Colony Administration
Try to arrange the administration of the colonies in a way that will work better. Right now there are appointed governors and small-councils and the like, you could bring democracy (and people who are more surely in your pocket) to the colonies! It's probably overdue, and there are more calls for it now than there were before.
Cost: 100 Wealth, 50 Wealth a turn.
Probability: 60%
Reward: New colonial administration, stronger hold on them, options.
Buy-out?
You know the Iashec have holdings on the planet, tax-free other than bribes and a few taxes they aren't immune to. You could research and begin buying out the smaller of the holdings and companies, while seeing what else you can do. Ultimately you want them all gone, yet short of nationalizing them in an overt act, it's going to be expensive and take a while, but it might have very positive effects on the economy. You can also do the same for the Colonial holdings at the same time, now that you know about them. Though now that they're on to you, it could be a lot more complicated, or even lengthy with long legal battles and negotiations.
Cost: 600 Wealth
Probability: 60%
Time: 1d3 Turns. So it could take a year, it could take three.
Reward: Government now owns several companies, potential wealth increase, options on what to do with them, knowledge of the larger or harder-to-buy-out Iashec firms.
Open Up Avenues
Your trade is far too one-sided, producing things for the Iashec, for Stendar, even some things for the Heretics. Not anything like a reasonable split. You could invest some money in opening up trade with other powers, incentivizing it for your business-class and seeing what comes up. Now that you have some trade with human powers, this could really be a kick in the leg for it.
Cost: 50 Wealth, 100 Wealth a Turn
Probability: 60%+5% (If failed, will be rerolled for free next turn.)
Reward: Give business, tax, and other incentives towards opening up trade, gets new options, has a chance to start generating Wealth in taxes and economic expansion.
(Hive) Unhelpful Taxes
There are taxes designed towards the underclasses, like the way that there is a tax for having more than one sac worth of kids, or the extra taxes levied if you live in houses constructed by non-builder-caste members. Those you know about. Your former caste. Tons of them cluster, and then there are payroll taxes, and taxes on basic necessities, and 'buy in' taxes designed to make sure that each and every member of the society has 'chitin in the game.' It's all rather problematic, and bizarrely enough, here Hazitean is taking the lead in advocating against them. She was born poor, and still remembers those times.
Now that the will of the Hive has been unleashed, this is a Hive action.
Call: Medium
Cost: 300 Wealth
Probability: 65% (+5 to rolls for it)
Reward: -600 Wealth a turn, Worker opinion increases, potential long-term gains.
Exemptions Must Go
The Ruler-Caste doesn't pay taxes. The merchants don't pay import fees. People of the military caste have 50% discounts on all taxes. The Diplomatic Caste is immune from all import and export fees, as well as any fees on gifts they receive, and there are a thousand other exemptions. Some are not entirely bad and might be turned into some sort of 'tax-credit/reduction' sort of thing, like with teachers, or with builders and house-property-taxes or so on, but a lot of it just can't be defended at all. Rip it all away, and let the light of taxation finally hit them.
Cost: 250 Wealth
Probability: ???, rolling better means you get more.
Reward: 500-1000 Wealth a turn, targeted groups will like you less.
Lower Taxes
The counterpoint is that the exemptions, while unfair, are also the only thing keeping the system going. As utterly messed up as the taxation system is, if everyone was getting hit equally it'd fall apart. More efficiency could, some argue, lead to depressed economic growth. Yet at the same time lowering taxes would lead to a large shortfall, and in the long term everyone admits it isn't a solution.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 50%
Reward: -800 Taxation income, tax burden reduced, mitigates for exemptions, preventing the economy from dipping, but might create difficulties in the future. Increased opinion of you across the board, though.
No Mr. Bond, I expect you to mature in 5, 10, or 20 years
Bonds are an idea that Kikkizit suggested off-hand, having read about them in both Xvorzit Hives and Barsa and Human worlds. It gives a way for the common citizen to invest in the government at a time where the question of corporate investment is rather muted. It would, of course, have to be set up well, and more than that it would be subject to the whims of consumer interest and confidence. But it could make money and it wouldn't step on any toes.
Cost: 150 Wealth, 25 Wealth a turn (for the structure and such)
Probability: 85%
Reward: Unknown amount of Wealth per turn, increases and decreases based on the confidence the people have and the economic situation. Currently estimated to be between 350-500 Wealth.
There's Power in a Workers Association
Long hours, beatings, suppression of workers rights. You cannot accept any of this, and it has to stop now. Start by setting up some commissions. And if any of them get in your way, any of those so-called 'public corporations' that allowed this, you have no compunctions about destroying them. Patiently, slowly, justly, but if it comes down to it, destruction is better than the situation as it is now.
Cost: 25 Wealth a Turn.
Time: 1d4 Turns
Probability: 100%, rolls less than 40 add another year onto the time.
Reward: You shall BREAK them. You shall make it so that the worker no longer fears them, and if they stand in your way it shall be the last mistake they make.
(Hive) Mines of Death
Shut them down, now! You can figure out soon how to resume mining for natural resources and the like at a later date, but right now you have to stop the pile of bodies. Even a year of hemming and hawing would leave blood on your hands, dead and dying, shipped off to 'teach them a lesson' and then forgotten. You will not hesitate. You will stand firm.
Call: Low (Mostly because people don't know about it.)
Cost: 100 Wealth, -50 Wealth a turn until it's fixed.
Probability: 100%
Reward: Shut down the mines!
(Hive)Child 'Helpers'
Children should be learning in the schools which are starting to be something other than pure hell, not working to pay their parents debts, or for 'education in manual labor' or any of the other pure shit that comes spewing out of the mouths of the few who rush to defend it. Pass strident laws and crack down on the offenders, and the rest will come to the table to negotiate. Here you have the popular will on your side.
Call: Medium
Cost: 15 Wealth
Probability: 100%
Reward: Warm fuzzlies. Less dead and overworked children.
Trauma Centers
Those that are hurt cannot be un-hurt. You cannot turn back the hands of time, but you can punish the guilty, prevent these things from happening, and open up psychological groups to allow them to cope with all that's happened, among other things. These abuses didn't used to be common, and they are disgusting, against everything Xvorzith culture is meant to embody, and yet you have a feeling that the disgust and rot is going to have to be cleansed, bit by bit, to restore Gazinitah to what it might have been.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Probability: 85%
Reward: Open up more clinics for those suffering abuse and rape, either at the hands of an employer (what drew the case to you) or otherwise. Disturbingly, it has a rather high level of synergy with "Child 'Helpers.'"
Restore Productivity
The money needs yet to flow. The economy is starting to get back on track a little, but it still needs a boost. Or rather, production needs a boost, since now that the numbers have been laid out before you, it is quite clear that the economy was spinning towards the gutter, towards a place where all of the productivity in the world would just mean more money wasted paying taxes that would go to servicing a debt heedlessly acquired. Either way, there are still many that argue that this is potentially dangerous to the worker.
Cost: 300 Wealth
Probability: 60%
Reward: Potentially increased mercantile-caste opinions of you, potentially decreased worker opinions, economic production resumes full-tilt, income gained from that. Also, if you haven't noticed, the cost has been going down with each turn you do well on the economics roll, since there's less to do all at once.
Talk to the Castes
These castes were the ones that ran the bureaucracy that the ruler-castes led, they organized the economy, they did much of the middle-management. And they have been cast aside for the moment. You could reach out a hand and talk to them, learn about their concerns and see what they know?
Cost: Free
Probability: 80%, roll 1d100+Stewardship+½ Diplomacy to see how they take it.
Reward: Information, more knowledge of what they think of you. Opens up options.
Judicial Activism
Judges are terrible, chosen by inter-caste mechanics, and not remotely fair. You can solve all of these, taking the selection away from the Judicial Caste, for the moment doing it via appointment, and eliminating those judges that don't measure up. Eventually you'll have to stop doing it by hand, it's not efficient, but for the moment there's at least enough information to start throwing out the worst offenders and starting with a clean slate, however difficult in time and work (with lawyers) it would be.
Cost: 150 Wealth
Probability: 55%
Reward: Judicial oversight, options.
Lawyer Up
The standards for lawyers is both far too strict and far too lax. Call attention to their problems and change the standards in a way that doesn't lead to as much railroading. It'd take money, potentially money you don't have, but it'd improve standards some.
Cost: 100 Wealth a turn.
Probability: 75%
Reward: Better lawyers and law-situation. Options might eventually open up (give it time.)
Legal Reforms
Now that the bad laws have been eliminated, it was time to start fresh. You can start creating laws that can more carefully target the large cartels, keeping them off balance, and undermining the truly dangerous parts of drug culture and other such dangerous avenues. One has to step carefully not to repeat the mistakes of the past, but that the future might hold more than mistakes, it's something you must believe in, and so you shall have your lawyer friends and others try to craft something new, see whether it sticks.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: Reformed laws, more weapons in the legal arsenal against large-scale crime, without targeting or weakening individual liberties more than is necessary.
A Survey of the Law-Books
You could hire some people to look through the entire law-literature of Gazinitah for suggestions towards tighter, more careful reforms. However, at this point with much of the lawyer's caste not yet reformed, and with very difficult requirements and fewer trusted members, this would take a bit. But it would probably pay off. Probably. Though at the moment it'd be difficult.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 80%
Time: 1d2+2 Turns, might be less later on.
Reward: Further legal reforms, more knowledge of your own laws, other advantages/perks.
Palace Fees
No. Get rid of it. You cannot possibly accept this as a valid use of economic power of your country, and you have to at least reduce it. It'll be dicey, and there might be calls against it from some, while others call for its complete elimination. You'll try to balance it, reducing it greatly while not leading to protest or dislike.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: 500-1000 Wealth, potential raised/lowered ruler/worker opinion. The rest of that money (300-800 Wealth) would have to be gotten at in the budget more subtly because it's less obviously payoffs and might cause a bigger stink.
Diplomatics?
How much of that huge diplomatic budget is corruption? If any of it is, can it be taken away? And is there any waste or areas where it could be trimmed down even if it isn't corrupt? You're still not at the 'belt tightening and desperate scrabbling part...well, mostly, but surely there's a little fat there.
Cost: 25 Wealth
Probability: 55%
Reward: Wealth? Information? Options?
(Free) Money is Money
You're paying 5% a year on debt-servicing. The agreements say that you only have to pay 4.5 percent. It's not much, but at this point you're just about to start looking under the couch cushions for more money.
Cost: Free
Probability: 100%
Reward: Money owed grows slightly faster, have a little be more money each turn to your own, 25ish.
Search for an Adviser
You need help. Being able to fund a resistance movement or a secret holo-cast channel or do your household budget with your eyes closed and not counting off on your digits is not the same as running a world economy. Search for someone to help you.
Cost: 200 Wealth, 100 Wealth per turn to budget for him.
Probability: 100% (roll to see how good of a selection you find to choose from.)
Reward: An economic advisor. If they have a higher Stewardship than you than you can finally have time to take a breath without numbers swimming through your head. +1 Stewardship, if replaced by Adviser's bonus, becomes +1 Personal Action!
(Hive) Caste or No Caste
It'll begin small, aimed at the specific complaints addressed to you, rather than at the issue as a whole, but something is better than nothing, right? Remove restrictions on low-level jobs that exist which protect them for certain castes. It's not targeting the soldier-caste, the rulers, the merchants and the diplomats yet, nor other high-value castes, but it's part of a process, or it can be seen that way. However, some argue that taking small steps won't solve the larger problem and that it's premature. And yet the call is strong.
Call: Very-High
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 60%+5%
Reward: Caste prejudices in small positions attacked, potential loss/gain of opinion in several groups.
(Hive) Government Fooding
You could buy out the company now that it's been laid low by your lawsuits and your consumer protection, and perhaps use it as a way to get the poor subsidized food on the cheap, as well as generally win points with the populace. It wouldn't make much, if any, money as a government corporation if you used it this way, but there are things more important than wealth, at least directly
Cost: 200 Wealth (It's a big company)-50 Wealth in losses a year
Call: Low
Probability: 100%
Reward: You now own a company! New options! Opinion of the masses increased.
(Hive) Public Transportation
Public transportation needs to be better, that much is rather obvious. And there are some calls to do so, even though it is indeed quite expensive. It'd be best at the moment to start with the areas of complaint, a set of Hive-Cities on the southern continent, solving their problems directly without going for the big, sweeping gesture...yet.
Call: Medium
Cost: 150 Weath
Probability: 85%+5
Reward: Public transportation improved in one area. Increased worker opinion.
The Moneybags
The ruler-castes, the bureaucrats, they have money stored away, hidden away. The rich, the powerful they always do. Vast fortunes immune to taxation, immune to sense, covered in blood. You could free it, as it were. Fuck what the former rulers say, the money belongs to the people, through your own will, to spend for their betterment.
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 50%
Reward: ??? Wealth, Caste and Ruler-Caste opinion lowered, perhaps dramatically, ???
