For those who don't know....
The objective of Sim City, as the name of the game suggests, is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve. The player can mark land as being zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and take many other actions, in order to enhance the city.
Also, the player may face disasters including flooding, tornadoes, fires(often from air disasters or shipwrecks) and even earthquakes.
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| Your Doing It Wrong |
Anyone that is now between the ages of 20 and 30 could have this economy up and running in no time. The problem is that Obama has never played Sim City. If he did, he would know that a Stimulus is nothing more than a loan you take out that needs to be paid back, and you have to pay back more than you took out (Not to mention he is putting that money into things that yield no payback). Instead he is making amateur first time player mistakes.
First major mistake is the idea that rapid expansion is a good thing. Anyone who has worn the hat of Mayor Draco, knows that if you build to fast, you deplete your reserves without allotting time for the sim's to catch up with the expansion. Normally this would not be a big deal, except that amateurs usually pay for this rapid expansion with a loan (Stimulus), rather than saved monies. There is no one in your city to pay off the loan, and your city slowly declines. The final nail in the coffin, and yet another amateur mistake, is the notion that raising the taxes will save the decline.
As the mayor, you can log in and get a budget forecast based on the existing residents/ businesses of your city. It is very tempting to jack up the tax percentages, because it is fun to watch the budget number go from deep red to barely black. The only problem that the amateur does not know, is that the proposed budget forecast will only work if nothing changes in the city by the end of the fiscal year, or if the population in your city increases. Unfortunately, just like in real life, the tax hikes cause people to leave your city. First you begin to see your industrial factories turn to run down buildings, then your commercial hi-rises lose property value, and become rundown as well. Then slowly but surely, the residential zones vacate the city. Leaving behind a massive debt and no one left to pay it.
There is one gamble that the novice player knows that will work more often than not. In the instance that you get in over your head, you can bite the bullet, and entice rapid growth by lowering taxes, and cutting costly social services. In the game, when you click the button to reduce the tax percentage, it plays a sound byte where the people cheer. This helps bring in big commercial business which raises up the residential areas and in turn raises up the light commercial zones. Why doesn't the amateur make this move you ask? It is because when lowering tax percentage, it shows your total budget go further into the red. This scares people, and they don't understand how on Gods green earth lowering the income would help when you are in debt. However, this move (as before) does not account for the potential growth overall. Since your city's taxes are so low, business, industrial, and eventually residential zones explode (not literally). You have created a tax friendly environment. Then eventually the volume of people, with the current tax percentage outweighs the debt.
Why this game is so genius is that it accounts for market confidence. There are many liberals and dems who try and control the market when it is an animal that cannot be contained (Short term). However, you can create an environment that the animal prefers to live in (Long Term). Low, fair taxes.
Market confidence is directly linked to how people spend, and how small businesses hire. If you threaten to raise taxes, The people will hold onto their money. When money is not circulating, it is not being taxed or buying goods. (i.e. Bad for the economy). The true deception is how the raised taxes look on paper to Obama NOW, he is pushing for that barley black to look good and get re-elected. Unfortunately, it will be taxing small businesses, out of business. This will only cause a steeper decline. And since he is an amateur he wont even know what happens before the Sim Times reads MAYOR RUN OUT OF TOWN!!!!
It is incumbent on every
generation to pay its own debts as it goes.
A principle which if acted on would save
one-half the wars of the world.
Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for
Americans if they can prevent the government
from wasting the labors of the people under the
pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
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