Feedback needed : Should cities be allowed to invest surplus cash in deposits / bonds?

[David]

Would you mind sharing a sneakpeak of what's to come in 6.2? Very much looking forward to it, especially with holiday around the corner!

Hi Jason, this is one of the improvements: http://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewto ... =52&t=7119

[David]

And this one too: http://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewto ... 532#p29532

[JasonLJJ]

Awesome. I just responded to the thread about the need to let mayors remove the mansions owned by other NPC too.

Looking forward to 6.2, the insurance update and ideally it would be great to see my suggestion included too.

Jason

[David]

Hi Jason,

V6.2.00 has just been released. http://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewto ... =52&t=7160

Here is another new feature in this version: Stock Split. For details, please see: https://www.capitalismlab.com/banking-dlc/stock-split/

[JasonLJJ]

Just saw and downloading! I look forward to my suggestion being implemented

[David]

Please be informed that we found that there is a bug in version 6.2.00 that seriously affects the profitability of banks caused by the new options for handling insufficient bank capital ratio.

We have just released an updated version 6.2.01 that fixes the bug. Please download it from: http://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewto ... =52&t=7160

[David]

Hi Jason, with version 6.2.00 now completed, I was able to ask the dev team about this suggestion of yours.

The dev team have the following concerns about it:
>This feature is not easy to implement. In fact, it would be time consuming as it involves lots of underlying coding. For all suggestions, the amount resources needed for implementation is a **very major** factor of consideration.

>There are not sufficient bonds in the market for AI to buy. In fact, the AI is now coded to deliberately not using all their cash to buy bonds for the fear that the player will be left with no bonds to buy if the AI buy them without reservations. Having the city government buying bonds would escalate the problem. So it is very likely that the city will not be able to use this function in reality despite the large amount of time and resources that it will take to implement.

The above are the key concerns. There are other concerns as well:

>City government in real life are prohibited from buying junk bonds (also called high yield bonds), which could be the majority of corporate bonds in the bond market in the game.

>If you find that city governments are constantly running low in funds, you could easily lower the Public Expenses Index on the new game setting menu. Gameplay wise, that wouldn't make much of a difference than providing a new means (e.g. bonds) to the city government for making interest incomes on their cash pile, as far as their profit/loss bottomline is concerned.

On the other hand, the dev team like your suggestions about the central government. Those are very interesting ideas. Let's discuss more!

1) Defense = Annual auction for defense contracts in each of the major areas such as Airforce, Navy, Army, Cybersecurity,
2) Education = Government contract for books + digital solutions; online education; tutors
3) Healthcare = Expand on the types of drugs available + medical equipment + allow players to own and operate hospitals for profit
4) Interest rate + banking regulatory changes (eg. change bank capital ratio)

It would be great if elections could affect the level of private sector involvement in various industries (gov decides how many hospitals / schools firms get to build; level of profitability) so winning an election or supporting your candidate is crucial to winning the game

[JasonLJJ]

Thank you David. I appreciate the effort in getting the response from the dev team.

I would be happy to contribute to the discussion for the new DLC for "My Nation" - when do you think you can have a prototype version of it / enter early access / pre-sale mode? I think this time, rather than have people sign up, it would make sense to just sell early access versions of the game to the community to provide input as you guys develop it.

Separately, I think the concerns around the bond purchasing makes sense. However, I think there should be a mechanism to sweep the surplus cash governments have on hand back into the economy - perhaps that capital can be added to the total deposits available in that city, in proportion to the number of branches in the bank? I think this will serve to provide a safety net for weak banks (ensuring that the banking business isn't a "winner takes all" situation) while ensuring the government is earning some return on the investment.

For the "My Nation" DLC, I think it would be great if the mayor of each city could be able to conduct "Fiscal stimulus" (Just a simple event like declaring special dividend) that boosts consumer spending; this would allow the economy to get a boost during times of recession

[JasonLJJ]

On a separate note, I think that insurers should be able to deposit their money into banks. I took a look at the sneakpeek at the prototype and it looks really interesting! Creating a separate account for insurance funds is a great idea.

Now we just need to fix global stock market and I think we will be great! David, is there a link to a thread where I can share some thoughts on the global stock market?

[David]

I would be happy to contribute to the discussion for the new DLC for "My Nation" - when do you think you can have a prototype version of it / enter early access / pre-sale mode? I think this time, rather than have people sign up, it would make sense to just sell early access versions of the game to the community to provide input as you guys develop it.

I will ask the dev team about these questions and get back to you. But we first need to come up with a concrete design for the Nation Sim and get the community's support (to ensure that the dev team will be working on a DLC that people really want.)

Separately, I think the concerns around the bond purchasing makes sense. However, I think there should be a mechanism to sweep the surplus cash governments have on hand back into the economy - perhaps that capital can be added to the total deposits available in that city, in proportion to the number of branches in the bank? I think this will serve to provide a safety net for weak banks (ensuring that the banking business isn't a "winner takes all" situation) while ensuring the government is earning some return on the investment.

This is a good point and it seems that it will complement the Nation Sim ideas.

For the "My Nation" DLC, I think it would be great if the mayor of each city could be able to conduct "Fiscal stimulus" (Just a simple event like declaring special dividend) that boosts consumer spending; this would allow the economy to get a boost during times of recession

Yes, I saw that in your other post and I think it is a very good idea.