NationStates

I've been playing this game for quite a while now but I don't remember ever seeing an issue that raised Wealth Gaps without affecting both Income of the Poor and Income of the Rich at the same time ie: the wealth gap is made larger by making the poor poorer and the rich richer. Why is that so? Wealth gap IRL can increase if the poor don't get any poorer but the rich get richer. In fact, it can increase if both get richer, just not at the same rate.


There are a great number of issues in Nationstates that lower the income of the poor for no good reason, practically any issue resolution that allows private enterprise to flourish. Many of them make sense neither from a realistic standpoint nor if we apply common sense. Of course, there are also cases when the poor becoming poorer is entirely justified, for example instituting flat tax rates, or lowering the minimum wage, or abolishing it entirely, but the point is that maybe it would be about time to revise the mechanic that handles wealth gaps and incomes.

I speculate that RN, the issues affect Wealth gaps and incomes are calculated after as a secondary effect, if that's right, it should be turned around, issues should affect incomes and the wealth gap should be calculated based on them.

Because neoliberal economics doesn't work in real life and so money doesn't appear out of nowhere just because you invested in private industry whether through policy or through money. Value isn't added to the economy by changing laws, only through dynamic systems. And so, the change in there has to happen at the immediate aftermath of the policy, as NS doesn't simulate the long-term or even progressive effects of the policy. It just talks about the immediate overall effect, nothing more, nothing less.

The World Capitalist Confederation wrote:Because neoliberal economics doesn't work in real life and so money doesn't appear out of nowhere just because you invested in private industry whether through policy or through money. Value isn't added to the economy by changing laws, only through dynamic systems. And so, the change in there has to happen at the immediate aftermath of the policy, as NS doesn't simulate the long-term or even progressive effects of the policy. It just talks about the immediate overall effect, nothing more, nothing less.

Money doesn't appear out of nowhere, however, wealth can be created, by producing more raw resources, and then making products with said resources. Laws can be changed to make it easier for such things to happen, and not necessarily at the expense of the underclass.

Greater Hunnia wrote:

The World Capitalist Confederation wrote:Because neoliberal economics doesn't work in real life and so money doesn't appear out of nowhere just because you invested in private industry whether through policy or through money. Value isn't added to the economy by changing laws, only through dynamic systems. And so, the change in there has to happen at the immediate aftermath of the policy, as NS doesn't simulate the long-term or even progressive effects of the policy. It just talks about the immediate overall effect, nothing more, nothing less.

Money doesn't appear out of nowhere, however, wealth can be created, by producing more raw resources, and then making products with said resources. Laws can be changed to make it easier for such things to happen, and not necessarily at the expense of the underclass.

Ahhh yes, but that links to my second point: it only measures the immediate overall effect, nothing more, nothing less.

The World Capitalist Confederation wrote:

Greater Hunnia wrote:
Money doesn't appear out of nowhere, however, wealth can be created, by producing more raw resources, and then making products with said resources. Laws can be changed to make it easier for such things to happen, and not necessarily at the expense of the underclass.

Ahhh yes, but that links to my second point: it only measures the immediate overall effect, nothing more, nothing less.

So how exactly is a recess of poor incomes an immediate effect of say, allowing pizzas to be sold in a historical building (an actual issue)? Surely it's going to make the guy who sells pizzas richer, but why does it lower the income of the rest? Besides that, what you say about only immediate aftermath isn't true to begin with. Pretty much all issues have a plethora of secondary effects, sometimes quite far-fetching. Furthermore, IIRC industries stats are given in a currency / capita format, and the number stays the same, even if the population grows constantly, so it can be argued that economic growth resulting from the status quo is also simulated. But that's not the point. The point is that there is no reason why poor incomes should be affected by wealth gaps unless the legislation allows exploitation directly or at least within a reasonable scope of secondary effects, or messes with the taxes in a way that would negatively affect poor incomes.

Most likely limitations in the simulation's ability to portray the real-world completely accurately, so it links them instead since that's at least a fuzzy/good-enough approximation.

I am pretty sure the game does not track income of the poor and income of the wealthy separately, and instead just takes average income and apply the wealth gap though some formula to get income of the rich and poor. Now, if average income rose and wealth gaps shrunk, you could could see something where the poor get wealthier and the rich stay the same (or any other variant), but that would require the change in average income and wealth gaps to balance each other out exactly, which is pretty unlikely I expect.

The World Capitalist Confederation wrote:Because neoliberal economics doesn't work in real life

But this isn't real life, it's NationSsates.
100% income tax rates?!? Nations with 'basket-case' or 'imploded' economies that still manage to rank in the top 01% for best public education & best public healthcare?!?
Basically, the game's simulation of economics is just very simplistic...

Greater Hunnia wrote:

The World Capitalist Confederation wrote:Ahhh yes, but that links to my second point: it only measures the immediate overall effect, nothing more, nothing less.

So how exactly is a recess of poor incomes an immediate effect of say, allowing pizzas to be sold in a historical building (an actual issue)? Surely it's going to make the guy who sells pizzas richer, but why does it lower the income of the rest? Besides that, what you say about only immediate aftermath isn't true to begin with. Pretty much all issues have a plethora of secondary effects, sometimes quite far-fetching. Furthermore, IIRC industries stats are given in a currency / capita format, and the number stays the same, even if the population grows constantly, so it can be argued that economic growth resulting from the status quo is also simulated. But that's not the point. The point is that there is no reason why poor incomes should be affected by wealth gaps unless the legislation allows exploitation directly or at least within a reasonable scope of secondary effects, or messes with the taxes in a way that would negatively affect poor incomes.

I think the issues themselves are just broken and so is the code. I've once given protections to businesses and gave them tax cuts at the cost of state provisions for the poor, yet somehow income equality increased.

What exactly is the question here? If the increase in inequality has a proportionally greater impact than the increase in average income then poor income will fall. Its a simple equation.

Realistically, an economy takes effort to raise. I guess this adds to realism.