It's August 1888, I'm playing the US, and I left England behind about three years ago.
The last time there was an inflationary panic I was able to quash the rate from 5 to 0 in one turn by flooding the international market with coal, steel, chemicals, and manufactured goods -- among other items. My people thought this was a whole lot better than taxing them up the wazoo.
I've got so much money I don't know what to do with it. But since no one is producing things like coffee, sugar, or silk, I am just parachuting money and material into the local economies with little concern whether they nationalize me or not. Heaven only know what they do with the money I send them for machine parts, light bulbs, and minerals.
Oh sure. I've made some mistakes. I'll never modernize agriculture again. Most of the South, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York are in constant turmoil.
On the other hand . . .
Tonkin, Annam, and Laos have all turned into positive colonies for me. I've spiked the French in Cambodia and the Brits in Annam, and crushed the French in a short conflict they provoked. I'm at -7 for Burma, but I hope I can turn that around before 1920. Since I own the Solomons I'm messing about in New Guinea and Rabaul to irritate the Prussians. And I flatter the Cuban government in exile while bombarding the Spanish with requests for free passage. THis is beginning to sound like a Marx Brothers movie.
So . . .
Can I search for a cure for cancer?
Start the Mercury program?
Provoke the Spanish-American War a little sooner?
Find a way to pacify the plundering rioters?
Prevent WWI?
Keep making money?