1. Negative Gearing: Investors may borrow money to acquire an income producing investment and if the gross income generated by the asset is less than the costs of owning and operating the asset then the losses become offset by the investors income. (Leading to a reduction in taxable income)
This leads to increase in GDP, increase in investments, increase in foreign investments, increase in property prices, increase in productivity, increase in government spending, increase in poverty, increase in inequality and a large increase in Wage Gap.
When left unchecked it leads to “Housing bubble” and attributes to “noncompetitive housing market.” - which cause investments to plummet, mass homelessness, large unemployment, increase in inequality and decrease in GDP.
This would be popular for Capitalists, Farmers and the Elderly while being unpopular for Youth and Socialists. (Australia would have this on the maximum setting by default)
2. Superannuation. A government controlled pension fund which forces employers to pay additional money and place it in an investment bank (Australia 9.5% of wages by default) This money is then used to invest in either an industry superfund or a state superfund. Once the person is at retiring age they get all the money back with interest. Leading to extremely large pensions.
This increases investments and GDP and reduces noncompetitive economy, while slightly increasing age gap and slightly increasing inequality. It also generates government income.
This is popular for the elderly, liberals, and everyone while unpopular for companies and capitalists.
Those are the ones that take the most explaining now I’ll throw in some other more well known policies…
3. Government job search department: A department designed to give or assign unemployed people jobs.
4. Mining Tax: Self Explanatory.
5. Department of Mining and Resources: Government nationalizes mines and takes control of all revenue. (This is terrible for foreign relations and business but huuuugely increases government revenue.
If Australia is to be added to the game then Negative Gearing and Superannuation are must haves since they are really important policies in aus. All the rest would be nice to add in the base game but are nowhere near needed. Plus, they are interesting policies.
I’m Australian and I agree that some of these should be included, but i have comments on a few of the ideas
I don’t know enough about this to comment.
This would definite be a good policy to implement as it can reduce state pension cost, however it is very long term; if I remember right it was only 1 or 2 years ago pension payments peaked before starting to decline
From what I understand to get the unemployed benefit here you have to be searching for a job (and it could maybe considered part of welfare fraud dept.)
Our mining tax was introduced 8 years ago and was repealed 6 years ago so it’s not really current (although there is always the chance it may be reintroduce by a future labor government)
Any pension system changes are gonna be long-term, unless you plan on implementing them retroactively, because usually, existing pensioners’ pensions won’t be affected by such changes. You have to wait for them to effectively die off and new pensioners to replace them for these effects to become fully implemented.
Which, stuff like that might well be a good argument to actually model population dynamics. To capture stuff that would gradually affect specific age-related parts of your population. Though it’s certainly possible to roughly accomplish this with implementation delays, actually some of those delays ought to vary based on just how fast the population turnaround is. Longer live spans would, for instance, slow down this process, whereas higher pensions might speed it up, because younger people already end up with pension. And so might social care and disability funds, 'cause people with disabilities might also end up retired sooner. Etc.
Same idea for changes in the school system, say.
Perhaps also the policy of Franking credits which basically shovel money into the pockets of the rich because Australians like to finance inequality with public funds. I know this was a major election issue.
Superannuation can be covered by payroll tax and state pension, I think. Or maybe a subsidy for private pensions. Have any of your other policies been covered? It’d be best to ask cliff and get his opinion on this.