Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 2, 2015 14:13:25 GMT 1
Let it be known to the party that I intend to push forward a new policy plan on Government investment in private companies.
The current size of the Treasury's liquid assets is relatively quite high, high enough to allow to budget up to 100 US$ that would form a fund overseen by the Ministry of Finance. That fund would accept requests from Talossan companies for small sums of money, roughly up to 30 US$, to be used by the company to purchase whichever asset related to their activity they wish, be it advertising space, online hosting space, domain names, physical mail sendouts to customers, et cetera.
The company would be required to submit how much money it needs and how it intends to spend the money; the Minister of Finance would then oversee the entire process and make sure the money is actually used as pledged. The Government can refuse a request if it deems the company to be untrustworthy. The Government can also sue the company if the money is not used as pledged and can request the money to be returned.
Restrictions can and will be put in place to ensure that no political party, or affiliated companies thereof, receives unfair public financing through this scheme.
I intend to have a discussion internal to the party, then following a vote incorporate this pledge into our Manifesto.
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Sevastáin Pinátsch
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Post by Sevastáin Pinátsch on May 2, 2015 23:33:21 GMT 1
The thought of AD getting one thin dime of government money makes my stomach turn.
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on May 3, 2015 0:39:05 GMT 1
What exactly are the companies we are referring to?
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Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 3, 2015 11:34:26 GMT 1
The thought of AD getting one thin dime of government money makes my stomach turn. A necessary, unavoidable evil. He's the leader of a political party, though, and my policy explicitly bans parties and party-affiliated companies from receiving any investment.
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Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 3, 2015 11:36:34 GMT 1
What exactly are the companies we are referring to? Any Talossan company, really. I hope that this will be a stimulus for new companies to be formed not only in the media sector but also as providers of online services. The days of Talossa being a nation revolving around politics would be over.
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on May 3, 2015 14:59:46 GMT 1
What exactly are the companies we are referring to? Any Talossan company, really. I hope that this will be a stimulus for new companies to be formed not only in the media sector but also as providers of online services. The days of Talossa being a nation revolving around politics would be over. Are any of these companies in existence now, or is this just an incentive for people to start companies? What media or online services do these companies provide? I'm still a little unclear.
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Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 3, 2015 17:09:48 GMT 1
Any Talossan company, really. I hope that this will be a stimulus for new companies to be formed not only in the media sector but also as providers of online services. The days of Talossa being a nation revolving around politics would be over. Are any of these companies in existence now, or is this just an incentive for people to start companies? What media or online services do these companies provide? I'm still a little unclear. The policy is not necessarily targeting existing companies and it would be very interesting to see if this could actually be an incentive - that was part of the idea of course. By media services I mean news agencies, primarily. Some other examples of targeted companies/associations could be web hosting/domain name companies offering low price hosting thanks to this fund, literature associations (el CUG shipping by mail free copies of the Guizua to its associates, costs covered by this fund), the College of Arms sending out certificates to all new armigers, the University of Talossa doing the same to all students of a course, you name it. Any company could request money for buying a domain name and/or a fancy design for its website, for having its own ADs on papers, for sending out its products by mail, for example a news company that has been reluctant to send out physical copies of its newspaper could do so una tantum by taking advantage of the fund.
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on May 3, 2015 17:45:09 GMT 1
Interesting concept. So this fund would be available to companies that provide services to Talossans, just to be clear.
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Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 3, 2015 18:08:10 GMT 1
Interesting concept. So this fund would be available to companies that provide services to Talossans, just to be clear. Of course. Talossan companies for Talossan customers.
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on May 3, 2015 20:57:35 GMT 1
If the treasury has $100, and maximum loan is $30, then the treasury could theoretically be wiped out after 4 loans. How will the treasury be replenished? Party registration costs? I hope not through taxes
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Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 3, 2015 22:08:32 GMT 1
Nope! The plan is not a law. The plan has been proposed because we have a lot of money in our virtual vaults, over 1600 US$. I guess the fund would be suspended if the money in the Treasury runs below a certain amount.
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Glüc
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Post by Glüc on May 4, 2015 0:30:10 GMT 1
First, we may not like AD, and he obviously has his flaws (though this is really not the place to discuss that), but he is a Talossan who spends a lot of time and energy trying to make Talossa a little bit better, so even if you disagree about what that means, if we're going to talk about him (or other Talossans) here, we should try to do so with some respect. Also, Im not sure what this non affiliation part would exactly entail, but Im assuming it doesnt mean all businesses lead by party members are out of bounds, cause I dont think there are many of those. Then about the plan itself, I must admit that Im not too enthousiastic about it. I'm not neccesarily opposed to the government spending money on having some project realised by a private party. Though there are a lot of things to be careful about. Government money should always be spent on that fit in the agenda of the government, we should be careful to just give money away. While I do believe that there is an important role in Talossa for private parties, when we are talking about public money there should also be some form of public oversight and it should be spent on public needs. For example when countries invest in its economy, they do so for example by spending on infrastructure or things like that, not just by giving away money to companies for private stuff. We also should be careful about the risk of corruption and clientelism. If we say we're going to support that business, because that person we like, and not that one, because that person we dont like, that would not really be acceptable. Even if the plan is done in such a way to solve these problems, if possible, I still would have my doubts about putting it in the manifesto like that, because rather than spending money on something we want, this seems more like looking for ways to spend money, because we can. Theres really no reason to go looking for ways to lose money rather than the other way round. Either way it doesnt seem very clear now what exactly what we would be spending it on. Its like saying in our manifesto: "We pledge to spend money, but we're not sure yet on what or what the results will be." Another point is that while its true we have a lot of assets at the moment, most of this money comes from party registrations I think. And that is something I thought we were planning on decreasing, so our income is probably going to decrease. Meanwhile, the web sites, which are public rather than private, are still being paid for by the King. This is something we should be taking over in the future as its not sustainable and creates uncertainty about the ownership of the websites. Just halving the Kings contribution and making sure the hosting gets fixed. (The first MRPT government try to do that, but rather unsucessfullly ) would still easily cost us more than 100$ yearly. Plus if we want to do coins its going to cost us money as well. So yeah, we have a lot of money, but that doesnt mean we should spend it all. Its not going anywhere. Finally, a more practical point is that we've already voted on the manifesto. Making such a big change, other than grammatical stuff or something is not really desirable. Even more so, because we are going to elect MC candidates soon and committing them to something that wasnt there when they were elected is a bit unfair. (Thats also why we always elect MCs after the manifesto has been decided.)
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Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 5, 2015 13:54:30 GMT 1
Government money should always be spent on that fit in the agenda of the government, we should be careful to just give money away. While I do believe that there is an important role in Talossa for private parties, when we are talking about public money there should also be some form of public oversight and it should be spent on public needs. For example when countries invest in its economy, they do so for example by spending on infrastructure or things like that, not just by giving away money to companies for private stuff. Talossa is actually very different from other countries and at the moment the only public "need" of public money is the production of coins. And what you call giving away money to companies for private stuff, I'd rather call it supporting our companies with money we wouldn't have used elsewhere. If we can afford it, let's do it - it's not a free giveaway, it's an investment. Very true. If it might be a solution, the plan could also be overseen by the BoIR together with the Ministry of Finance to add an independent component to the process. The plan is not about spending money because we can, it is about encouraging Talossans to open new companies and encouraging already existing companies to widen their horizons. And by the way the plan would also be funded by the sale of coins, when they'll be produced. There's no problem if we don't want to put it directly in the Manifesto, it's not a big deal - either way, I'd still love to have a vote on this and proceed with putting it forward if it succeeds.
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Sevastáin Pinátsch
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Post by Sevastáin Pinátsch on May 5, 2015 20:07:53 GMT 1
Would this funding only apply to companies registered as private businesses in Talossa?
When company registrations were first being called for, I submitted applications for Talossan Citizens Archive, Talossan Privacy Information Centre, Talossan Media Aggregator (etc.) to Owen. He probably received it before either MPF or AD, but he never responded. I figured I wasn't issued any numbers because each were explicitly identified as Not-For-Profit entities.
Honestly though, even not-for-profits appreciate cost-recovery monies.
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Lüc
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Post by Lüc on May 5, 2015 22:08:26 GMT 1
Would this funding only apply to companies registered as private businesses in Talossa? Any registered company, I believe. Very good (yet disturbing) point. The next MinFin (be it Owen or anyone else) will be explicitly instructed to pay more attention to registrations. This happened with Beric'ht too. Precisely and another very good point Sevastáin Pinátsch. Since the fund also aims to encourage the formation of companies, and those companies will likely largely be not-for-profit (well most of them are, at least in Talossa, I believe), the very existence of the fund could really prove extremely useful for them - way more than ordinary companies.
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