On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 6:02 PM James Cook via agora-discussion <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > On Mon, 18 May 2020 at 05:40, Aris Merchant via agora-discussion > <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > Here's a proto I tossed together in an evening for a budget system. > > This could, in theory, be adopted now and wouldn't particularly do > > very much apart from allowing for funding of special projects (though > > it would allow for a somewhat absurd amount of funding; I imagine most > > of it would go to rebates). This makes more sense if we're going to > > require all officers to make the payments for the things they need > > (e.g. rewards, paydays) out of incoming funds, creating a potential > > need for taxes. This goes well with economically focused gameplay. > > It's perfectly compatible with sets stuff since coins are still going > > to be somewhat important as the precursor for specialized currencies. > > Presumably, we'd want to allow for some coins to enter the market > > *somewhere*, to allow for healthy inflation. > > > > I won't be too offended if this isn't well-received. I think it's > > interesting to consider though, at least as an option. > > > > -Aris > > I had been thinking it would be fun to restrict the creation of Coins > and see what kind of dynamics develop. I like your proposal.
Thank you! The most important point is to make it so the system can realistically and consistently raise the funds it needs to operate. In the past, we've sometimes created such systems without doing that. In the past, we once tried to raise funds via proposal fees that decreased when Agora was running low on cash (the theory being that that increased volume would more than compensate for decreased prices). It was an absolute nightmare. I had to do 20 proposal distributions *two weeks in a row,* after the pending price dropped down to like 1. *shuts eyes* Anyhow, the taxing thing is an absolute necessity if we're going to try such a balanced budget system. Something else I just decided; to even out the funds from month to month, it probably makes sense to allow the Prime Minister (or maybe the Treasuror or another office?) to set a rollover of up to 50% of the remaining funds. I do like the "use it or lose it" element, but there should probably be some adjustment for the fact that months may have wildly different revenues. That'll also smooth things out for the first few months until we get everything set up since Agora is coming into this with a huge stockpile of cash. > One nitpick: I found your Budget Regulations rule a bit confusing, > since it refers to budgets as absolute amounts of money without > specifying a frequency. Is the attention that the numbers get fixed > each time a Tabulation of the Budget is reported, and limit the amount > that can be appropriated until the next Tabulation of the Budget? Uhhh... TBH I didn't think that through, but your model makes the most sense. To the extent I thought about it, I figured it was going to be per month. But making it per Tabulation makes more sense because that way everyone knows what each budget is at the beginning of each budget period. So I'll do that. Oh, one other random note I thought I should explain. The tax code deliberately treats zombies as people for some purposes and not for others. I let each zombie still have a personal withholding, both because I wanted to give zombie masters some advantages and because I think it creates intresting risk-reward dynamics around whether to leave zombies with funds (which they get to keep if they become active). However, I did not let zombies receive rebates. I do not think it is intresting to tie zombies to that sort of concrete payout. It would end up doubling an individual's rebate, which could add up to a lot of money, encouraging people to bid a ton for zombies just to sit on rebates. This proposal actually came out of me reading the latest Treasuror's report and noticing that Agora had an absurd amount of savings that were just sitting there. I wrote the rebate mechanic as a way to get those funds back into circulation, but then it occurred to me that it didn't make sense to have tax rebates without taxes. The entire budget system came out of that. -Aris
