NFing Clergy is useless!?!?! you have to be way behind in tech? I play multiplayer so I'm aware that your strategy is very noncompetitive. It might work fine when playing against the AI as Russia (who has a lot of leeway) but it's far from the most ideal strategy.also forget NF'ing clergy...its useless. the only NF's I did was a mix over time of craftsmen, bureaucrats, clerks, and capitalists. officers a bit in the beginning to get the leadership up.
Rich taxes shouldn't matter for clergy, so whatever you need to set it at to balance the budget. Since all you need for poor pops to promote to clergy is for them to be meeting their life needs I'm not sure you really need low tariffs either. I've been playing with maximum tariffs with no problem, although I do have the southern Chinese states sphered, so that is a pretty big supply of agricultural products they have for their needs within my own sphere.
Rich taxes on high unless you are trying to give capitalists more money. The tariffs might be a little voodoo on my part. Watching the pop promotion I've not seen tariffs have an effect. But, it should follow that lowering tariffs or switching to subsidies would reduce the cost of needs for your pops allowing them to meet their needs easier. I know that tariffs have an effect on capitalists getting money for investment and factory profitability.
Edit:
1% Bureaucrats of your national culture is ideal for promotion and I believe it relates to NF promotion only but I'm not sure. Nonaccepted culture bureacrats don't matter.
I've heard that sphering China can crash the world economy and I've seen the world economy crash but I can't say for sure whether sphering China caused it nor why it would cause it.
Maybe someone could clarify these issues further