Another US Question

[kentcol]

Sorry to ask so much, but, I flunked all my economics classes and no nothing about economics. That being said, how do I make money as the US? Not private capital but state capital. I just hover between 100 and 130 and never seem to make anything. Some ideas for the ignorant please!

[Jim-NC]

The easiest way is to get some gold mines and "monetize" it. You have a button on the upper right in the F4 screen, and it converts gold and gems into state money. You press this to take some of your gold stockpile and have it change to state money. But beware, if you do it too long, you get inflation. You can do it every other or every 3rd turn for a long time without inflation.

You get an event that adds gold to your stockpile, and you can make mines in Sacramento, and the region with Carson City.

[kentcol]

Thanks again, Jim. I've built a few gold mines but I never knew about that button.

[enf91]

In my experience, the bit with inflation is not quite true. I coined money for about 15 years and inflation stayed at -2% (subsidies) for a long time. It started picking up when I upgraded all my gold mines to gold pits and started converting something like 80 units every turn. Even after a Prussian monetary crisis, inflation peaked at 9% (it's around 1868 now).

[vonduus]

Can I get rid of inflation, or reduce it? My treasure has gone to zero a couple of times.

Also, in F4 there is a loans summary. How do I get a loan? I'd rather pay interest than have inflation.

[loki100]

there are intermittent events that take -1 off it (economic sunrise or similar?), the end of a world wide economic crisis will see it drop as well (but then the crisis will have pushed it up) and the decisions that allow you to trade state cash for coal etc (but they tend not to be available after the 1850s, at least that has been my experience).

So you are sort of stuck with it. Best strategy is not to let it go up (too little private capital for a round of transactions, converting gold etc) when you have control and then just accept the random fluctuations. I'm not sure it is that crippling if you have a well constructed economy as its shortages of goods not private or state cash that tends to inhibit my economic development programmes.

[Jim-NC]

If it gets bad enough, and you have the right tech, a button will appear that lets you drop some inflation (IIRC, it has to be above 10% inflation, and lowers it around 5%). Otherwise, as Loki100 says, there are 3 buttons that allow you to pay state money for coal, steel or mfg goods (I think those are the 3). To use this button, you need to have stocks below a certain threshold at a certain turn during the year (again, IIRC, you must have below 100 units on hand of the good sometime in the spring of the year). Or youcan await economic sunrise events (random die roll each turn, can lower inflation 1% each time).

It's not a quick process to lower, but it can be done.

[Sherman]

I don;t much care for inflation (since I remember the 70's), so I am careful about monetizing gold once that becomes a steady problem.

What I do is wait till gold production lapses into wastage and corruption (which you can see with the F4 button), and then I draw it down for a few turns.

Don't over-develop the Sierra or Winnemucca gold fields because they will become very discontented once they are linked contiguously to the rest of the country after the Civil War. Four gold fields will be plenty in the Sierra.

Be very careful of over-developing your staple food supplies (fish, cereals, cattle) and other basic resources (iron, minerals, nitrates, logging) because they will suck up chemicals, machine parts, steel, and coal that you will want for making higher value products. If you build those out before they upgrade you can look forward to exporting the surpluses for years to come and then upgrade or build updated facilities as you feel the need. You don't have to know econ, but a little history will help. The "good old days" in the US weren't all beer and pretzels. Wikipedia has nice articles on the Grant administration and the long depression the last time I looked.

If you have managed your economy carefully, you may be able to drive down inflation in the 80's and 90's by dumping large amounts of goods (coal, steel, electric parts, manufactured goods, supply, munitions) onto the market. None-the-less, depending on the economic events, your people may be discontented as all get out. But managing discontent in the US is another thread.