Pissing Contest

now when i say that, its really my hope to create a discussion about many factors, that correlate to a good country, primarily econ. of course ego will play a factor, but lets be good sportsman, and salute a fellow that has something good going on. rather than argue until we win. if we can recognize excellence, when we see it, we can become better.

when comparing countries, it is fair to subtract military cost, and drafted army.

also, a player should remove the secrecy parameters to allow others to view them. i mean, ante up

the GM make changes, as is right, when changes are made, or the econ of the planet become turbulent, these things must also be considered. the ability to adjust, compensate, and foresight, are key sim country skills and are also a fair consideration. especially when explained.

all factors can be considered, income per corporate worker, income per total work force, income to cost, any thing a player is proud off, lets talk about. but keep in mind, their are many ways to look at a country. lets take a look

also, lets limit this, for simplicity, to main countries, how ever, empire strats are fair to consider

Josias Jorvick
aka Orbiter

i'll start,

13 Orbiter Level 6 Dream Land 8811 WR 34 FR 1


so #1 Financial rank, i'd bet many would be interested in this, and it will become clear with discussion, but confusing with lecture. It is essentially income to cost. that means i have the lowest cost to income ratio. not necessarily the most profit, or most robust econ, how ever...

Jan 8 3575 LU
Total Income 478,232.67M SC$
Total Cost 175,018.37M SC$
Profit / Shortage 303,214.30M SC$

Financial Index 237.50

I congratulate Orbiter for bringing up this issue, and for ranking #1 in the financial index. As an econ player, I always considered it my favorite index.

(Income/Cost)*100=Financial Index. Income and cost represent averages over a period of time.

The financial index has simplicity and elegance. It's public and very accessible. Most importantly, it's a useful operational guide, considering that most players are beginners and econ players.

My favorite strategy for getting a high financial index was to employ as many engineers as possible. They pay so much income tax that most of my country income would come from citizen tax. That preponderance of citizen tax revenue also provided a great hedge against recessions.

Orbiter mentioned elsewhere that being able to weather a stormy economy is an important skill. True, and the strategy of high citizen tax achieves that.

However, I've always said that the only index that matters is the Personal Fun Index. This game allows players plenty of room for exploration and invention. No one strategy has a monopoly on fun. Each player should dance happily to his or her own tune.

Had to make some military considerations recently. My main would be war rank 1 except that my 9 slaves occupy the top 9 spots. Taking into account the cost of both our militaries (70 billion vs. 23.5 billion), you have about $20 billion more profit (237.5 billion vs. 303 billion) at the moment with 10 million more corporate employees.

I have added 3 million corporate employees in the last 18 months and as those corps upgrade, and some industry sectors recover, it should be interesting to revisit. I did find out that the game stops counting your country asset total when you reach $2500 Trillion though, so there is that.

Madoff

The PFI is certainly the best factor, and can be only measured by each player...

when you say high income tax, my experience, is that high income tax from workers, also measures into high costs, in terms of "weathering the storm" lower costs prevail when corporate income falters...


Aries...

you are an excellent player, the recent game changes have favored you, over me. so this considered, i'm fully aware that i must make drastic changes to my country, to maintain my income advantage? our income difference fluctuates, but most the time i make up the difference in military cost, and about 7-8% probably over all

my thought on for both, is low salaries, i run 160, just for levels, but if i could, i'd run 100, it has always seemed the most efficient

You have had an advantage the last 3-4 weeks since the market got shaky in a number of sectors at once. Namely, services, HTS, electronic components, software, and chemicals. At least some will recover very soon.

Game changes? You mean with HLWs? That loosened bottleneck has helped me grow Garrote and Candinnalm. I now think younger demographics, combined with high pop, has something to do with it. I still find myself converting a few teachers/nurses but it is far easier now. Garrotte, in particular, will soon grow to be a new economic powerhouse. It has 54 new corps in the process of upgrading.

Talking about weathering, I found an excellent time to invest all this investment fund cash brought on by my worker growth. Must have put down about $12 trillion in struggling public corps. That should pay off on the near future.

amoung other steps to avoid the bottle neck, i would build different corps, you could build a corp that makes 1.5B a GM, while i would build 2 corps that would make make 0.9B, i built allot of different stuff, and some of the higher profit corps, but allot of low or mid range stuff, and it allowed me to employ a larger worker force, while you where being held back from HLWs.

that has changed now, and i'm going to have to rework my corp build strat, some corps like plastics, (which use half the number of HLW that a computer corp will,) are doing so well i'll probably keep them, but i'm gonna have to switch out most of my agg and food corps for a heavier tech and industry based econ

i have 20 cattle feed corps, because they use 8K HLWs, i could build 3-4 of them compaired to a tech corp, but they also make allot less profit. i'll need to switch out things like that to keep up

our total corp profit has been in the same-ish ball park, with Candinnalm making more, and clearly more per corp, prior to the update, Dream Land had about 108%-ish total corps compaired to Candinnalm, and a little less total corp profit.

like i said, the ability to adjust to game challenges and changes is an important skill.

i'm also going to need to increase my education index, i'm doubting that the 120 i've been running is going to be robust enough to handle the load

ok aries, you've had many chances to avoid this, now its time for an apology, you took advantage of my country's situation, to win arguments, and my shock of your twist to my words,

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Your posts that attempted to link the entirety of government costs to salaries on the thread analyzing Sim-citizen wage data were simply absurd. -aries<!-/Quote-!>

its time for you to retract your statements, as you can no longer win an argument, based on country performance, nor my surprise at such an awefull twist to what i said.

You appear to be wrong on both counts. First, that statement had nothing to do with country performance. Trying to state as factual that all that is needed to make a point on salaries, particularly corporate salaries, is to post the total of government costs could not be more false.

Second, I can win many arguments on country performance. My main performs very favorably with yours. In addition, while you try to match your best efforts with my main, my empire has an embarrassing advantage in wealth generation over any other empire, anywhere. I'll share a new stat that any player can attempt to match. In 5 weeks, I have added $700 Trillion in cash (not counting my military adds) to my assets. All econ. No wars. Any takers?

to say that lowering salaries, lowers cost, is a stand alone statement, its like saying if i drop a rock in the water, it sinks to the bottom. its a true statement, that does not need to be accompanied by mentioning the splash, the ripples, or the scared fish, in order for it to be true. those other things a 2 year old could observe

to say, lowering salaries, lowers cost, does not require a complete discourse of every cost, for the statement to be true, and it is dishonest, to assert the simple statement as false, because it does not address every factor.

you certainly have a great empire, but when we are discussing econ, and i say lowering salaries, reduces cost, more than income, this is evident with the fact that my country now makes 10-15% more per Game month. this last month i made 29% more, and it still isn't at full speed, my HI is now where it should be, but my country and corporate welfare are still recovering.

but you are right, your empire is way better than mine, hands down, if you want that to be the comparison, then i have no game. i'm unable to buy enough pop to match you, and i refuse to use your pop exploit. i've thought about it a few times, even started setting up to do it, but i just couldn't bring myself to do it, i don't need to break a game feature to have a great empire, and have fun, i'm happy with what i got.

As general as you were, you were not that general. Does lowering salaries lower costs? Sure, but which costs? You made the argument that government costs were a "significant" reason for your salary policy. If I lower my CEO salaries does it affect my country government costs? You can spend time arguing costs are lowered but you did not make the case how lowering salaries has a substantive, or even significant, affect on government costs. The fact is that corporate salaries, which include 78% of your workforce, do not even show up on that side of a country ledger, at all.

As far as pop, I am not aware of any "exploiting" going on. Sure, I buy pop. Yes, I pay attention to country demographics and use that info to plan where I want to buy pop and where I wish to transfer pop too and away from. No game features have been "broken" in this process.

you can compare our social security costs

Candinnalm
Social Security Payments 32,445.24M SC$
Payment %73
Number of retired People 18,201,639
Number of disabled People 6,835,784
Number of unemployed People 3,358,993
Total on SSI 28,396,416


Dream Land
Social Security Payments 28,907.02M SC$
Payment %91
Number of retired People 20,197,238
Number of disabled People 9,769,880
Number of unemployed People 3,954,633
Total on SSI 33,921,751

so, my cost is 89% of yours, but i pay 25% higher (18 points,) and have 20% more people on SSI. This is because of my lower wages.

Dream Land, General Cost of Government 57,376.14M SC$
Candinnalm, General Cost of Government 58,996.47M SC$

our country governement costs are similar, however...

Dream Land, Consumption Quality Index 323.33
Candinnalm, Consumption Quality Index 204.56

so my lower salaries, largely compensates for my higher consumption quality, in the case of government costs.

This becomes more evident with we look closely at the transportation index.

Candinnalm, Transportation Index 131.38
Transportation System 13,341.93M SC$
Dream Land, Transportation Index 123.08
Transportation System 7,149.73M SC$

while you have a 7% higher index, you have an 87% higer cost? the explaination is in the consumption.

Candinnalm
Road Maintenance 4,369.24M SC$ 200Q
Traintracks maintenance 2,817.25M SC$ 199Q
Water maintenance 4,746.57M SC$ 201Q

DreamLand
Road Maintenance 2,493.89M SC$ 122Q
Traintracks maintenance 1,612.30M SC$ 122Q
Water maintenance 2,697.70M SC$ 122Q

So while my salaries reduce costs, my 324 overall consumption Quality raises government costs, while my 60% quality of transportation maintenance greatly reduces my cost.

Its called Country ASQ, a modified version of the old school Corporate ASQ. I buy most things at max quality, increasing some costs, which are already low from my salaries, while i buy key supplies low to surgically reduce specific costs.

this also works with Health care related supplies. Used to work with military supplies, but i'm not sure about that any more. the GM have been changing things to be weighted more on the total cost, rather than volume, but it still works.

and thats the point of the rock, aries, in a casual discussion, its not neccessary to go into such detail, to make such a statement, if we are "discussing," and i make a statement that you want expanded, you can do so, or ask for such, rather than take the approach the statement is untrue with out these other factors considered.

its a no brainer that lower salaries lower cost, its business 101, and is a stand alone statement. that should have been expanded on, rather than attacked

Buying things like road maintenance at lower quality does nothing but dress up your profit and loss page. You don't actually save money but you can confuse players who are not familiar with how the finance page works.

Oh, and has nothing to do with salaries.

So far you explained how our social security and government costs are nearly identical while you dress up your transportation costs by buying low quality maintenance. Was this supposed to make a point about how salaries were a "significant" reason for a difference in government costs? If there is a no-brainer here, I am not finding it and I am cheating (by using my brain).

for one, social security is entirely based on salaries, while 90-95% of the total trans cost is material.

we've established that lower salaries, means lower cost, so what makes our government cost virtually the same? by looking closely at different indexes that have different cost bases, we can see, that my higher consumption quality, adds cost, that my lower salaries offset.

this plays true with country welfare. the country consumption index, contributes to the country welfare. so by lowering corporate salaries, and buying high quality country supplies, you can offset a chunk of the reduced production, do to lower wages. much of this is already offset at a country level, lowering the cost of salaries at the corporate level, reduces costs, while still maintaining a high amount of production.

Candin Chemicals
Profit Last Month 1,215.05M SC$
Production Last Month 2,368,976.86
Products Sold 3,789.61M SC$
Total Corporate Cost 2,569.47M SC$
Welfare Index 128.05
Corporate Salaries 400

Candin Chemicals 2
Profit Last Month 1,247.71M SC$
Production Last Month 2,368,976.86
Products Sold 3,825.33M SC$
Total Corporate Cost 2,573.46M SC$
Welfare Index 128.05
Corporate Salaries 400

Dream Land
Agusta Chemicals
Profit Last Month 1,415.55M SC$
Production Last Month 2,149,964.93
Products Sold 3,465.94M SC$
Total Corporate Cost 2,045.17M SC$
Welfare Index 116.21
Corporate Salaries 160

Verdan Chemicals
Profit Last Month 1,439.72M SC$
Production Last Month 2,149,964.93
Products Sold 3,492.49M SC$
Total Corporate Cost 2,053.60M SC$
Welfare Index 116.21
Corporate Salaries 160

now a couple of "qualifying statements," need to be made. first, our country welfare are very similar, 130 aries, to 131 me. how ever, my country country welfare just reached this level, and is still climbing, and my corporate welfare is still climbing, neither one have maxed out, so my corps will be more productive, with the same cost, but the comparison atm, works.

Both of aries corps in the example, have 10-ish % more production, and sales, amounting to 0.3-0.35B more sales, but my total costs, of 0.5B-ish lower, more than make up the difference.

so my salaries, of 40% his, give me 10% less production, but 20% total lower costs, gives me about 15% higher profit...

over all, my lower salaries, compensate for high cost supplies, at a country level, and reduce a large portion of the costs at a corporate level, while the higher quality country supplies, counters much of the sting of lower wages.

i don't think that is necessary to compare 370-380 corps individually. the ones i picked where all country controlled public corps.

Here is the comment you made, to restate.

"here is the significant reason of the difference of wages.

Total Country cost
Candinnalm (country #1)
Total Income and Cost 525,610.16M SC$ Total Income 228,086.08M SC$ Total cost
Profit / Shortage 297,524.08M SC$

Dream Land (country #2)
Total Income and Cost 465,117.76M SC$ Total Income 166,187.66M SC$ Total cost
Profit / Shortage 298,930.10M SC$

so you can see, that the higher salaries, raise the running costs. but does not necessarily increase income"

So far, you mentioned the following to try to explain this.

1. Our social security costs are within $4 Billion of each other.

2. "our country government costs are similar"

3. "90-95% of the total trans cost is material"

4. Look at this corporation data.


I am pleased we are finally looking at corporation data. I am interested how that data has anything to do with the COSTS SIDE of the finance page "Profit & Loss" ledger. I am starting to believe you don't actually know how the finance page works.

Until then, yes, I still stand by my quote. You posted it above.

Your posts that attempted to link the entirety of government costs to salaries on the thread analyzing Sim-citizen wage data were simply absurd. -aries

I take full credit for that. It is true.

well, you know, aries... considering that my country is totally out preforming yours, on the financial page and at the corporation level...


i'd have to say that i'm not the absurd one that doesn't get it.

On the corporate data itself, I looked at Candin Chemicals and Agusta Chemicals. I am a game month later but lets look at YTD data.


Candin Chemicals

Products Sold 19,098.78M
Salaries Paid 3,366.86M
Raw Materials Used 6,945.46M
Fixed Property Costs 1,832.79M
Maintenance Products Used 732.66M
Interest on Loans 0.00M
Country Resources used 0.00M
Total Income 19,098.78M
Total Cost 12,877.77M
Profit 6,221.01M

Agusta Chemicals

Products Sold 17,461.97M
Salaries Paid 1,352.02M
Raw Materials Used 5,894.65M
Fixed Property Costs 1,835.93M
Maintenance Products Used 1,159.46M
Interest on Loans 0.00M
Country Resources used 0.00M
Total Income 17,461.97M
Total Cost 10,242.06M
Profit 7,219.91M


Some other data i would consider

Candinnalm

Total Income of all Workers this month 470880.16M SC$
Taxes paid by Citizens 115,133.15M SC$
Taxes as a % of wages 24.5%
Health Contributions 31,367.73M SC$
Health Contributions as a % of wages 6.7%
Education Contributions 13,784.30M SC$
Education Contributions as a % of wages 2.9%
(IF) New Contributions by the Population 11,443M SC$
(IF) New Contributions by the Population as a % of wages 2.4%

Dream Land

Total Income of all Workers this month 311599.10M SC$
Taxes paid by Citizens 62,895.15M SC$
Taxes as a % of wages 20.2%
Health Contributions 20,047.28M SC$
Health Contributions as a % of wages 6.4%
Education Contributions 8,126.41M SC$
Education Contributions as a % of wages 2.6%
(IF) New Contributions by the Population 4,464M SC$
(IF) New Contributions by the Population as a % of wages 1.4%

Back to the corps. It appears I have a choice of either:

1. 999M SC$ more profit.

or

2. 2015M SC$ more wages. In my country, this seems to average about an extra 494M SC$ in country income tax, 135M SC$ in health contributions, 58M SC$ in education contributions, and 48M SC$ in new investment fund contributions.

A lot closer than looking at just profit would tell. There are a few other differences such as my corp has a smaller workforce and your corp saved just over 1000M SC$ on material costs over the same period.

As an empire, I am the U.S. and you are Japan. You are trying to edge me on stats by comparing Tokyo to New York City. If you succeed, well, you are still Japan.

999M compaired to 36.5% more contributions of 2015M income... equals 735M income....

hmmm, so you think that paying more to have an extra income of 735m is better than paying less to have an extra 999M

who is absurd?

and i was wondering if you'd go to the health and education

the difference in cost to pop contributions, of your HI, is 25.2, while mine is 18.3, thats a 37% difference in bottom line cost.

you have 2882 hospitals, to my 2800 even

you have 3% more hospitals, but a 37% higher bottom line cost.

do you think that i might be on to something? isn't their a theme here? my corps make higher profit, than your income tax can compensate for, while my lower salaries largely keep country costs low

Candinnalm
Total Income and Cost
544,414.83M SC$ Total Income
259,470.61M SC$ Total cost
61,741.65M SC$ Total cost of defence
modified cost, minus defence, 197.8B

Dream Land
Total Income and Cost
550,213.26M SC$ Total Income
177,890.19M SC$ Total cost
26,562.76M SC$ Total cost of defence
modified cost, minus defence, 151.3B

by my method, i have 6B more total income, but 46B less cost, for a total +52B more profit

Same stat, YTD

Candinnalm
Total Income 3,234,385.90M SC$
Total Cost 1,570,070.68M SC$
Total Defense Cost 382,605.07M SC$
Modified Cost 1,187.4B
YTD modified Profit 2,046.9B
divided by 7 months, 292.4B

Dream Land
Total Income 3,267,082.39M SC$
Total Cost 1,078,092.66M SC$
Total Defense Cost 163,053.94M SC$
Modified Cost 915B
YTD modified Profit 2,352B
divided by 7 months, 336B

thats 43.6B more profit per game month, or 15% higher profit

i hit the HI first, because its more straight forward than the EI.

for EI, you have 25%-ish higher index, but thats not really a fair way to look at it. at a glance, you have about 45-50% more schools

for both of us, we each have the 3 sub-indexes lined up, with one point of each other, 154-155 for you, and 126-127 for me.

for simplicity purposes, i'll use universities. 155 to my 127.

Candinnalm has 614 Universities, to Dream Land's 446, or 37% more

Candinnalm
Education Contributions and Cost
13,759.65M SC$ Spending on education
36,454.08M SC$ Cost of education
22.7B difference in contributions to cost

Dream Land
Education Contributions and Cost
8,143.69M SC$ Spending on education
20,382.95M SC$ Cost of education
12.3B difference in contributions to cost

so Candinnalm has 37% more Universities, but an 84% higher bottom line cost...

your certainly welcome to look into that further, because i'm not sure just comparing universities is fair. i just picked an easy way

but even with a higher amount, its going to be difficult to compensate for 84% higher bottom line cost.

Your first post does not take into consideration that there was a difference of over $1B in material costs. Your comment remains absurd.

On hospitals. You are dressing up this cost like you are transportation. Again, there is no actual savings here. I am sorry if I am ruining your chance to fool people who are not actually familiar with how the finance page works.

Candinnalm

Medical Equipment 11,850.27M SC$ 201
Medical Materials 3,039.09M SC$ 195
Pharmaceutical Products 5,564.50M SC$ 200

Dream Land

Medical Equipment 7,105.86M SC$ 123
Medical Materials 1,880.91M SC$ 123
Pharmaceutical Products 3,342.00M SC$ 122

Salaries have nothing to do with this^^^


Yay, we are on to education. Hitting all these government costs actually looking for salary savings. So, lets look at actual employment.

Candinnalm

Employed Teachers 6,553,290
Teacher Salary 24,320
Teacher Monthly Salary 2,027
University Teachers 1,242,300
University Teachers Salary 33,280
U Teacher Monthly Salary 2,773

Dream Land

Employed Teachers 4,362,600
Teacher Salary 12,160
Teacher Monthly Salary 1,013
University Teachers 931,220
University Teachers Salary 16,640
U Teacher Monthly Salary 1,387


So, how much could I save with your salaries?

6,553,290 teachers * Monthly Salary Difference (2,027-1,013)= $6.65 Billion

1,242,300 u teachers * Monthly Salary Difference (2,773 - 1,387)= $1.72 Billion

Teacher Savings 6.65 + U Teacher Savings = $8.37 Billion

Again, does this mean I would net $8.37 Billion if I lowered salaries? Of course not. Salaries buy and pay for things. Your original comment remains absurd because we have found more dressing up on government material costs on your part than we have salary savings.

Profit and Loss on the finance page is simply a tool. It is not a perfect one. It does not actually measure a change of cash situation on a monthly basis. All this actually occurs on the Cash YTD page.

This exercise has shown just how substantial material costs figure into the costs side of government costs. I actually do, much, better than Profit & Loss would indicate. In particular, Profit & Loss calculates the use of products on a monthly basis based on their CURRENT market price.

Here is an example:

Def Weapons Maintenance 5,447.92M SC$ 304

This is found under "Spending" on the finance page and a cost reflected on Profit & Loss. It is calculated by multiplying the qua 3.04 * current market price 20,629 * units expended 86,971 = $5.45 Billion.

Did I spend $5.45 Billion on Def Weapons Maintenance this month? Of course not. I lost 86,971 units of Def Weapons Maintenance. Did I spend $5.45 Billion on those when I purchased them? Nope. I shipped that particular item from other worlds, where I purchased them at half the cost. This happens again and again for products I know I am going to use, whether they are measured on Profit & Loss or not. When I buy stuff "on sale" on LU, or elsewhere, I beat the Profit & Loss.

You manipulate Profit & Loss by purchasing the products measured by it at a lower quality. These products don't actually find purpose in the tool, they are simply measured. I am not sure if your goal is to fool others or yourself by doing this but, again, you don't actually save money this way.

You can dress up Profit & Loss and, if that makes you happy, go ahead. I just ask you stay off my thread with that rubbish where I am trying to teach how things work. Find your own thread where you might impress people with your Profit & Loss manipulation.