Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition
- Thread starter Blackstar
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- The United States
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Larger re-organization will lead to a greater degree of unemployment nearly inherently, the question is if it is judged as worthwhile to just go in decisively slim down enterprises immediately, or to try and do slower plans towards them achieving profitability.
I thought so, but I wanted to make sure. Thanks.
I'm thinking the middle path of Bailouts and Restructuring might be the best in light of this. Some extra unemployment, but not letting enterprises become zombies kept alive by ministry subsidies either...
...
Ohh. Another question. In the blurb for "Deviate Towards Labor Policy", you say:
"Raising concerns in closed doors about the employment of prisoners will signal concerns to several important personnel, delaying large scale construction projects at least into the next plan while proposing a lesser program conducted with only "clean" labor."
Does that mean that Klimenko will be shopping this around the other ministers and the politburo members and that if they aren't keen on it, we default to accepting the road mandate?
And when Klimenko describes it as politically risky, what risks is he expecting?
Regards,
fasquardon
- Location
- A haze of forgetfulness
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- She/Her
[X] Plan Gorky Cooperatives and Ministerial Consolidation
[X] Plan Gorky Cooperatives and Apolitical Consolidation
We need to do the aggressive restructuring, no negotiations on that.
[X] Plan Gorky Cooperatives and Apolitical Consolidation
We need to do the aggressive restructuring, no negotiations on that.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
On the other hand, even during recessionary conditions, we've got some serious advantages in living conditions over the OTL Soviet Union, and we've kept in place core reforms (e.g. nobody's gonna lose their home because they aren't working anymore).
And we have the capitalism but without the ideological attachment to capitalism. I have hope.
A distinct point. They may actually start channeling meaningful funds into the Comecon space program.
Or one can hope.
One possibility is that the Japanese car industry is underdeveloped and that part of what we're seeing is Japanese engineering talent looking for an outlet.
To be fair, all the road construction would do something for the rest of the USSR, but that doesn't mean it's enough or the best choice or what we want to do.
Eminently reasonable.
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- Location
- Italy
If we can afford it without triggering a game over I'm all for it.
It's not the same type of jobs, but going with this might also help a bit with unemployment?
If we go aggressive Restructuring in particular we'll likely want to take some actions focused on reducing the unemployment rates though (or, with our new system, basically raising worker wages)
Hitler, Stalin and "insert suitable Polish man here" go into a bar...
tempting. this is basically "argue against quasi-forced labour, and delay road target as a side effect". They're BOTH things we want... but can we afford to do this?
I'm absolutely sure that none of the people arguing in favor of not being too harsh on the corrupts is corrupt themselves, of course
[X] Plan Stabilize and Fuck The Voz
Having a business cycle for enterprises is a definite positive. We could do more to shield the ordinary workers from the winnowing of weak enterprises, but calling Kosygin's system "Dengist" wasn't exactly a negative.
Especially given the levers Kosygin has to just blow resources and plow through the recessions with no short term pain at all. The dude has balls of frickin' steel.
I think even with more moderate restructuring, we are at some risk of "game over".
Not "Soviet system falls" game over, mind you, but "Ministry is seen as having outlived its usefulness" game over.
I'm absolutely sure that none of the people arguing in favor of not being too harsh on the corrupts is corrupt themselves, of course
Yeah, no way, they are all good servants of the revolution!
I do worry a bit about derailing investigations that are currently ongoing. On the other hand, ending things decisively next turn with a big final push might actually play better with the man on the street than our careful pace so far. And maybe ending it next turn will win us some loyalty from the slightly corrupt people we need to work with to un-bork the economy.
Regards,
fasquardon
Discussion on the discord went that it is a gamble that we can unironically win but it would make all the projects more expensive to build. At least that's how I understand it.
Oh yeah, it would for sure raise construction costs. At the other hand, it would also raise profits of the consumer sector and reduce maintenance costs due to higher quality work... Eventually. It would take some time for the system to re-equilibriate.
Though as I see it, with wages too low now, I think higher costs for higher wages would be worth it in terms of the social stability it would buy even in the short run.
Regards,
fasquardon
Yeah my speculation (zero confirmation ofc) is that the "trap" with taking a shot at prison labor is probably not that it'll be an unwinnable political battle, but that it will shoot our Infrastructure costs through the roof when the budget is already barely hanging on. Like yeah it's good that prices go up because we have to actually pay people money (so they can participate in the economy), but we do still have to actually pay people money and that's going to be quite painful.
Oooof. Hah. Yeah. That strikes me as far more likely than a massive political backlash from Klim's fellow ministers...
That said, even if it creates worse infra-hell in the short run, it will be at least infra hell that addresses the wage crisis and IMO that's more important. But maybe I am missing other projects that can form adequate labour sinks...
Anyway, I remain open to people convincing me there's a better way we can push up general labour wages, but in the meantime, here's a plan with penal reform:
[X]Plan moar jobs:
-[X]Bailouts and Restructuring
-[X]Prioritize Quality
-[X]Deviate Towards Labor Policy
-[X]Apolitically Maneuver
It has restructuring, but not so radical as to cause the largest increase in unemployment. Prioritizes quality since I don't want a -3 to all rolls. Takes a chance on penal reform in the hopes that it gives us a big labour sink. And takes a favour to end the anti-corruption push in a way that I hope will impress the man on the street and win some support in the ministry.
Regards,
fasquardon
- Pronouns
- He
[X] Plan Pls Gib Stability
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X]Plan moar jobs:
[X] Plan Gorky Cooperatives and Apolitical Consolidation
- Location
- The great frozen north
Turning the enterprises into pseudo-capitalists was the devil's bargain we made to overcome the inherent limits of pre-internet central planning. Despite this mess, it's mostly working... so far. At least the managers are nominally still vassals of the Vozhd so we have authority to whack them if they cause too much trouble, as oppose to the west where their right to fuck around without finding out is legally enshrined.
Still, we need to take care to minimize their political power and try to promote worker control wherever we can, so that when the time comes in the late 20th century where their "services" are no longer as necessary we actually succeed in scaling them back.
Could you give some examples that are similar to the current road problem? Most of the cases I can think of where a critfail has led to benefits is when something has physically gone wrong, and one of the options is "At significant political cost, remove the structural issues that incentivize creating this sort of mess". Problem is, with the roads the politics ARE the critfail and it seems unlikely we can convince the politicians who already are Doing The Stupid to improve things for us.
Interesting.... What does "gamble" and "can" mean in this context, and what does a failure look like? Is it more "This is not an outright trap option, but it still risks directly kicking off a 'Voznesenesky versus the managers'-tier messy political crisis" or is it more "Klimenko is guaranteed to safely get the labor reform this turn, but if the increased costs mean even less roads get built the politicians will be up his ass in 3 years"? The latter is a perfectly ok outcome, the former is a risk I don't want to take.
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- UTC+0
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Well, we don't know for sure. But Blackstar has alluded us to the fact we can lose our job this turn, this set of crisis are where we make it or break it so if we make the wrong choices thats it for Klim. So even if it isn't an immediate "commit political suicide" button it is def a gamble in that regard. So is extensive restructuring I imagine.
[X] Plan Stabilize and Fuck The Voz
-[X]Bailouts and Restructuring
-[X]Prioritize Quality
-[X]Accept the Goal
-[X]Apolitically Maneuver
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We're not "ending" anti-corruption efforts, alright. We are decisively acting on the wishes of the people to visibly purge corruption once and for all.
- Location
- The great frozen north
....I just realized that when I made the "Stabilize the Ministry" and "Stabilize and Fuck The Voz" plans I got the names the wrong way around, with it being the former rather than the latter that specifically roots out Voznesensky's cadres. Whoopsie. Hope I didn't confuse too many people.
Yeah, I don't think you are taking this crisis nearly seriously enough. My reading is that most moves right now could result in political suicide.
Currently, all of the plans involve ending the anti-corruption drive early in a way that I HOPE will be seen as decisive, but that I am sure could fall flat too. All of the plans involve some degree of making lots of people unemployed, at a time when ordinary people have been hurting and been feeling ignored for years, and now things have gotten worse.
Personally, I am not in favour of preserving Klimenko's job at all costs... I think we have to run SOME risks, but if people really want to play it safe, we should probably go with bailouts to avoid a surge in unemployment or backstab our deputies and blame them for the restructuring.
Yeah, and the best way for the rest of the SupSov to save their skins would be to toss a MNKh minister who was expected to be a sacrificial pawn anyway.
Will the people see it that way?
Honestly, I think not backstabbing our underlings is risky here. It's a risk that I am mostly sure is worth it, since the reverberations of paranoia in departmental politics if Klim backstabs his lieutenants (even if most of them are not politically aligned) will probably be pretty awful, long term.
But remember that the people are feeling fairly frustrated about the anti-corruption measures. If we get a cumulative low roll on the 5 or 6 anti corruption dice, I am sure people will see this as a cynical move to protect the ministry from justice. And Klim gets fired for corruption and cronyism.
Regards,
fasquardon