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- UTC+0
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I really want the bulk eletronics to be done soon to remove this, its a major bottleneck in our reconstruction it seems.
Towards the Future
- Thread starter Blackstar
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- nuclear war (war)
Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Provisional Plan Connecting our People:
- Decisions:
[]Maintain the Military's Role:
[] Central Census Office (-1 R)
[] Leave as Miltias
- State Actions:
[][] Convening of Regional Councils
[] Rights for the Councils
[] CSS: X0
[] Orbital Command: X1 [HDO Propellent Depots]
[] Military Command: X2 [Rationalize Orders of Battle, Restart Officier Training]
- Ministry Funding
[] Ministry of Infrastructure: X6 [Yard Restarts, Locomotive Production, Logistical Rationalization]
[] Ministry of Development: X4 [Private Economy Incentives, Certification Programs, Server-Network Linkages, Phone Networking]
[] Ministry of Agriculture: X0
[] Ministry of Industry: X8-5 => 3[Expanded Mining Program, Scrap Metal Gathering, New Chemical Industries, Dedicated Vehicle Plants]
[] MinFin: X4 [Anti-Monopolistic Codification, Perpare for Fiat, Public-Private Partnerships]
total resources spent: 1+2+6+4+3+4 = 21/20
Predicted Resources: 21-3[Economic Collapse] -1 [Central Census] + 1[Private Economy Incentives] -1 [Scrap Metal Gathering] +1 [New Chemical Industries] +1 [Dedicated Vehicles Plants] = 19 R
Baseline: 8-1 [Central Census] +1? [Private Economy Incentives] +1 [New Chemical Industries] +1 [Dedicated Vehicles Plants] + 1? [Public-Private-Partnerships] = 9/10/11
A plan that combines a lot of logistical investment with a heavy emphasis on education. The significant spending on vehicles production should secure and even expand food and resource shipments, allowing for further development. I'm finishing all immediately useful actions in Development, spreading our skills far further.
After rereading the description, the Census Office does take 1 R away from us. Since I consider proper Vehicle Plants to be a sensible investment that prevents the slow decay of our logistical networks, I scrapped Seed Quality improvements and replaced with one resource expenditures on Orbital Command. Those resources help to make our routes cheaper, which is good in the long run.
Edit: I have been convinced of giving the militia to the military. Giving Sincleir control would be the fastest way to dissolve them.
- Decisions:
[]Maintain the Military's Role:
[] Central Census Office (-1 R)
[] Leave as Miltias
- State Actions:
[][] Convening of Regional Councils
[] Rights for the Councils
[] CSS: X0
[] Orbital Command: X1 [HDO Propellent Depots]
[] Military Command: X2 [Rationalize Orders of Battle, Restart Officier Training]
- Ministry Funding
[] Ministry of Infrastructure: X6 [Yard Restarts, Locomotive Production, Logistical Rationalization]
[] Ministry of Development: X4 [Private Economy Incentives, Certification Programs, Server-Network Linkages, Phone Networking]
[] Ministry of Agriculture: X0
[] Ministry of Industry: X8-5 => 3[Expanded Mining Program, Scrap Metal Gathering, New Chemical Industries, Dedicated Vehicle Plants]
[] MinFin: X4 [Anti-Monopolistic Codification, Perpare for Fiat, Public-Private Partnerships]
total resources spent: 1+2+6+4+3+4 = 21/20
Predicted Resources: 21-3[Economic Collapse] -1 [Central Census] + 1[Private Economy Incentives] -1 [Scrap Metal Gathering] +1 [New Chemical Industries] +1 [Dedicated Vehicles Plants] = 19 R
Baseline: 8-1 [Central Census] +1? [Private Economy Incentives] +1 [New Chemical Industries] +1 [Dedicated Vehicles Plants] + 1? [Public-Private-Partnerships] = 9/10/11
A plan that combines a lot of logistical investment with a heavy emphasis on education. The significant spending on vehicles production should secure and even expand food and resource shipments, allowing for further development. I'm finishing all immediately useful actions in Development, spreading our skills far further.
After rereading the description, the Census Office does take 1 R away from us. Since I consider proper Vehicle Plants to be a sensible investment that prevents the slow decay of our logistical networks, I scrapped Seed Quality improvements and replaced with one resource expenditures on Orbital Command. Those resources help to make our routes cheaper, which is good in the long run.
Edit: I have been convinced of giving the militia to the military. Giving Sincleir control would be the fastest way to dissolve them.
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Quotes from Discord:
Adronio: @ Blackstar who are the militias intended to be beholden to? The CSS got put into charge of forming them, and it sounds like they're intended to be pointed against local councils.
Blackstar: Themselves technically
---
Yeah, im not feeling giving the militias that authority when it comes to democratic enforcement. Sure, best case scenario they just get pushed back after the democratic transition, but it could go horribly wrong.
The military seems like a safe bet to me, the militarists got purged, itd help keep the military factions approving of us and Singleir, the current chief of staff actually hates the idea, so it should open up the possibility of the civilian government repealing that with his approval.
Adronio: @ Blackstar who are the militias intended to be beholden to? The CSS got put into charge of forming them, and it sounds like they're intended to be pointed against local councils.
Blackstar: Themselves technically
---
Yeah, im not feeling giving the militias that authority when it comes to democratic enforcement. Sure, best case scenario they just get pushed back after the democratic transition, but it could go horribly wrong.
The military seems like a safe bet to me, the militarists got purged, itd help keep the military factions approving of us and Singleir, the current chief of staff actually hates the idea, so it should open up the possibility of the civilian government repealing that with his approval.
Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Soon, soon. We need our chemical industry first, so getting to that this turn is unlikely.
Ok, congratulations on making your first plan in this quest! The quest suffers somewhat from a lack of plan makers, so I'm happy that more people participate.
With this being said, there are some errors in your proposed plan:
The first action in the CSS costs two resources, not one. This would make the budget in your plan invalid. Your expenditures on industry ignore the five resources gained from Scrap Metal gathering. We have in total 21 resources to spend (barring any gain from Scrap Metal gathering(, while your plan only spends 1+2+1+4+6+1 = 15/21, not even 75% of the resources available.
I find it helpful to put an expenditure summary below to avoid over-and under-spending on resources.
Also, longer explanations on spending priorities are often more readable when you use line-breaks between separate topics. I find it helpful to separate my explanation into sections on each topic I want to explain (decisons/government actions/spending priorities) when I make a longer explanation of the topic.
The militias main threat is that they go Gamer and shoot up some local council, I don't think they have the numbers, training, or equipment to avoid getting crushed by the military if they show their asses. Bad, should be avoided but not that catastrophic.
The CSS is currently lead by a person with a trait that's says "Power Hungry". Ab-so-fucking-lutely not.
That leaves the military, which on its own would be an enormous red flag except the current head has repeatedly show that he'd rather a functioning government would set itself up so he can go back to just worrying about military matters.
For me the military is, while not the most minor threat, it's the most predictable one and I think we can assume Sinclaire doesn't want to sit on the throne himself. Naturally this also means that when we transition to a democratic government we should phase them out of that roll before someone less based gets in his seat, but we can build that bridge when we get to it
The CSS is currently lead by a person with a trait that's says "Power Hungry". Ab-so-fucking-lutely not.
That leaves the military, which on its own would be an enormous red flag except the current head has repeatedly show that he'd rather a functioning government would set itself up so he can go back to just worrying about military matters.
For me the military is, while not the most minor threat, it's the most predictable one and I think we can assume Sinclaire doesn't want to sit on the throne himself. Naturally this also means that when we transition to a democratic government we should phase them out of that roll before someone less based gets in his seat, but we can build that bridge when we get to it
- Location
- The great frozen north
I would much rather our Party Laws be "fuck political parties in all their forms" but I guess that's not a real option is it? So might as well clarify those laws.
21 (base) -1 (census) + 5 (scrap) -1 (use of override) = 24 resources to spend.
[]Plan All aboard for democracy!
-Decisions
[]Duty of the Militias
[]Central Census Office
[]Deepen Training
-State Actions
[]Party Laws
[][]Convening of Regional Councils
[]Committee of State Security X0
[]Orbital Command(Groundside) X0
[]Military X2
-Ministry Funding
[]Ministry of Infrastructure X6
[]Ministry of Development X6
[]Ministry of Agriculture X0 slow your roll Frankenstein!
[]Ministry of Industry X5
[]Ministry of Finance X4
-Overrides
[]Seed Quality Improvements
I'm pushing hard on MinInfra here to get rail transport going. Glorious trains! Which hopefully will let us go another turn without MinInd's vehicle plants. MinDev gets whole bunch of funding so they can restore international communications and more importantly get the education system running.
I originally wanted to give 1 funding to CSS and orbital command each, but I figured they weren't high priority so I pulled them along with 1 unit I couldn't find another good place for into pumbing MinFin up to X4 for those public-private partnerships. Could instead give them to MinInd, but I'm not exactly a fan of him yet.
BTW @Blackstar who is the "old traitor" described under the healthcare board option?
21 (base) -1 (census) + 5 (scrap) -1 (use of override) = 24 resources to spend.
[]Plan All aboard for democracy!
-Decisions
[]Duty of the Militias
[]Central Census Office
[]Deepen Training
-State Actions
[]Party Laws
[][]Convening of Regional Councils
[]Committee of State Security X0
[]Orbital Command(Groundside) X0
[]Military X2
-Ministry Funding
[]Ministry of Infrastructure X6
[]Ministry of Development X6
[]Ministry of Agriculture X0 slow your roll Frankenstein!
[]Ministry of Industry X5
[]Ministry of Finance X4
-Overrides
[]Seed Quality Improvements
I'm pushing hard on MinInfra here to get rail transport going. Glorious trains! Which hopefully will let us go another turn without MinInd's vehicle plants. MinDev gets whole bunch of funding so they can restore international communications and more importantly get the education system running.
I originally wanted to give 1 funding to CSS and orbital command each, but I figured they weren't high priority so I pulled them along with 1 unit I couldn't find another good place for into pumbing MinFin up to X4 for those public-private partnerships. Could instead give them to MinInd, but I'm not exactly a fan of him yet.
BTW @Blackstar who is the "old traitor" described under the healthcare board option?
Are we certain we dont want to deepen training instead of leave as militia? Leaving them as militia will lead to an immediate expansion, while deepening training seems like it'll slow it down aswell as giving the military, who under Singleir probably dislikes the idea of a militia just as much as the CSS, the ability to keep an eye out on them.
Edit: the census doesnt cost anything from our current budget, it only reduces budget in the future.
Edit: the census doesnt cost anything from our current budget, it only reduces budget in the future.
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Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Small Correction: The Central Census costs 1 R Baseline, meaning our resources/turn can go down one further point below. It doesn't reduce our available Resources by one.
- Location
- The great frozen north
I figure the militias could potentially cause trouble, but if they do they are so decentralized they won't bring the whole house of cards down like the Military or CSS could.
Thank you for catching that. Not entirely sure how to best use the extra resource right now, probably put it into Orbital Command. Don't have the energy to do a major readjustment RN.
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The previous minister.
I know the tax breaks might seem stupid but remember we are heavily taxing our businesses right now, Min Ind is bullying all the small businesses into submission, and finally we just forced an unreasonable tax on local councils. All this means that we have a lot of essentiel businesses struggling to stay open. I can see why people would be against it but the idea is sound if you think Min Ind needs to stop cannabilising our entire industrial base.
Red Rationalist
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No, this isn't an accurate assessment of the situation. The bulk of our tax rate is on VAT taxes (burden on the average buyer), not on the business. I'm also sceptical to what extent MinInd is "bullying" smaller businesses. Does the MinInd heavily prioritize putting capital goods into state development? Yes, undeniably. Is this the main reason our private industry struggles? Eh, the lack of logistics, parts, free work force and monetary exchange also have a lot to do with that. Should building private industry take priority over heavy industry + extraction? No, we need to balance investment so the two compliment each other.
In my opinion, Survival-Necessity Tax Breaks is a policy designed to strengthen the position of private industry in important sectors motivated by an instinctual dislike of state-owned industry, not so much to address a problem. I see no problem with small unprofitable (and thus economically inefficient) businesses collapsing, this is a necessary function of competition. The private economy barely exists, so it's not like the population would suffer a lot from the loss of such businesses. Also, we are already continuously putting investment into private industry and private industry is being contracted by state-owned companies. Neither MinInd or MinFin are entirely correct in assessing the situation, but MinFin does have a tendency to implement pie in the sky ideas because they like private companies, rather than because of the situation on the ground. And I think this is a case of this.
We should also keep in mind that the MinFin will get to determine what counts as "survival necessary" and their ideas might not line up with ours. Depending on how honest you are, a lot of things might count as "survival necessary". At best, the policy increases profitability of private industry in select economic sectors, thus increasing investment. The utility of this policy is something I'm somewhat skeptical of.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I would just like to remind everyone that if we have to keep using free actions turn after turn to access the useful stuff Dr. Dumh doesn't want to do while bypassing the relatively unimportant stuff she does want to do...
...It doesn't take many turns of this in a row before it would just have been cheaper to let her do what she wants and get that project out of the way so she can think straight about all her other projects.
Also, it's not like the genetic engineering projects she wants are literally useless, even if they're not optimal return on investment.
Is that even desirable?
In practice, political parties in competitive systems are very useful mechanisms for ensuring that broad ideological trends among the population are translated into something organized, actionable, and able to interface with the complexity of modern society.
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Red Rationalist
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While this is correct, there a two points this view leaves out:
One, there is value to doing a specific action sooner, rather than wait and spend resources on Dumhs pet projects. Getting more reliable crops to our rural population now means we get the long term positive effects sooner, which can be worth to cost. Having to fund to that point can also come with a opportunity cost, since we are missing the funding for more useful projects that are also available. In our situation, spending 3 resources on bio-modding means those 3 resources are not available for building industry or logistics.
Two, once you indulge a Ministers pet project, there is a chance they will fill the funding list next turn with similar projects, which are equally useless to our current project. This would in turn necessitate further investment to get to the useful stuff, making the funding more expensive compared to what it seems. Our direct action can act as signal to get their priorities in order, at the cost of resources.
I think the override is most useful for the CSS, where prior actions are literally harmful. I would really like to have investigative police, but not at the cost of creating the foundations for a surveillance state.
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I mean, we can just look at what she has prioritized in the past, which is pretty reasonable. She isn't gonna give taxbreaks to shit like Theranos or anything like that, she has been pretty good so far at it.
Subsidize Necessary Production: Small shops of various kinds, from those working more with 3D printing to those doing conventional machining and those analyzing goods, have all practically been devastated. The industrial requisitioning regime has also not helped anything as they have been drafted into production by a system that cannot coordinate major industrial plants, much less anything smaller. Instead of all of that, they can be subsidized by a simpler contract system through the state where the broader industrial commands provide set orders of parts and the smaller shops bid on contracts for them, allowing some local command and improving responsiveness. (46 Pass)
Pulling the mess of electronics production and spare parts efforts and contracting them out to small private entities has proven itself partially. Offering Ór to those getting industrial equipment running has gotten massive numbers of unused machinery into circulation. Three private concerns are racing to be the first fabs capable of 180nm node production using adapted machinery from modernized micro-controller fabrication. They are not expected to produce results in the next few years, but they are sufficiently promising for funding. Almost forty small machine shops have also been established with machinery loaned out on credit, steadily providing actual fabrication for parts rather than printed materials. The actual recovery of modern technology isn't expected to occur for quite some time, but at least it is actually being worked towards.
These are definitely enterprises we want to survive and expand, they do important work in sustaining the economy and have the added benefit of not treating their workers like MinInd has so far.
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Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
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I don't think we should extrapolate from a single action during a time dominated by more threatening existential crisis to the every decision now. Just because some made a good decision in the past doesn't mean their reconstruction priorities are all in order. I mean, the MinInd has made a lot of reasonable calls in the past, but that doesn't mean we should draw the inference that their current calls are all good.
Right, I agree. But I don't think the there our tax rates are making it impossible for the private sector to survive. For the very reason that the tax proposals were made and implemented by MinFin. I find it very hard to believe they would make a proposal that actually harmed their dear private sector.
What this decision is a form of sector-wide private industry subsidies and there are reasons to be doubtful. We are currently flooding the survival necessities (food, logistics, parts, etc.) with state funding, what good would come from artistically trying to growing private industry in those sectors? In my opinion, private industry is supposed to fill the gaps our state-owned industry leaves, using their flexibility to their advantage. Those gaps are marked by high profitability, with private industry having an easier time to quickly meet the unmet demand. Policies intervening there can create distorted incentives based on what the MinFin personally likes.
With it's lack of capacity, it isn't supposed to make up a substantial portion of production in those sectors. I see no benefit in letting MinFin change the market incentives around. There is also harm in letting private industry grow too much. We just had a whole war relating to oligarchs, a large and fast-growing private sector invites ... political issues, to put it lightly.
- Location
- UTC+0
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- He/Him/They
What do you think she would prioritize that is so bad?
Its not about it being impossible to survive, its about stimulating people doing their own thing to complement MinInd's own expansion. If you don't like private industry that's fine, but growth is growth, and the more of it we have the faster the reconstruction goes and our issues are fixed. And again, we know what MinFin has prioritized in the past, and its in line with what we need right now, so that's really not anymore a concern than what MinInd chooses to prioritize. As for concern about oligarchs, that's what those monopoly laws are for (appeasing Gal that is, because we aren't going to get oligarchs anytime soon even if we didn't do anything, all capital has been wiped essentially, people are poor as fuck and that won't change by the time Gal gets yeeted off government).
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Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
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I and others are already doing things to grow private industry. As in, putting the maximum feasible amount of resources into further expanding private industry (Public-Private-Partnership + Private Economy Incentives), which I suspect will represent a regular yearly expenditure. Survival Necessity Taxbreaks doesn't help accelerate the growth of private industry in any meaningful amounts (it marginally increases profit in certain fields), it redirects available investment towards MinFin designated sectors. And given their lack of experience outside banking and fiscal policy, I'm very skeptical they have a good grasp on what our economy needs right now during an apocalypse.
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Then I don't understand why you were expressing concern about the private sector growing too fast as a reason to not do that, but ok. And again, if you don't trust MinFin to direct those breaks towards necessary fields, fine, but we do know what she has so far seen as essential industry, and its stuff that is important. So I think your concerns are overblown, as there is really nothing to indicate she has her priorities out of whack so far in that field.
Red Rationalist
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To be clear, my worries with this policy is one of misaligned incentives and redirecting private industry towards fields that are either unimportant or easier met by state investment, not enabling rapid growth. The latter is a general warning about not thinking before funding MinFin projects.
As for indicators that their priorities are out of whack, I would call the efforts in creating anti-monopoly legislation first instead of expanding private tooling industry a priority misaligned with our current needs. Faolain is nearly as bad as Dumh with putting her pet projects above the important stuff. The consumer industry can wait, the capital sector would take the highest priority. Faollain lack of proper priorities is pretty easy to spot, and there is plenty of reason to be concerned about redirecting funding towards consumer good instead of the collapsing capital good sector.
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- Location
- UTC+0
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Its pretty clearly an effort to appease Gal and stop him from getting any ideias about crushing the private sector for no reason, its not a stupid thing to prioritize.
The next project she has on her docket is moving away from a ration based currency which is causing us inflationary issues among other things. And the very next one after that is giving funds for expansion of the machine shops that you yourself said are important.
I don't think any of these are merely pet projects, they are all pretty important in adressing critical issues we are facing right now (Gal being Gal, our currency issues and expansion of our capital goods production respectively) and show her priorities are not out of whack.
Red Rationalist
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What makes you think Gal is currently thinking about crushing the private sector? He seems pretty sure about the final victory against the oligarchs. The move towards a more money-based economy is going to be necessary in the long-term, but all it does right now is allow for more money to flow towards consumer goods. We are also already using taxation as a deflationary measure and inflation isn't a priority compared to production collapse. No, I'm pretty sure those projects are on the docket because MinFin likes recreating private economic structures, not out of political calculation or to address actual issues.
Even if those projects are important in the long run, it shows a willingness to leverage important economic development against concessions to the private economy. Just because Faolain is opposed to the mass industrialization policy of MinInd does not mean they are opposed for the correct reasons, or that they have a better plan. The enemy of a bad plan is sometimes also bad at planning.
But we are getting off topic from the actual discussion. If you have further arguments for Survival Necessity Taxation, I will respond to them. If not, feel free to have the last word.