@PoptartProdigy , a question I can't remember others asking. The quarians are likely stuck with us for a long time, possibly a generation or more. Are there any plans among the quarians to start families in their rachni-imposed exile?
Quoted for truth.
We're in a war against a xenocidal enemy. Demilitarization is not an option.
The problem is that our massive, ongoing military buildup is what got us into this mess; it's entirely possible that
building fewer ships for a few years (not standing down existing ships, mind you) may be our only way out.
It's that, or deep-six our budget for an extended period of time,
probably not a short one. I'd be comfortable with accepting that, but I'm not comfortable with the idea of releasing
neither our nationalized civilian industry
nor our military production, on account of us not having the cash reserves or the military reserves to get away with it.
I mean, yes, we need a numerically big military to survive. But we also need a sustained military
effort, which means we can't afford to allow this crash to gut the underlying civilian economy to the point where military production falls apart by default. What it comes down to is that for decades Virmire has been building its military at a faster rate than the underlying economy could sustain, and burning up civilian-economic muscle to support that policy. We may have to slow down our construction rate to survive, unless we're prepared to have a few years of budget helplessness.
Personally, I'm avoiding doing that this turn because I very, very much want the other two options Public Works Projects is one of the three options that explicitly begins repairing the economy, and its cost is just outright money. Unemployment Benefits is the final piece to the slew of projects that keep our people fed if the economy does start crashing again, it should help put just that bit more money flowing into the economy to keep it from crashing (the way that Mass Stimulus and Public Spending Campaign did), and Poptart said it would be cheaper if there are fewer people who are unemployed, so it pairs well with the Army Expansion.
Indeed, that already happened; the option is drastically cheaper this year than it was last year, before we took all the able-bodied unemployed people and drafted them.
I do not agree with you. At current budget levels, I still think that it was a reasonable expense.
I've made my rationale clear previously.
A hundred kay to ringfence the Lystheni while we wrestled with our economy was a price I was willing to pay.
Yes, you were, but the same you is now deeply concerned about a lack of reserve cash to spend propping up our government spending while we deal with the worst years of the income malus caused by Release Assets.
In effect, the option to Release Assets
now was pre-emptively closed, or at least made considerably less viable, as a direct result of the decision to buy those spy satellites. Which forces us to rely on the less palatable shipbuilding cutbacks, or to hope the enlarged Army can build us out of the crisis even if we don't release any of our nationalized industry. Neither of those options is especially appealing.
The main reason I'm still arguing this point is because I
REALLY want us to be more fiscally cautious about spending very large sums on single options in the future. Major projects and fundamental military reforms can be worth that kind of money, but "get some extra peace of mind" should be weighed
very, very carefully against the large, undeniable opportunity costs of our actions.
2)Because Releasing Assets crashes our income from ~140,000-170,000/year(depending on plan) to 14,000-17,000/year.
At a time when we don't have any major assured income increases this turn.
That leaves us scraping the barrel next turn..
I must point out that as far as I can tell, our major assured income increases
next turn will also get hit by the Releasing Assets malus. Unless the income malus decreases very fast*, we will have to squeak through a number of turns with an income of something like 100k/year or less.
This is why I'm voting for reduced ship construction. I don't
like that, but we have a large enough fleet to hopefully defend ourselves for a few years while things stabilize.
*(and Poptart never promised it would, nor would you expect it to given that it represents a major,
permanent loss of assets and productive capacity from government control)
