalinism is sort of out of the picture, yes. Noone were planning it, perhaps Greg, but noone else! And Actually, those times a communist setup does work, is in smaller groups (if you don't count Cuba, which has a litteracy percentage that is way, way above all comparative countries, a health system that puts even sweden to shame, and who sends out far more doctors to Médicins Sans Fronterières than any other country. And all this under strict trade embargos). I've seen quite a few collectives with 5-50 members, working very fine. Why? Because one simple fact: these groups are volountary. Living in a country isn't. This means that everyone in the group cares about each other, and are interested in the groups survival. Also, on an historical note, most early Christian groups (like, 100- 500 AD) worked on the communist model, mostly because it is promoted by the Big J himself. Anyway, that's just a footnote; I'm not that interested in creating such an economical model in SWG, mostly because I don't think everyone's interested in it, and thereby, it's not fair to force it on them. In Real Life though, it's a totally different situation .

 

Recently, I've been thinking of how the Armed Forces could work oiut their tax payment. For instance, it would be possible to have us pay 10 percent of our income from =A= sanctioned raids and hunts to the bank, or something like that. What I mean is that if each group gives an amount proportionally of their numbers to the bank, then how they aquire that money isn't as important, right? And other than that, I think that a simple solution is to go for the idea presented earlier, that a group that has a history of paying a lot can withdraw a lot, and the leader of the group knows who pays a lot (keeping track on this with a paper at your desk is easy), he/she knows who he/she can trust to pay back. Of course, the larger amount, the stricter the rules. For a withdrawal to give a new member a proper starting gear, now that's easy. For setsuko to buy that lyxury yacht.... now, that's easy. All we gotta keep in mind is that these money doesn't exist for the sole purpose of existing, and neither are they paid for the sole reason to piss people off: they are there to help members with financial needs, and to help new members to quickly be a productive member of the =A=. With that in mind, I wouldn't mind to pay a few creds now and then.

[Jan Gaarni]

if you made it this far youre my hero for listening to my history/economics lesson.

Yay, I'm a hero. But am I still a hero even though I didn't understand any of it?

j/k.

 

Greg, if you don't hire this guy as your assistant, YOU'RE FIRED!!!!!!

 

About the military branch: If we want them to be as good as they can get, I'm thinking we are gonna have to pay them.

At the very least, let them have reduced obligations when it comes to payment, and let their actions and commitment show how they should be rewarded.

 

Am I rambling nonsence, or does it make sense?

[arguile]

well, what i said was that totalitarianism wouldnt work, i never said anything about actual communism. on paper, communism is ideal as it consists of all people working together for the good of the whole and each person winding up equal to everyone else (the problem of course comes in when the leaders of this system take 80% of the wealth and leave only 20% for the entire population, which in and of itself is fundamentally not communism). so im not going to argue that communism can work in small groups, as long as no one member is the most powerful and all the individuals are trustworthy enough to share their property.

 

as for new members as investments, you could make it thusly:

of course new members need their capital to get started easier. so to give them this money , you could give say 1000 creds (maybe twenty to fifty percent of the total amount needed to really get started) and ask for in return, 1100 creds or an equivalent in crafted items or what have you. a ten percent charge on all loans to new members (of course only let out small initial loans to make sure you dont lose too much should something go wrong...) would be a reasonable amount, and avoid any nasty compounding interest. should someone try to make off with the funds, you could send guys like gaalgoth to go and find them to even the score...

 

hmmm...to pay the armed forces...my idea would be this:

a pay scale based on the best soldier. the one to kill the most enemies would get an allowance of like 2000 (estimated of course) and the soldier to kill the second most would get a hundred less.

basically the idea is to come up with a reward system for doing the soldier duties the best. that way, if one of you is killing everything and maybe one of the others is plundering instead, there would be some sort of balance struck.

[setsuko]

Hm. Interesting system, Arguille. But if I had to keep track on how many MOBs each of my member has slain in their duties to the =A= in a whole week, I'll go insane. Like, 'cutting pieces of my neighbours mail off with a scissor in the middle of the night, only wearing a beer cap'-insane. It's easier to have the members needing funds to tell me, and then I'll have to consider:

 

A) If this member is a trusty, regular member of the =A=. That would make it easier to give the player money.

 

B) How much money the =A= has at the moment. A quick PM to the banker should do this.

 

C) How much money I have withdrawn for my group lately.

 

D) How appropriate is it to give money to this member? If he is very rich and has top gear, I migth go for giving the money to an ambitious player who has bad gear.

 

By thinking these easy things over, I should be able to reach a proper decision. Another great idea would have to have a "PA armoury", wich players could apply equipment instead of paying taxes. This is great both for combatants who finds phat lewt, and crafters. This armoury would be a good way to equip new members, and when you need specialist equipment for a single mission. You could also dump your inferior gear when you find/make a better arm than you have: someone less fortunate might need it.