News from E3

[King]

I think the "British" refers to the ethnicity of the investing POP rather than to which country it lives in.

yeh

 

[Sovereign]

Why do Capis invest anyway, they don't get a share of profits from RR (who would pay? I have suggestions but Paradox want to battle on without my benevolent guidance ) maybe they would from Factories but I doubt it.

This means probably they can only invest in their own nations and not internationally, because in the end they do get a share of the profits these investments yield for their nation...

Basically Vicky2 nations are all like Nation ltd...

(or perhaps that's Nation plc?)

 

[Baneslave]

Why do Capis invest anyway, they don't get a share of profits from RR (who would pay? I have suggestions but Paradox want to battle on without my benevolent guidance ) maybe they would from Factories but I doubt it.

From DD6:

We have also made several changes to how the economy works. Firstly, as we have already mentioned, POPs get money based on what they do. Thus, workers in a factory get paid based on the profits from the factory. The factory earns profits, which, in true socialist fashion, are divided up amongst the workers and Capitalists in the state (based on a formula we are currently tweaking and balancing.)

Also, the reason why capitalist want to invest in railways is the fact that railways increase factory efficiency.

 

[DiLune]

So, did the Rail Barons purchase industry or were they industrialists first?

Either way, yeah, they have a vested interest in getting their goods distributed as quickly and cheaply as possible. Time being money, investing in railways should (and apparently will) abstractly increase factory production.

 

[Israel Hands]

Can you have Public Private Partnerships in projects (with the appropriate government type)? eg, a railway is started by a capitalist, but the National Bank can be an 'investor' as well?

Going on from that, could a capitalist who is building a factory raise money for the construction of the factory by issuing shares in the factory? Everyone who buys those shares (I would imagine National Banks and Capitalists from other countries) could then get a set dividend over time. Factories that produce items in high demand would sell more shares, and be built more quickly.

From there it's only a short jump to companies and a basic share market in the game. That would be the best game ever.

 

[Alexander Seil]

That would be expansion material. Incidentally I just thought of the same thing, today, too - although in my mind the gimmick ought to be foreign investment by private parties (with resulting wars when the factories built get nationalized or something...). That naturally ties in with having domestic joint stock companies, as well.

 

[Autonomous]

Why do Capis invest anyway, they don't get a share of profits from RR (who would pay? I have suggestions but Paradox want to battle on without my benevolent guidance ) maybe they would from Factories but I doubt it.

Tangentially related, but there's this interesting bit in Hobsbawm's Age of Revolutions where he talks about real-life RR investment during the period and how it was essentially irrational- they never turned a profit, but people kept throwing money at them anyway. Something about there being such vast quantities of capital floating around at the time and RR projects being the only thing that could absorb it all.

 

[JoeGiavani]

Tangentially related, but there's this interesting bit in Hobsbawm's Age of Revolutions where he talks about real-life RR investment during the period and how it was essentially irrational- they never turned a profit, but people kept throwing money at them anyway. Something about there being such vast quantities of capital floating around at the time and RR projects being the only thing that could absorb it all.

The railways have never been profitable. I read in a book recently that if you got rid of railways and replaced them with high-speed motorways, freight costs would be drastically reduced, private business and the government would save billions of pounds.
That's only true in Britain though, when you have a large country with railways thousands of miles long (ie USA) they become profitable.

 

[VikingKing]

The railways have never been profitable. I read in a book recently that if you got rid of railways and replaced them with high-speed motorways, freight costs would be drastically reduced, private business and the government would save billions of pounds.
That's only true in Britain though, when you have a large country with railways thousands of miles long (ie USA) they become profitable.

I believe it fails to take into account various things.

First off if you take away rail transport, which is inefficient due to inefficient technologies being used in commercial transport, then you have to add that many trucks and vehicles to transport the goods.

You would have to spend a lot of money going through areas which are protected in order to build these highways. Then you would still have to expand them to an extent that would handle the increased traffic. If not you would have a massive increase in traffic.

Not to mention the increased gas consumption leading to higher gas prices and the increase number of traffic accidents and deaths due to the increased number of people on the road.

Even then rail wasn't surpassed by motor transport in speed and efficiency until maybe 30 years ago.