Profits and losses (Golden Rainbow)

I was making a pretty decent profit when I first started, but couldnt get my defense index to improve... So I spent a lot of money building my defenses, and have finally made a little progress on that (its only at about 20 now). But I am now losing 13B every month... I have followed some advice in another thread and set buying strategies to 91 with 5% increase, and selling strategies to 120 with 7% decrease, but it hasnt seemed to help. I also lowered my tax rate to 5% (in progress) as that was suggested as well. Any suggestions/strategies would be greatly appreciated. Oh and I currently have a population of 19 mil.

1. Be sure that your selling strategies 'Follow Quality'.
2. Be sure that your corporations are purchasing quality (and effectivity) upgrades.
3. If your tax rate will be at 5%, be sure to have the profit transfer set to 75%.
4. Be sure your corporations are producing a profit. If they aren't, then close them and open a new corporation with products that are in a world market shortage.
5. I have a site of suggestions at http://churchofsimcountry.webs.com, even if you do not follow all the advice, it does give some good suggestions. Please note: I am continually updating it.
6. If you would like further advice, message me at Clockwork Republic. I can elaborate on many different details of country and corporation management.
7. I also happen to run a federation if you would be interested in joining.

Check your supply quality onn the Manage corps screen. Set them down so the supplies quality is lower than your product quality. For now, inactivate some of your defenses to stop the cash outflow. Give us your country name and I'm sure someone will look over it to recommend which corps aren't worth holding. For those corps that show a "too high" in red for goods sold, direct sell them to your country, then wait 'til demand is greater than supply and sell them on the immediate market. To sell on the immediate market sell at fixed price, with price set as high as the system will allow. The equation I use is 2*Market Price - 1. This process is too tedious and time consuming to use indefinitely, but right now it'll help with cash flow. After you close enough corps to make room for new corps, list your country on the 5% tax thread to invite CEO's. My experience with state owned corps is that their profits are low and you're much better off with enterprise corps, though that may not be strictly true. Read "Wildeyes Guide" on the General section of the forum, and it'll help you. If someone else gives some contradictory advice, listen to them. I don't consider myself much of an expert on these type of issues as I'm continually struggling to keep profits up.

You also are getting a smaller noob bonus each month.

my country name is Arrakeen. Thanks for the tips. Its improved slightly, losing 10B a month instead of 13.

Some good advice so far, but some more:

Stop building those corporations. Bricks, cattle feed, stone, sulfur, gold, etc... they make losses. They are not profitable corporations. Do not build more and close the ones you have. I know *why* you are building them - you are only level 1 and the game has limited you to level 1 corporations. This is poor game design, but whatever - that's par for the course around here.

Instead, try this: click on your game level, and set it to "Peaceful." This should raise your game level a bit and give you access to corporations that actually make money instead of losing it. Avoid the level 1 corporations, and stick to 2+. Even with the higher level corporations there are some losers, you have to be careful and examine the various corporation types to find good ones. Along with this, stop buying military for now. You do not need defenses for a country in secure mode and this will only drain your economy.

I took a look at your corps. The only keepers are services, chemicals, household products, def helicopter missles, oil, and water maintenence. My method to select worthwhile corps is to use the enterprise/purchase corp, then look at the value of the corps.

When you're ready to start closing corps, put your country on the Golden Rainbow 5% tax thread, and promise you'll close corps to make room for submissions. My quick count is that you have 24 corps you can close. My guess is you'll have plenty of CEO's willing to submit. My experience was that once the CEO corps started going my country revenue increased dramatically

sorry it took me a while to get back on here... i managed to start increasing my profit, then my employment index plummeted... now i cant seem to make a profit cause my corps arent employing workers, even though they are available. ive closed a lot of corps, and opened better ones, but my game level dropped due to employment. So kinda limited again.

I took a look at your skills mix (using the exchange labor screen). You have 5M unemployed LLW's AND mlw'S, AND 1.5m all others. Your ed index is decent (116) but since you have so many LLW's and MLW's I'd suggest investing more in education. You might also offer some LLW's and MLW's for exchange. Some countries have a shortage of LLW's and MLW's. I'd say don't close corps too fast. It's usually cheaper (not always) to subsidize a corp than than pay social security to unemployed.

When you buy pop, it comes in at the same proportion as your current pop. That means when you buy pop you'll get a lot more LLW's and MLW's. Thus don't buy pop 'til you get your skill mix in better shape. I'm sorry if didn't get to you sooner about this!

As soon as I can spare some skilled workers I'll submit a swap. Keep us informed on how things are going. A lot of us like to see players succeed.

hey Joe, What do you have available now that you can spare? I am looking for some engineers if possible?

Crossdale.