Merchants

hello, i am wanting to pick your brains.

i have big ideas and need your help. each town sends out merchants to sell and buy good either surplus or under demand. these merchants are the life-line of each town as without them it would be difficult to stabalize the market. Tis a shame that the merchants dont get paid and there-in lies the problem. i would like the couty to have a part in solving this problem and would like to know your thoughts on the idea.

i am sure that anyone who thinks about it must realize that without a stable economic enviroment problems arrise.

Sommerset must be strong and vigilent in all aspects if we are to maintain a constant ability to thrive and prosper as a community, we cannot do this without the help of the county council. let the discusion begin.

Thank you my friend that you giving me the opportunity to talk here about this big issue of Somerset.
As you might don't know there is a fine working network that work through ingame messages and msn activity, that you cannot see unfortutanelly on forums.

These people work for the good of the County, so every single town to have what needs to work properly.

Merchantise works via County Fair, and every town sell what natural resources have and buy what need for the Citizens.
Your town to be more specific sell wood, flour , meat, and buys goods like fruits, iron,HHW and some minor surpluses when needed.

I will disapointed you of course ,because, yes, there is a small number of people that still work to benefit their town with no wages.
These Citizens travel under the coordination of your Mayor and me , to bring the neccesary goods to your town, like for example today.
Also in your town you have one of the most experienced merchants in Somerset, Lord rebo, also works without money, only to benefit his town and the County.

Your town is on of the biggest economic center not only in Somerset, but and beyond, use the oportunity to travel around and you will see what I mean.

We have a very stabile economy and we export as a County more than you can imagine, big quantities out of here, resolving the overproduction and keep the market in a constant movement bringing faster incomes to the Citizens to reach their goal, which is to level up faster from all the others in England.

The County council is next to you, near the Mayors, advice them, work with them, exporting their goods and bring cash to their treasury.

The market in Chard is in great shape and have all the goods that the game have to offer, small number of towns can be proud of it, again i advice you to travel further and see,then you will understand what Somerset markets mean...

If you feel also that this moment your market have a problem of a kind of surpluses, let me know ,and County will resolve it.

I will answer to any of your question why a product has this price, why this have to be like that, and why we do this and not that, but dont assume in any moment that we dont work on a plan for the bitternes of our towns economy.

Of course, your ideas are welcome for discussion my dear friend.

i am terribly sorry lord Justin as i think you may have got the wrong idea, i do understand what the county and local mayors do to in effect keep us merchants busy, as you have said these goods are provided for the better of all Somerset people, but anyother job the employee would be paid for providing his/her services, i only ask that merchants be treated the same.

we offer our services and get paid for it. do not get me wrong i think things are going great on the economic market and that is thanks to the hard work of mant great people.

A merchant spends more time leveling up than others because they do not get paid and have to pay others to care for thier fields/ranches while they are away tending to the business of the trade. I only ask that this council consider paying merchants for thier hard work.

P.S. Lord Justin i am not one of your oponents in a political rally and therefore i would be pleased if your comments didn't come across so hostile. I like you am only working for the better of my community. You unlike me are in a better position to make the needed changes to better our community. All i ask of the council is to approach this issue with an open mind and not assume that because people like myself are not on the council that we have no clue what is going on. That only shows that the council deos not keep the people that elected them aware of events.

For Chard! For Sommerset! For England!

I am really sorry that my comments looks hostile, my intention wasnt this i assure you.
they have more informatic character, and i never have an aproach like this in my real life.

As you see English is not my native language, but i count every opinion and listen every single Citizen that have something to say.

You are right that every Merchant who offers his services and ask for it, have to take a payment.
When i was Mayor in Bridgewater i send merchants in a distance trip and payed their services but i had also some that didnt wanted to get payed.
As you can imagine a trip of 2 days for a merchant who workd for a fee adjust the price of the merhantise to at least 37-38 pounds ( the 2 days that the person looses)
If the distance is bigger then you can imagine that the selling price of the surpluses are not any more in advance price in any market.

I think you understand my point here.

And for example now we are dealing with an export ,but the County that buys agreed to pay their merchant to come ,so you see sometimes we have solutions from the other side.

If you really interested sometime to travel in the name of the County to a near town that Somerset trade, like for example Dorchester or the Capital of Cornwall, i will have in my mind that you want to help.
I have only good words to say for all the Councilors,whatever we needed, they was there to help with no problems or party directivas.

Sorry if you misunderstood my words, this was not my intention and i dont feel you are among any oponents i dont have any, we are all working together for the good of the County.

my appologies,

as you have said above if a mayor wishes to pay a merchant than the prices must be adjusted. But if the county were to stipulate that they would pay for say 2 merchants per town then that would release the presure from the local mayor and the merchants. do also note that these merchant if not already busy could also trade for the county since the county would be paying them anyway.

once the county receives a purchase order for the services of a merchant from a mayor then they would action payment upon completion. somerset has 5 town which would mean no more than 10 active payed merchants in the county.

i really want this to go through as i know what it is like to loose out as a merchant after recently going on a trade for chard. i think its not only fair for the county to take action but thier duty to do so.

the creation of the somerset Merchant guild would be a good start, a voice for the merchant of the county, i can discuss intimate details of what i propose to anyone who asks.

Lord_Justinan wrote:

These Citizens travel under the coordination of your Mayor and me , to bring the neccesary goods to your town, like for example today.

If you are the one "coordinating" the efforts of the merchants, then why isn't it reasonable that you compensate them for the losses they incur while traveling? Merchants ought not be penalized for doing good things for the Sommerset economy.

The issue here is YOU ,will travel to help your town if needed ?

Let the others to think about themselves, not you about them ,he went to help his town , not me or the County, Citizen Atri.

Lord_Justinan wrote:

The issue here is YOU ,will travel to help your town if needed ?

Let the others to think about themselves, not you about them ,he went to help his town , not me or the County, Citizen Atri.

I was under the impression that the county government existed to serve the people, not the other way around.

I suppose the issue here is that I believe the county ought to use it's wealth to help the citizens prosper, as opposed to the citizens working to make the county prosperous.

The County should work FOR the towns, and the towns in turn work FOR the people. Not the other way around.

But I'm just a citizen, as you point out.

All right this is getting silly, the county has how many thousands of pounds or tens of thousands of pounds in the treasury? We've been gaining networth by the truckload since we were in the negative and now we're quite rich, you have to admit it.

What does the money do in the treasury? gain interest? no.... help people eat? no.... promote stable economies? no... Guess what, having all that cash sitting there does jack squat, nothing. Of course its better then having negative, and of course you'd don't want it to shrink down too low so we wouldn't have funds available for trade.... but that's not whats being suggested here.

We're talking about paying merchants to travel around and help the Somerset economy. I'm gonna throw a couple numbers in here, say each town sends 2 trips a month and each trip is a 4 day journey (that should be far more then the closest lake/wood/fruit town from any single point in somerest) 5 * 2 * 4 = 40 days of pay, how much should we pay our merchants? I dunno, how about 18 or something to start? 40 * 18 = 720 pounds, can the county with its thousands and thousands, and earning thousands extra every week by the look of it, pay 720 pounds a month? (and this is probably an overestimate)

You can't expect people will volunteer there time/money to do this, yes we're fortunate to have some that will, (chard has Rebo) who has been fantastic at travelling around for nothing, but the town has been *trying* to find a feasible way to pay merchants already, unfortunately for town's we have no fixed income, over a month we're lucky if our networth goes up 200 pounds, no gold mines. County is a completely different story right.

Lets see some public services and not just cash sitting around growing moldy.

Large treasuries will become more and more important as the war comes to England. Anyone notice that we seem to be in the beginning stages of civil war.

I have travelled for Bath free of charge and carried grants to trade with while travelling. In my experience the margins for profit are small and if the merchant is to be paid then trade will be a philanthropic endeavour on the part of the towns. That has been the case on most of my recent trades. We have sold off our market at no gain. This has put money in the hands of the seller on our town market and placed assets on other markets where they may be needed, such as boats to Gloucester. This is the way the town can help the people. Buy and move the items. This puts money back in your citizens hands and gives items to other towns that may need them. If I had been paid to take the assets they would not have been sellable in Gloucester, even at 16P a day.

I believe that we are here sometimes to serve the town/county/country. Perhaps I am wrong. But that is my conviction.

Both as mayor of Bridgewater and as Trade Minister for Somerset I usually paid those who worked as traders, generally 18 pounds per day. Some people didn't wish to be paid, and that, of course, was fine

I've also found in my own experience that it can be profitable for me to build up a personal stock of an item (usually fruit or veggies, as those tend to be cheaper in Bridgewater than in other places) and to convey those goods to another town, where I can then stock items that are dear in Bridgewater.

But most town-to-town trades can be executed most simply through the good agencies of the Trade Minister. Mayors can place items on the County Fair, and can purchase them as well. As TM, I would purchase those goods, and reprice them so that the towns didn't pay the 50 pound fee for County Fair purchases. This, and the ability of the TM to use grants, is how most goods flow from town to town, or from county to town.

I understand what you have said gregarious, but war or ne war the problem still thrives and yes sir the council is the to serve the PEOPLE not the county country or towns there within. but the people that resides in this county. To benefit them. Goods do not have to be placed at a higher value if the county funded the merchants. That is the piont after all, for the county to take but one more step forward to not only improve but to keep improving the economic market. i dare say sir that merchants are of even more value during a war then any other time.

Raising prices is a risky business, as has been said the couty has a solid income and it does nothing but sit and grow mould, why not put it to good use.

Mike, indeed is getting silly,
because with some people i cannot explain the ingame mechanisms of the County and how intertown trade works.
At least you show some numbers and you speak with concret examples here, so at least i can reply easy.

Listen,in Somerset, we dont need merchants , all the trade can be managed through the Offices, for example we can sell in minutes wood from Chard to Gloucester with the participation of the 2 Mayors and the Trade Minister.
Mayor of Chard place the wood in the County fair, County buys it and resell it to Gloucester.
I think this is clear, and we dont need to loose precious time and efford with travels and eventual roberries like in Outlaw case.
I think its simple, more simple i cannot explain it, for this time,our citizen can work on his field and produce something there, so the County can sell it abroad and bring some cash in..

The situation is completely different with the trade OUT of Somerset,here we send traders-merchants, towns can do it for them, County can do it for her exports.

Now, if someone needs payment, we will pay him, i didnt said no for this,i was clear about it, not 18, even 19, it doesnt matter, BUT
Our fellow there brought lets say iron, 20 pieces for 19.00 per piece a total of 380.
If he wouldnt volunteer and need a payment of 19 pounds then this iron costs 20.00 per piece,absurd price.

We have an agreement for an export these days, WE OFFERED to send an merchant even with payment for a several days trip.
This County offered to send here their merchant and they will pay them- i dont know their reasons, maybe the guy just want to travel- what we supposed to say, NO ?

What publicc services you mean, speak exactly what you need and the County will be there to support it, we vote these days some vital issues and conflicts are this moment as we speak up to the North, but ok ,this is not for this topic.
We promised we will give money to towns, we will vote for a fund for every town to use it for their town needs but i have to tell you that County doesnt make thousands and thousands of pounds, we adjusted our Mines so that we dont have to spend these big quantities of IRON and STONE that we need, and our County incomes from the Gold Mines will be less.

I am telling you also this, because i see you think the Money of the Gold Mines goes directly to the towns, to Bath and Gloucester i assume that you think , but Mines doesnt work like this.

I am really shocked that you saying that you making in Chard 200 pound per Month, how can that be when from 300 corn that we buy from Chard for example you wi l take 90 pounds there in your treasury ( we bought 150, we expect another 150 ) only from Corn, not to mention the wood,and the wheat.
These days we even raise the prices for the fodder, aeryn_sun is informed about it.

Something must be wrong in these calculations, see them again please...

I Will show you this sheet from when i was Mayor in Bridgewater and for 5 weeks we put in our treasury 3.672 pounds in Cash,see the screenshot below.

If you have any problem there tell me, you want to use the Chard Merchants if County need to export ?, we will use them, does SAS squad in Chard need payment when patrols ? we will pay them,
just ask there what you need but with exact proposals and we will discuss about it.

Quote :

Now, if someone needs payment, we will pay him, i didnt said no for this,i was clear about it, not 18, even 19, it doesnt matter, BUT Our fellow there brought lets say iron, 20 pieces for 19.00 per piece a total of 380. If he wouldnt volunteer and need a payment of 19 pounds then this iron costs 20.00 per piece,absurd price.

Whoa whoa whoa, you buy 20??? at a time? what in the world? last time I had a county Iron grant there were 100's, if not 1000's of stone/iron being shipped at a time, where 20 pounds pay makes pennies of difference on the net cost/iron

Quote :

I am really shocked that you saying that you making in Chard 200 pound per Month, how can that be when from 300 corn that we buy from Chard for example you wi l take 90 pounds there in your treasury ( we bought 150, we expect another 150 ) only from Corn, not to mention the wood,and the wheat. These days we even raise the prices for the fodder, aeryn_sun is informed about it.

I don't know precisely how much corn Aeryn is selling, when I was mayor we got rid of probably 100 per month at 3.50

So say she sold 300 like you said, we buy corn at average of about 3.40 from the market, so 10 pennies each, that makes a total of 30 pounds... well that pays for 2 militia for 1 day, awesome. Wheat works about the same, we used to buy wheat at 13.00 and resell for 13.10, if you sold 300 wheat you'd make another 30 pounds, so you've done a month of corn and wheat and payed for... 1 day of militia.

Wood exporting at the now expected prices of 3.7 or so will actually make Chard *lose* money on our axe lending program. If we bought axes and resharpened them at a blacksmith wage of 25 pounds we lose money on the axe cycle.

So what is our income? Well the lords daily income generally helps offset the militia pay, not all of it, but a good chunk. We make a little off the town tavern, Rebo tends to make a few good trades for the town, 200 pounds increase is a good month for us.

I feel that this is loosing perspective. so i will give everyone the highlights.

1. I Propose that Merchants be recognized as an official type of employment.

2. I Porpose that Merchants be paid for thier employment.

3. I Propose that a Mechants Guild is created.

4. I propse the county councilers, elected by the citizens of Somerset figure out the details them-selves. To make it simple you ask a relevent question and it will be given a response. I dont make laws or offical long winded documents for the council to pick over untill thier term is up and then have to start again with the newly elected members. No you have been elected and henceforth you are given things to do by the people who elected you.

I dont care how much a town makes or the county makes, I am not an accoutant. What i care about is having the ability to make things fair for all people in somerset no matter what line of employment they seek or happen to choose.

On another note i thank the council for hearing what i have to say, and for your comments on the subject at hand and i bid you all a good and fruitfull day.

1. Totally Agree
2. Totally Agree
3. Sounds like a good idea, will take a bit more set up, but a good plan
4. Thats the general idea, but I still think average joe should be able to discuss it as well.

I know that in your market you have corn for 3.30, i was there yesterday, we will buy the second delivery at 3.60, see the numbers now again.

Also about the Iron, i know you are not any more in County politics but you cannot find any more these days 1.000 stone or iron, we made these talks in the County council, something similar you can see in the High Command office about the reasons.

This small quantity was ONLY FOR CHARD, because we need it for knives there, to grant the Blacksmiths, not for the County.

If you need some money to start some exports or something, we will vote for 1.000 free grant for Chard and all Mayor towns in Somerset, this for you is a 5 month income, so you can send some traders around to sell flour, meat and wood - what i saw Cheap in Chard- and bring some fish in.

Also about the proposals of our friend, i fully agree, Merchants have to take a payment when we use them and they not volunteer.

Lord_Justinan you are a great man, i shall take the advice of MikeBlack and see how good my hand is at proper proposals. I do thank all of the council for thier opinion and time

I have tried to pay Rebo several times but he keeps refusing pay.

Lord_Justinan wrote:

If you need some money to start some exports or something, we will vote for 1.000 free grant for Chard and all Mayor towns in Somerset, this for you is a 5 month income, so you can send some traders around to sell flour, meat and wood - what i saw Cheap in Chard- and bring some fish in.

All things said and done, if this happens, and we have the ability to use this money to hire merchants then we're totally good

This is my first shoot at this sort of thing so No laughing. hahahahaha

any way here it is

Merchants Proposal.

001 Book 1 :- Merchants

Article 1

Article 1.1.1 All Merchants either for a town or Duchy be recognized as ambassadors of such Town or Duchy.

Article 1.1.2 Merchanting be recognized as an official line of employment by both a Town or Duchy.

Article 2

Article 1.2.1 All merchants employed by the Town or Duchy will be paid by the Duchy.

Article 1.2.2 Merchants that are employed by a Town or Duchy will be paid according to their Charisma and Strength.

Example 1. 0-50 charisma – strength equals 17 pounds pay per day of travel, 51-100 charisma – strength equals 18 pounds per day of travel and so there on.(these are subject to change by the Duchy upon discussion with the Merchants Guild.)

Article 3

Article 1.3.1 A Merchants Guild shall be created and approved by the Duchy. Lord of the Merchants guild will be elected and voted on by the Duchy.

Article 1.3.2 The Purpose of the Merchants guild is to uphold the rights of merchants employed by a Town or Duchy. It will also co-ordinate and communicate with a Town or Duchy to meet the required needs for all concerned. (this may be later changed by the Duchy or Merchants Guild)

Great job Shane.

Might need a bit of polishing here and there but overall is good.

Thorpe

Just a side note:

A Somerset Merchants' guild exists in the RK forum. Council members have access to it. I am not sure how and whom else can see and post there.
It has been inactive for some time. But it is there and ready to be used by the Somerset merchants' guild when it is re-formed.

True,its Somerset Trade Guild and i post several times there for trade.
The good thing is that have access there several Mayors out of Somerset, so posting some goods ,you atract some attention for your towns surpluses.

Now,as its trade, we can pass it as a Decree.
It will be nice to make a new Decree for a change, and Merchant-Trade Decree is a fine idea.

Another thing, i dont agree with the article 1.2.1

Suppose the Mayor find a deal in Lancaster , to send a merchant there need more than 10 days, to get back another 10.
So to avoid these kind of deals i think we have to protect this decree.
County when need it will pay the Merchants, even more, 19 pounds, but when they trade for the town, they have to be paied by the town.

After all in real world this is how it works, be a Mayor have responsibilities, or he doesnt have to put a candidacy at all.

I like the 1.2.2 article , gives to people motivation to upgrade their character and give status of 2 level Merchants.
Feel free to put 18 and 19 pounds for County wages when County use them.
Be precise with wages as MINIMUM , giving the posibility to Both County or town to award them more if the deal is good or they feel their merchants deserve something better.

In 1.3.1 lets be more flexible here, after all in your first post you asked for less voting on positions on every term of council.
I am for also, so define it like the Guild will by elect their Lord by the members of the guild.
We seek for impartial and indepedant institutions, not to be controled from every party each time who is in power.

Also, about Groups ,here what law says in Legal Corpus of Somerset:

Quote :

Article 6 –Right of groups.

Art. 1.6.1. : The citizens of the Duchy can associate with an order, guild or corporation or other groups of political, cultural, or economic nature as long as their association to such group respect the laws.

Art. 1.6.2. : The groups from article 1.6.1 can ask the Duchy Council for recognition and get privileges and rights for their members. A decree by the Duke sanctions this recognition and defines their right and duty to the Duchy.

Art. 1.6.4. : Any commercial group can be recognized by the Duchy Council after the Trade Minister studies their case for recognition.

Work on these changes and we will talk further

One point that I haven't seen clearly made is that there are three sorts of trading. The first is trading for the county, the second is trading for a town, and the third is trading for oneself.

Many people will do some work for their town or county without wishing for pay, sometimes refusing it when it's offered. Others will often combine a trading expedition for town or county with their own stock, and plan to earn their wages through their own trading while they can help out their town at the same time.

Other notes:

Our anti-dumping law was created because in the early days of Somerset, persons trading on behalf of their non-Somerset towns would often bring hides to our towns and dump them on the autobuy, or would dump large amounts of goods on our town markets at prices below the going rate in that town. Under the prosal, thewse would be recognized as Ambassadors of their home County!

Town traders shouldn't be paid by the county. Town trades can easily be done by transferring goods on the County Fair, where the Trade Minister can serve as a middleperson on the deals, repricing goods so that the towns in effect do not pay the CF 50 pound fee.

Finally, Somerset has a minimum wage law, but has not seen fit to set any kind of higher minimum wage for workers with stats. I dislike the establishment of a stat based compensation scheme for traders, making them some kind of protected class. If members of a Merchanters Guild choose to create such a wage scale, and refuse to work outside of it, that would be a choice, allowing some fun RP as Mayors or Trade Ministers negotiate with Guild representatives, or with their own constituencies, asking for traders to work at a lower rate. RP between Guild members and traders who choose not to join the Guild could also be fun. But I do not think that a wage scale should be made law.