[Roundtable] The Aelyrian Economy

[Lilith Mistshadow]

Just putting this out there as the idea is one I find interesting.

Once a system is established rigid enforcement would be unlikely as the mods for particular areas would have to eventually contend with player and guild manipulation of the system.

Not to cast a sinister light on the topic as it is one I enjoy but they will play a heavy role in price determination for finished goods and materials in particular. If one, lets say a cloth weavers guild, decides to play hard ball they could potentially inflate the cost of cloth by up to 50% without much difficulty. If they stood largely unopposed then they could potentially bring it up even higher, particularly if the item in question was one integral to the cities main trades or living in general. Imported water in a desert city being another example.

I've done similar activities on occasion in other games with groups of like minded players and have been meet with a variety of responses. A good deal of the time we were simply told that our attempt yielded no results because of intervention of sort. The reasoning behind it was generally that the monetary system couldn't deal with an unplanned event of that magnitude. I've never had trouble accepting such rulings but I have to say it was more fun when we were allowed to fallow through on our plans though it tended to lead to executions and arson latter one.

[Su Farong]

Ok, sorry to rain on anyone's parade and I'm not trying to be rude, but while I was reading this thread I was struck by a thought- is this just WAY too complicated? Spending way too much energy to establish an elaborate system that would be work for the mod's to maintain? I mean honestly, most people's PC's are barely affected by the Aelyrian Economy. Sure we have money and buying some stuff here and there, but I haven't the foggiest what if the empire is in a recession or not. Most of us are just RPing adventures and such things like that. it seems to me is all that is needed is a big, central price list and that is it. I think trying to speculate the effect of trade with outside countries is pointless. Who's going to actually do that beside the 1-2 PC's that might attempt that? Other than that it won't effect PC's. I think we need to really look at what can be used by the PC on the street. Give us a new price list and if we want to tack on modifiers to particular cities I think that should be the mod's decision. Period.

[Dimnersti]

so in an imersive game the elements that actualy make it imersive shoudl be voluntary in your opinion? Sorry I cant see myself agreeing with that in any way, its just horrid rp.

And yes, good rp, is often dificult. As for developing the economic system, not terribly complex, econimics at its base form is the kinda math you can teach horses to stamp their hooves to.

as for it not affecting the average pc, thats both true and not, it doesn't affect them in ways it should, their running around with no money eating fine, despite their being a food shortage, their weapons are being purchased at obscenely low costs, again despite most of those resources being funneled into the war effort. I could go on. Its just bad rp when you consider the games selling point is its an imersive world, not singular stories created within a general background. Now it also does affect pc's in that you'v other pc's wandering around making obscene amounts of crowns from shops that should barely be profitable or other such things, while you may be out on an adventure breaking your back just to get a few gems worth a fraction of what that shop made with zero pc interaction. Thats obviously flawed.

and then its true, we cant just thrust this load more work on to mods, but I'v been suggesting for years, and others have suggested similar, there are plenty of players who would happily take a position that focused soley on keeping track of that factor in game and helping mods make it affect their cities in some form or another, cooperation, yeah, always a good thing in an imersive multi enviroment game.

[Su Farong]

Right. most players come in here to immerse themselves in rping an elf making it through during a time of stagflation in the Empire? Uh, no. Really, they come here to immerse themselves in the culture, not the economy. Sure some PCs really do try to open up shops and all that jazz, but I have not seen very many concentrate on these businesses after they open them. Now for the rest of your post Dim I cannot honestly see where you are going with it. Complaining about people profiting unjustly in the game is a modding issue. Thinking this is going to change by creating additional positions and simulations of market conditions is unrealistic.

Perhaps I was a bit vague in my previous post about my opinions. I agree with Kaelon about what is most important is to keep it simple. What is really needed by every PC is an updated and agreed upon price list- like this http://www.playbypost.com/forums/econom...rice-list.html and each cities mod adjust accordingly for their city.

[Dimnersti]

culture is often a sympton of economy. You cant have artists, without a strong economy to support them. And I fully beleive anything done in a realistic imersive world, must be done in a realistic manner. No, the pc's may not care that where their wheat is coming from, or if there is a shortage of something. But if they want to be able to affect the enviroment and have any sort of story that involves the so called imersive enviroment, those facts need to actualy exist. Then if a pc say sets up a small band and starts harassing merchants or farmers, they can see an actual affect to their actions, other pc's will have a reason to respond, etc.

Its a step in creating a game enviroment where everyone interacts in aelyria, instead of everyone creating individual stories and writing them using aelyria as a background.

[Amarillo]

ZinnSunn Property Costs

Let's see .... as it exists today, the "adventurer's" basic coinage is the crown - something we could probably refer to as the "gold" standard, since it's based on gold crowns. Beginner's start off with 500, plus potentially a small hovel worth maybe twice that and a few basic sundries, like a set of clothing and a poorly-made implement or weapon.

As an above-average representation of RURAL Aelyria, that's probably a good concept. Medieval economies were more-or-less agrarian in design. At least until sizable urban centers arose ... and sizable can be construed as a variable. For something with presumably a high population base (take the province of Prime as an example, since it's ostensibly the current capital region), a "small" center might have 150000 population, and a large one might exceed 400000. Slip gears to a more rural scenario (the farms and shires of Sherian, for example, or the relatively inhospitable desert regions of Arakmat), and most urban areas would have populations between 20000 and 120000.

Comparing adventurer starting wealth with the bulk of urban dwellers would still put the adventurers among the privileged classes. No landowner or labor manager ever got rich by pouring any more currency than absolutely necessary into the hands of the employees! But that means there are those (NPCs) in the cities that have almost immeasurable wealth, especially by beginning adventurer's standards. It may not all be immediately liquid - but it IS wealth.

Averaging the relative financial stability of the "haves" vs the "have nots", based on their percentage of the population base would - in my opinion - give an average NATIONAL household wealth level of perhaps 1000 gold crowns ... most of it tied up in real estate or crops, and very little of it available as ready cash. Realistic percentages might be 5 percent liquid assets, 95 percent fixed.

Note that foodstuffs are NOT produced in an urban environment - it's highly likely the cost of food will be higher in a city than in a more rural location ... perhaps as much as twice. Of course, if the rural area's environment does not support certain "delicacies" (there's no grapevines in Arakmat, but there's no figs or date palms in Sherian, either), prices will reflect supply and demand. Conversely, goods other than basic tools and necessities (like clothing) are cost-prohibitive in the hinterlands since everyone is too busy farming to have time to produce luxury items ... which is the opposite of city-dwellers.

Therefore trade MUST occur, to move items from a place of abundance to one of relative scarcity. And anyone doing so is not going to be perfectly altruistic in their motives ... they're going to be looking for some reward. Which means an adder for transportation and "handling charges".

The idea of setting the "national" basis of wealth on foodstuffs like a bushel of wheat is perfect. In an area where such an item is plentiful, the bushel price could be in the range of 4 gold crowns, based on the following extrapolation.

1 bushel (wheat) contains 60 lbs of grain
1 loaf bread requires approx 1 lb wheat
1 loaf bread sustains 1 adult (or 2 children) for 1 brightening - if used as primary source of food.

This means a family of 4 would run through a bushel of wheat in about 24 brightenings - which means a consumption of about 2 bushels per family per month. Doubling the bushel price for city-dwellers gives a reasonable expense, based on the likely wage rate structure for an urban center (over the more casual barter-based system in the rural areas).

Hmmm ... just did a bit more math.
The average horse (on a high-grain diet) consumes approximately 0.7 lb grain/100 lb horse per day. That means a 2000-lb charger would chow down a bushel of wheat every 4 brightenings! No wonder steeds are expensive! (Assuming it would take about an era = 500 brightenings to produce a horse suitable for riding from the foal condition, that's a minimum expense of 500 crowns per steed! Add in training, health care, shelter ... and a horse is worth perhaps 800 crowns. A warsteed might easily be 2 or 3 times that value.)

[Chargul]

Families of 4 are rare in medieval times. Even elves, with their low birthrates, are likely to have larger families. Families of at least 6 or 7 are more likely, although if 2 children are counted as 1 adult, it should be about... effectively 6 adults worth of eating per family.

They'd go through a bushel in about a cycle, so they'd end up paying four crowns a cycle, for the entire family. Compare this to: Cost of Food per Week

And we see that even doubling or tripling the cost for a family of six doesn't nearly add up to that. If we adhere to the link I posted, a bushel of wheat (I assume that's a poor diet), should cost:
6 adult per cycle = 60 crowns per cycle
1 bushel = 60 lbs = 1 cycle worth of food for 6 adults
1 bushel = 60 crowns.

Expensive? Certainly, but maybe this just indicates that prices don't entirely add up and horses should be far more expensive than they are right now. That 2000 lb charger would cost 7'500 crowns, unless we reduced the price of food.

Add in the cost of training, etc... You're possibly at 10'000 crowns for a decent warhorse!

Food seems to be a good indicator of price.

[Dimnersti]

heh, prices are 'obscene' they realy have no standard of value. There are instances of the source materials for something costing more than the finished product.

as is, the empire/kingdom produces a very large excess of wheat and other cereal grains. Now while it is arguable that we sell off a portion of that overproduction to foreign entities, its cost should still be negligible for the average aelyrian. if you go by what food shoudl reasnobly be costing, your average aelyrian is fairly wealthy under the current system, something that could be corrected by expanding the cost of other objects, weapons and armor for example.

if I had my wish the 'big price list would be removed completely once the basic economic layout was determined and redone with numbers that reflected the actual game. *hates big price list*

[Alexis Sapientia]

if I had my wish the 'big price list would be removed completely once the basic economic layout was determined and redone with numbers that reflected the actual game. *hates big price list*

I certainly agree.

[Gye'ron Val Oriden]

I remember Juan having put something up somewhere at somepoint (great details, I know ) that stated the value of the GC as compared to the US Dollar. That, I think, would be a much easier way for us to determine the proper prices of things (just find out what they are now). Better yet, pick a time period you want to represent Aelyria's timeframe and currency 'value' (say 100 AD in the Roman Empire) and then use one of those inflation calculation tools to determine what 1000 dollars (for example) would be worth in that period (a much lower numerical figure, obviously).

Okay, that said the current 'one room hovel' (which I think is a bedroom and main room?) would be valued in the city that I live in, which is a city that has been blessed with a vibrant economy and has been one of the fastest growing cities in North America so obviously the price is higher than most other places, at about 30-50 thousand dollars. The large price variation is a reflection of how the desirability of the neighbourhood and condition of the house. For example if it's in the downtown core or near the university/one of the colleges it's price is substantially higher, but if it's in a shadier area or nearer the outskirts the price becomes substantially lower. Anyways, the point is that if that's the case for the modern price and the hovel a PC starts with is of the same quality and valued at 1000 crowns then a PC starting with that 500 crowns is arguably roughly equivalent to having saved 15-25 thousand dollars. I think we can all agree that that is a large amount of money to have saved and most NPCs won't have anything close to that. Thus we can conclude that the available money NPCs have is rather low so the price of standard things must be very low (food, clothes, mundane tools, etc.) and that PCs currently have a considerable amount of buying power when starting out or at least the ability to buy weapons, armour, or afford training at respected institutions, all three of them things that have historically been priced beyond the buying power of the average joe. Basically PCs hit the jackpot everyday of their lives.

Maybe we need to return to the prices used many, many years ago (I'm talking like a decade ago) in Alleria?

Beyond that, what really interests me is the economics of the governments of Aelyria on all levels. Something that I enjoyed as a GM was figuring all of that out and I think you can find some fairly detailed tax and finance balance sheets in Mystique and I think Jaedaxia that I did in the older City Profile threads in Realmcraft. From those experiences I'm fairly convinced that almost all, if not all, of the cities in Aelyria are running deficits. Especially if there's a war or conflict or any inhibition of trade in any way. The big costs are obviously military, government, and education programs (as well as health care if your city offers it which I think is law in Aelyria). Military is the biggest cost factor from what I saw, and larger militaries really take away from the pool of people you have in your work force that are productive and generating tax incomes. Also taxes on business seemed to bring in the most money and was very important in trying to help balance the budget. Anyways look at those and I personally think they'll be a huge help. (Here's the link: [Discussion] City Profile - Mystique)

As I understand it the tax system works like this: municipalities tax their residents and send a portion of their taxes onto the provinicial government and in turn the provincial government sends a portion of their collected taxes onto the imperial government? But just what taxes are there? I assumed income tax (collected by a tax collector cyclicly or monthly maybe), business tax, property tax, and tarriffs (otherwise you lose a HUGE fiscal boon from the trade of goods and you basically completely criple the ability of Aelyrian governments at every level to operate out of the red).

The other things is what insures the value of the Crown. I had a brief discussion with Pim about this years ago in chat and she said that the Crown isn't relying on the value of gold. She said gold plays a small part but the value is insured by dozens of things in the Imperial treasury that insure it's stability including gold, silver, gems, wool, wheat, sheep, iron, textiles, etc, etc. Basically the message was that the things insuring the value of the Crown vary so greatly and are so vast that it's stability is virtually guaranteed.

EDIT: P.S. All of that budget was worked out with calculations that I can't remember at this time but it's important that you don't overtax business because that will essentially put it in a chokehold and destroy the local economy. Don't tax the net income of business' as that decreases their total profit by a much larger degree, tax their profit. That way it actually has less of a financial impact on their business (20% of their net income is a much greater amount than 20% of their profit). The other thing is to remember that you need to consider the expenses of your citizens (food, rent, maintaining their homes, clothes, etc.) and their incomes before you attribute a tax %. You want to make sure they have enough to take care of themselves or you'll have riots on your hands, if you want to be realistic anyways. Also remember that not everybody in your city can work. Think about children and old people and the percentage of the population they take up, and you have to deduct the number of people in the military from your workforce as well.

Ooh, and technically since the Emperor is the head of the CoF their tarriffs are his/the Empires to dip into. So you could consider taxing the tithes taken in by the Church to boost your cities coffers. Also you could put road taxes on the roads around your city or something.

[Dimnersti]

To gye'ron.

the dollar conversion I beleive was an old thing wynd had come up with, I may be mistaken. heh and something wich I'll note I very strongly disagreed with at the time and still do. modern prices, even medeival prices do not accurately represent those in aelyria. the labor, materials, and time necisary for the production of a lot of things are very difrent in game than they are in reality. The in game culture is also very difrent in comparison. Some things are fairly advanced IC because it was natural for them to be so given the old empire, while others had no need to develop at all in response to what was once abundant arcana. It would be very dificult to find an acurate time frame for comparison.

As for the taxes, I agree there, nearly every city is or should be running a deficit. In fact just pre fracture the empire, under julos at the time I beleive, was very deeply in debt, it was only balanced because aramil thamion used his personal fortune to pay down said debt, though how much has been racked up once again would be an interesting debate. though that said, you'll currently never get an acurage system since the crown has no set value. the copper and the silver are so worthless that you couldn't even find a place to spend them if you wanted to. then you'v things like the cost to keep a horse fed in comparison to a human is way off IC. heh and I could get into the idea that diamonds are valuable IC, wich is silly because the only reason you pay so much for that ten cent stone in real life is because companies treat you like absolute idiots(wich people must be since its so succesfull)

Is why I'v been for a complete revamp for ages.

in general

Forgive me if I ramble here. but there is a list of things I'v been pondering lately. Specificly to the state of the aelyrian economy in general, and a lot of the specifics that have never been refrenced or utalized.

For the general economy. Now yes, we have no set value for a crown, but I"ll ignore that for now.. The average allerian is what? poor farmer? middle class laborer or crafstmen? or even the wealthy merchant? i'v personaly worked off the assumption that we had a fairly alrge 'middle class' made up of crafstmen, since we'v relativly large city populations and the farmers dispersed out throughout the rest of the province. Though I'll admit I'm currently unsure what the population distributions and totals have been adjusted to, I just know their difrent than the last time I'd tried to motivate any intrest in aelyrian economy. Given the current price list(crap..) we have no extremes to either side, its nigh impossible to have a poor peasent, since luxuries are just a skipped meal away. And the wealthy have no high end luxury products to spend money on.

then you'v the tax system, now I know pc's have generaly just ignored this, or included a minor seasonal loss of income or crowns to cover it. but we have zero details or standardization. how is it collected? to what amounts? To be honest any degree of detail included to this would be great. it would be easy enough to include a set number into any buisness's math. And since pc's are now required to keep a ledger in their CIR, its not exactly hard to just stick it in there as well. heck or just implement a 'tax day' somewhere into the calendar and remind people to deduct a portion of their crowns when that season rolls around(same as we SHOULD be doing with holidays in the seasonal anouncements)

Then you have details of trade. Does any regulation exist at all? can anyone buy arcanic cannons or do the traders require a license from the empire/kingdom. Do we as I beleive have a few larger trade groups that manage a lot of smaller traders, a few loosely allied guilds? or perhaps even no real large presence at all, but just a lot of private traders? it may seem irelevant to most, but for a pc who may want to play a merchant, its important. Do they just buy a wagon and go? or does the lylles trading company have a headquarters or local office where they can try to get a job. same for say a combat inclined pc, caravan guard is a good job for them, do they have to work the streets trying to find a merchant, or is there likely a guild or office they can stop at and just essentialy leave a resume?

As is honestly, playing a merchant is just impossible. For one, what do you buy and where do you sell it? The trade lists being worked on help, but there is still no indicators of quality. would a city pay more for zerdagian arms than say those forged by some small town smith? And then once you know what to buy and sell where, why bother? its a relativly dangerous job, particularly given the chaos of the current empire/kingdom. Why not just get a loan and buy a store instead? As is aquiring merchandise, grabbing a portion of the local market for the goods, etc require very little work. More risk, less reward. Lets not even go into since we have such a middle ground pricing system, the cost of setting up a shop is rediculously low. Where it should be a goal of a merchant to spend a year or two trading to stash away enough to start their won store, a feat possible because of the contacts they'v formed. We have people taking a job as a tavernowner, or fisherman and saving up enough to purchase said buisness in months.

But yeah, Its just sad realy. I mean I personaly absolutely adore trading. the complexities of simple trade are a joy to play through, its why there are a great many sucessfull games that play on just that theme. heh I'd name a few classics but I'm not sure many would recognize them. Particularly since players who have the inclination to play merchants tend not to stay on game, its just no fun. heh, same for those who wish to play nobility or other more defined roles. So yeah, pain to develop, and a lot of unhappy mods cause who ever ends up developing it inevitably steps on many toes doing so. but it can only be beneficial to game an dplayer base in the end. heh get all those players who obsessivly play games like uncharted waters, trade winds or the merchant prince to actualy stick around and not write aelyria off as a shallow adventure game.

heh, but yeah, done rambling, if you manage to read it all input is always great. You know you want to feed more future ranting.

[Malkaer Andares]

Just picking out one theme to go into depth, other stuff will follow.

Population figures and urbanization

Some time ago Raliric did some nice work on provincial population figures. The figures were based on the size and topology of the province (using the old Aelyria map) and made with a tool on some medieval fantasy population website. He did alter some figures to achieve more ‘Aelyrian’ results, most notably he kept the population sizes of cities equal to older sources in city bones, etc.

Here are his results: [Discussion] - Provincial Populations.

As you can see in his figures urban populations account for somewhat between 5-10% of the total for most provinces. Centripax forms the exception with an urbanization of around 15% because of the ridiculous size of Primus Gaudeo. Based on these figures we must conclude that over 90% of the Aelyrian population is rural.

My conclusion is that most peasants would live on subsistence level on a small plot of (rented) land. In more agricultural advanced regions, most notably around Candaceburg, peasants and landowners would be more commercially minded and grow cash-crops for the market and be wealthier. The cities would function as economic centers, where the surplus generated by agriculture allows for specialization and some manufacture. The large majority of both the rural and urban populace would be poor.

Imho, Raliric’s figures are nigh perfect. They are consistent, convey some realism and fit into my perception of how a fantasy world like Aelyria might look.

Now what frustrates me so much is that Raliric’s and other peoples efforts to standardize and rationalize some major aspects of our fantasy world is that they are picked up by only a few interested players and a few progressive GM’s. There never seems to be an inclination by the leadership to pick up initiatives like Raliric’s and truly integrate them into the gameworld. Seriously, what could be easier than to check Raliric’s population figures for mistakes, make some alterations where they conflict IC, and then put it up as Lore?

This is not done and the result is that whenever a city changes GM, IC figures or principles (like demography) of a city that should be static or only slowly changing, change because of a different perception or knowledge on part of the GM.
For example, the population figures list a population of 7 million for Sherian, which GM Nachende was happy with at the time and took over. When GM Steve took up the reigns in Taralon, the Sherian population was changed back to 10 million. Not because a figure of 10 mil made more sense than 7 mil, but because he had received this figure ‘from above’ (I assumed he meant Juan and not God) and apparently it was an unassailable truth that Sherian had 10 million people.
In principle I do not care how much population Sherian is supposed to have. What I care about is how we arrive at that number. So I was happy with 7 million because it came about through a logical formula which was consistent with all other provinces, rather than a number generated from hot air.

[Malkaer Andares]

Taxation

There is a positive correlation between the strength of a state and its ability to squeeze money out of its population. Modern western states are powerful centralized bureaucratic behemoths that have a monopoly of power and violence within their sovereign territories. With the aid of modern communication systems, ideology and coercion they are able to enforce a central taxation system that even with its oddities and anachronisms is far more effective than any historic state was capable of achieving in say, the eighteenth century. When we look at Aelyria I think we are better off with comparing it to early modern states rather than contemporary states and their taxation systems

What this means is that standardization in taxation is incredibly rare. Governments regularly resorted to ad-hoc measures to fill their coffers, like hiring private tax collectors (often Jews) rather than employing civil servants to collect tax on a regular basis. These private collectors would give the government a sum of money directly and be assigned a territory or certain tax to collect for himself (and make a profit). Even if there was the political will and sufficient power to enforce a more centrally led taxation system, immediate financial requirements (like the outbreak of war) often blocked these attempts. Or, when centralizing reforms did pass under an exceptionally strong ruler or government, they were often revoked when central power became weaker.

The general layout of Aelyria’s taxation is fine actually. The Imperial government demands a tribute from the Provinces and these are free to collect tax in their territory in any way they want. What could be further expanded is how often the Provinces pay these levies. Clearly the Imperial government would often face financial difficulties in emergencies if these payments came only once per era. Then again, to transfer funds every cycle would be very costly in terms of transportation. Unfortunately we no longer have a Hsin around to actually deal with these issue IC and OOC.

Baring some exceptions like city-states with direct links to the Imperial government (Jaedaxia?), Provinces then are the nucleus of the tax story. These units are not too large that an attempt to centralize taxation would be futile, but will still face serious competition from peripheral regions and large urban centers. Depending on how strong the Provincial Government is it can enforce more centralized (and thus more) taxation. The most decentralized way is to operate like the Imperial government and negotiate with a region or city to pay a certain levy every era. Then there is the use of aforementioned private tax entrepreneurs. The next step are customs and indirect taxes, which were usually collected by state employed (though heavily corrupt) civil servants. The most difficult tax to collect would be direct taxation on income. Most Provinces will likely use a patchwork of different systems and ad-hoc measures to meet the demands of their budgets.

In roleplaying practice we have no option but to simplify. When my PC was Lt. Governor of Lauryl we had spreadsheets for the budget (see attachments). I think Hsin made the basis and Caerydd made some edits. The budget was a bit too positive imo, and we never actually used it IC. It was more to gain an idea of the magnitude of government finance I guess.

So the question is what we are aiming for in actual roleplay. Apart from the few crazy enthusiasts who are gathered here I think few players with political pc’s want to work out the budgets of their governments. They want to play the good, noble Governor or the evil, backstabbing Lieutenant Governor. I think they are justified by saying that number crunching is not how they want to use their spare time. That said, money, even imaginary money in a fantasy world, has to come from somewhere. Politics cannot avoid financial issues. Any project a political PC undertakes should be accounted for financially. This does not have to be through actual budgets, but can also be done qualitatively. For example: “we build an extra bridge over the river by increasing taxation on salt” or “we enlarge the military by decreasing education funding”. Of course, the PC and the mod would still have to have a basic idea of what taxes are currently applicable in that area. This is imo the minimum that should be done.

The next step is to quantify the budget of the government. This has the benefit that we gain a better idea of issues related to it, like wages of officials, and that we can assess the impact of an unplanned budget in- or decrease that is quantified, like Alexis’ donation to Arconis. However, making a budget is probably best left to those few crazy enthusiasts for their own city of province and not something that should be generally implemented. That budget of Mystique is a good example of what could be aimed for, though I would have liked to see the detail in the military part also in the other sections. If my PC gets a position in Lauryl again I think I would like to make an attempt at making a working provincial budget.

[Gye'ron Val Oriden]

The detail in the military section was done because the military expenses weren't normal for the city, it was because it was preparing for war with Frigid River at the time so the point of the detail was to illustrate the financial impact that war would have and was having on the city.

But I agree with what you're saying, budgets for budgets sake is pointless. Why we need to have budgets figured out is so that we have a better idea of the impact of descisions on IC events. For example, deciding to combat crime in Vortex, or subsidizing an industry, or increasing military size, etc. This way you can see an effect when a PC in government makes a decision. Instead of just achieving their desired effect, they also have to deal with the financial consequences. For example, people couldn't receive the proper health care because they made a cut to that area in order to pay for the crime fighting effort and now a disease is running rampant through the city. It at least makes RPing a politician more interesting in my opinion.

Beyond that, the longevity and success of a political administration is often judged by whether it ran a deficit or a surplus and whether the economy was strong or not under that administrations reign.

I'm not saying that the PCs have to focus the majority of their efforts on the financial portion of government, but realistically it's such a huge part of running government that you simply can't ignore it.