Union for Talossan Progress :: The Official Website

Economy and Finance (Part II)

by Txec Ereufighleu, [Gr] 22 January 2007, Original (Part I)

The time has come that the Government of the Republic of Talossa is starting to take its financial future in its own hands by collecting funds to pay for the hosting of all of its domains as set forth in recently passed 4RC4.

Minister of Finance

Since the Ministry of Finance has been created we will want to flesh out this Minister's job responsibilities, especially where it comes to money coming into and leaving the Republic's coffers. We will want to nail down when moeny can be spent and whose authorization is required for payment, reporting standards and periodicities. The Ministry should, however, always be open to accept donations, fees, taxes and so on.

The Ministry should open and maintain Paypal, Google Checkout, and E-Gold accounts to collect monies so that we have a maximum amount of inroads to accept funds. I am sure that there are those who would be willing to give money now to fund Talossan activities. We will also want to advertise that we are accepting donations to support Republic of Talossa expenditures. These three accounts should allow for the maximum flexibility for online transactions.

We could create a sort of registry for Talossan businesses and services (preferfably businesses that would accept E-Gold for payment) that could be registered with the Republic and is run by Talossans which could have a nominal fee per year like USD$5 (or less per) year to mainain is one way to develop a very small revenue stream. A minimal voluntary tax of 2% on Talossan business transactions as well could help to raise money assessed yearly.

E-Gold

It is going to be very important to the Republics identity and sense of control to attempt to insulate and isolate our economic processes through a method such as E-gold. Our economy can be predominately gold/silver based. Payment to the government such as taxation or donations, or payments to other Talossans, and to Talossan business would be via E-Gold.

As a long term plan the government of Talossa could generate revenue from exchanging "foreign" currencies to E-Gold as well as reduce fees for the Republic's Citizens for money exchanges. In the short term a small amount of revenue could be generated from transfers from child accounts that are set up through E-Gold's referral program where a small portion of the processing fee for E-Gold (Silver etc) transfers over a certain amount goes to the progenitor (the Republic). This is a small way for you to help increase the Republic's coffers and to help pay for its domain hosting, advertising and other expenses. You will be able to put to work that money that would otherwise go to the E-Gold company and put it to work for the Republic.

It seems that via Omnipay (the preferred exchange merchant) the minimum buy in is USD$100 to and they need to verify your mailing address to purchase metal which is a quite steep requirement. Definitely more secure, but annoying. We might be able to arrange for the money to be sent to the Minister of Finance (via PayPal) and then the money distributed accordingly to the individual citizens E-Gold accounts to help ease the introduction of new accounts as we start up. After that you will have to continue with the confirmation process to transfer money in. With 10 people at $10 each we would meet the minimum purchase price easily, and more if desired..

As a preference and statement we may also try to limit our external business to E-Gold only merchants to help isolate our economy and set the stage for moving forward. The first place to start is the find a web host that accepts E-Gold as as method of payment and move on from there. We will definitely need to keep alternatives such as PayPal and Google Checkout active as there are not, as of yet, many businesses that accept E-Gold as a method of payment.

Voluntary Taxation or Donation

In the mean time as we are pondering what to do for a financial system we could set up a voluntary tax/donation system. We should open up the accounts that we establish in the name of the Republic to accept donations from anyone to help support the Republic and her expenses. Citizens, or an outside entity, could donate money to fund the Talossa government and its activities, especially our Domain and Web space. We would have to keep track of who donated and how much.

Printing of Money and Coins

I do not believe that the printing of bank notes or coins is practical, especially now for as young as we are. It would cost money to create them and to distribute them. People would need a reason to buy it. There are no Talossan businesses that are local to use or to exchange them. No Country will accept them. If there was a Talossan business that did accept them how would you get the money to them? Not so practical. The future monetary systems lie in that of digital currencies. To create a physical currency is to take a stop back.

The only practical reason I see for creating physical money is for novelty's sake. If we had the money to spare to create this we could sell it as a novelty to generate revenue. This is a similar situation for stamps. There are already existing institutions and infrastructures set up that we can utilize.