GEO is a business game. If you are reading this from the main window of the GEO program, then the GEO program has been successfully installed and launched, and you have successfully registered to participate in the game. Observe that the main window of the GEO program is set within a main frame, and that the program’s main menu appears above, just beneath the title bar. The main menu consists of the following drop-down items:
The vast majority of this program’s features are accessed through View and Action. So, whenever you are uncertain about the menu item to select, consider whether you want to see something or to do something. If you want to see something, you will generally find it under View; if you want to do something, you will generally find it under Action.
When you registered, you were assigned to a nation and a group. You should check to assure that the registration is right. Select from the main menu View >> Participants, that is, point to the View item of the main menu with the cursor and click the left mouse button, causing a drop-down menu to appear, from which you select Participants by moving the cursor to that item and clicking the left mouse button again. Participants are listed by nation. If you do not see you name on the list, select the *All tab, which shows the name of every participant. If you name is spelled incorrectly, select from the main menu Action >> Edit Identity & Photo/URL. On the dialog that appears, enter the correct spelling of your name, and then depress the OK button.
Notable program features are as follows:
1. All decisions are accessed through the Action item of the main menu.
2. Double-clicking the left mouse button on the nickname of a participant within an active list brings up the query, “Do you want to email this person?” Respond affirmatively to activate the computer’s email application. Whichever you choose, the participant’s full identity (section/team, first and last names, nation, group, and picture or web site, if uploaded) will appear.
3. Double-clicking the left mouse button on the name of a company within an active list causes the company’s financial statements and related information to appear.
4. Double-clicking the left mouse button on a period within an active list causes details of that period associated with the list to appear.
5. Entry boxes do not accept invalid entries. The maximum acceptable figure is entered when a figure exceeding the maximum is typed into the edit box. So, to find the highest valid number for an entry, type any nonzero number repeatedly until the highest number appears in highlights within the edit box.
6. For faster log in, depress the Skip Opening button instead of the OK button on the Login-to-Geo dialog. This causes the main window to appear without the Advice panel and the Home website. The Advice panel can be activated by selecting View >> Advice from the main menu, and the home website can be activated by clicking the Home icon or by selecting File >> Web Home from the main menu.
7. An occasional “not responding” message that appears is unimportant. The message means that the Internet is slower than usual. The program is unresponsive when the message appears, but the message generally disappears after a few seconds, after which the program will be responsive again.
In GEO, you will progress through one or more life cycles. Your goal is to extend the duration of each life cycle as much as possible, simulating the basic motivation of all living things. Your personal performance score is the number of periods you add to each life cycle, cumulated over all life cycles.
You extend the duration of each life cycle by consuming products, deemed to occur when you buy products for consumption from companies that sell them. When you consume products, you gain utils. The effect of utils on life-cycle extension diminishes as more utils are accumulated within each period. You should therefore try to consume products in every period, and you will be most successful in extending your life if your consumption is both high and steady.
You may find it helpful to think of utils as units of happiness. Consumption gives you happiness, which enables you to live longer. More consumption gives you more happiness than less consumption, but an increase in happiness when you consumption level is low extends your life more than the same increase when your consumption level is already high.
Your consumption can be high if your income is high. You supplement your income with salaries from companies in which you are employed, with dividends of companies that are profitable, and with capital gains from stocks that you sell and stock options that you redeem. Success in GEO, as in everyday life, depends on how well you make money as well as how well you spend money.
Your personal performance score is only one part of your grand total score. The other parts are your start position and group credit: Grand Total = Start Position + Group Credit + Personal Performance. Start position is compensation for a late start, and group credit is reward for working in groups.
Your start position is the average grand total score of all active participants at the time you started your first life cycle. If you started your first life cycle in period 0 or 1, your start position is zero. Products are not available for consumption in period 0 and the life-extending consequence of consumption in each period is not realized until the next period, so everyone’s grand total score of the first two periods is zero.
Your group credit for any period is a weighted value between your personal performance and group performance, which is the average personal performance of the members of the group in that period. The weight depends upon the preferences of active group members. If more members prefer to weigh personal performance over group performance, the weight will be heavier on personal performance than on group performance, and vice versa.
The weighted value is discounted depending on circumstances. GEO refers to the discount as the Group Credit Discount Rate (GCDR), and shows it on the Life tab of the Self panel (main menu: View >> Self). When the discount rate is 100%, group credit is zero; when the rate is 0%, group credit is not discounted. Otherwise, the discount applies if the number of active members of the group falls below a set minimum. Under this circumstance, the discount is the rate taken to the power of the number of active groups members, so the discount is higher when the number of active members is smaller. For example, when the GCDR is 50% and the group’s set minimum is three (main menu: Pick Group, Min column), the discount is 50% if the group has only one active member, 25% (50% of 50%) if the group has only two active members, and none if the group has three or more active members.
The title bar on top of the main menu displays your score in three numbers. The number in brackets is your start position. The two numbers following it are your group credit and your personal performance, both cumulated from the start of the event. The sum of all three numbers is your grand total.
The number immediately preceding your start position and the colon is your progression, in life cycles lived. For example, 2.50 means two and a half life cycles lived, thus, halfway through the third life cycle.
To see your current standing relative to others, select from the main menu View >> Scoreboard. The scoreboard panel that appears shows everyone’s grand total score.
To see where you stand over time over time relative to others, select from the main menu View >> Benchmark History, followed by your chosen section/team or nation. The benchmark history panel that appears tabulates and plots your scores, mean scores, and best scores over time.
To see details of your standing, from the main menu select View >> Self to bring up the Self panel. It contains the following tabs:
· Money: Shows where your money came from, where it went, and how much you have available to spend.
· Investment: Shows the companies in which you own shares, and the state of your investments.
· Consumption: Shows your progress in utils consumed, periods lived, periods added, and group credits.
· Life: Shows performance conditions and your current standing relative to that of other participants.
· Activity: Shows your emigrations, logins, logouts, companies founded, and current employment, and activity indices.
· Group: Shows your group, its members, and its standing relative to other groups.
Life everywhere begins with demand for consumption, so in GEO, you initiate your first life cycle by submitting a valid bid for every consumer product, which constitutes your demand for consumption. After submitting the bids, your life will start and you will begin receiving a periodic entitlement. Time in GEO is marked in periods. When a period elapses, entitlements, salaries, dividends, and interest are paid, products are made, and company products and shares are sold from those whose asking prices are lowest to those whose bidding prices are highest. In the case of products, the highest bidder pays either the price asked or the price bid, depending on the selling company’s sales policy. In the case of shares, the highest bidder pays the price asked by the seller.
In GEO, consumption is simultaneous with purchase. You consume products whenever you purchase them as a consumer, by selecting from the main menu Action >> Consume Products & Set Budget to bring up the Consume Products dialog. You can purchase products that are for sale simply by entering and executing the quantity you want to buy in the They-Ask-to-Sell area of the dialog, but you cannot achieve steady consumption by occasional purchases this way. The practical way to consume is to submit bids for products, letting the program automatically purchase products for you whenever they are available.
To bid for a consumer product, in the You-Bid-to-Buy area of the Consume Products dialog, enter a Maximum Bidding Price and a Maximum Bidding Quantity for the tab-labeled product and depress the Submit Bid button. The maximum bidding price must be at least $1 and the maximum bidding quantity must be at least 1 for the bid to be accepted. Enter bids for all five tab-labeled products. Notice that some products have higher util values (look just beneath the tabs for the util value) than other products, so your maximum bidding price should be higher for a higher-value product than for a lower-value product. Even so, products with higher util values generally can be purchased for less on a per-util basis than products with lower util values, because the number of parties with sufficient money to buy higher util products is smaller, so bid accordingly.
GEO efficiently matches bids to buy products with offers to sell products, automatically executing transactions whenever buyers’ conditions are compatible with sellers’ conditions. Bids are ordered for execution based on bidding prices, so the higher your maximum bidding price, the earlier your bid will be considered, and therefore the more likely your bid will be successful. The price you pay when your bid is successful depends on the offer of the selling company. If the offer is to sell on a first-bid basis, then the price you pay is the offer’s invitation price, which must be at or below your bidding price. If the offer is to sell on a best-bid basis, then the price you pay is your bidding price. The program considers offers to sell on a first-bid basis before it considers offers to sell on a best-bid basis, so your bid will be matched to a best-bid offer only if it cannot be matched to a first-bid offer, because no first-bid offer remains when your bid is considered or because the invitation prices of remaining first-bid offers exceed your bidding price.
Essentially, offers to sell on a first-bid basis constitute the retail market for the product. In retail sales, each seller sells its products to all customers at the same invitation price. Buyers at the head of the line (first bids) get the product first. If the seller’s stock is insufficient, buyers at the tail of the line leave empty handed. Offers to sell on a best-bid basis constitute the wholesale market for the product. In wholesale sales, each seller sells its products to the highest bidders (best bids) at the prices bid, so buyers who bid more pay more and buyers who did not bid high enough leave empty handed. Astute buyers buy from the wholesale market only when the same product cannot be bought from the retail market at the same or a lower price. The program, your purchasing agent, is astute.
You will make it easier for companies to employ you if you announce an offer to work. You can be employed simultaneous in three positions: manager, buyer, and seller. You cannot, however, hold the same employment position in more than one company at the same time. To announce an offer to work as a manager/buyer/seller, bring up the Manager dialog (Action >> Manage/Buy-Resources-for/Sell-Product-for Company). In the Your Offer to Work area, enter the Salary you require and your Stock Option request. The salary you enter should not exceed the maximum salary (main menu: View >> Domestic Policy) of the nation in which you want employment, or else your offer cannot be accepted by the companies of those nations. Should a company accept your offer to work, the company will pay you the salary you require, and issue to you the lesser of the number of stock options you request and the number of stock options it is allowed to issue. To submit the offer, assure that the Announce Offer box is checked. Then depress the Submit Offer to Work button. If the offer is submitted with the Announce Offer box unchecked, the offer is suspended until you should lose your job, after which your offer to work will be immediately announced.
You can change your offer to work at any time. You also can restrict it to an industry or nation, an option that is useful if you do not want everyone to know that you are in the market for the job, because that knowledge might adversely affect your relationship with your current employer. If a company accepts your offer, your employment will be effective immediately, your offer-to-work announcement will be withdrawn, and if you should already be employed in the same position with another company, you will lose that job.
Consider your group to be your family. GEO assigns you to a group when you register, and may re-adjust the assignment after everyone has registered. You may be able to switch groups after an interval. Group membership has two consequences. The first is group credit, as explained above. The second is that the first 100 shares of a startup business can only be bought by members of the founder’s group.
To switch groups when the feature is enabled, select from the main menu Action >> Pick Group, to bring up the Pick Group dialog. Click on the row of the group you want to join and check the box for switching to the selected group. If you are allowed to switch to that group, the Execute button will be enabled. Depress it to make the switch effective.
The size of every group is limited. Except for one or more GEO-defined special groups, the limit is equal to the smallest preferred group size of its members. You can join a group only if its size is below its limit, and you cannot join a group whose size is greater than or equal to your own preferred group size. If you nevertheless wish to join a group whose size would exceed the preferred size that you have entered, you can do so simply by entering a preferred group size of at least one greater than the size of the group you want to join. To prevent current group members from losing group credit when a new member joins the group, you also cannot join a group if your current personal performance, as based on your current consumption, is below the group’s standard.
To raise your current personal performance, consume more products, that is, from the main menu select Action >> Consume Products & Set Budget. On the Consume Products dialog that appears, examine the They Ask to Sell area. If the Quantity Selling number is greater than zero, then the product is available for purchase. Enter the number you wish to buy in the Quantity to Buy Now edit box, and depress the Execute Purchase button. Execution successful, your current consumption has increased, so your current personal performance has risen. It must rise to meet or exceed the group’s standard before you can join the group.
Your budget limits your ability to buy products for consumption. To see your budget, depress the Set Budget button on the Consume Products dialog (main menu: Action >> Consume Products and Set Budget). On the Set Budget dialog that appears, edit boxes for budgeting entries are disable in the first period of your first life cycle, and enabled thereafter.
As shown on the Set Budget dialog, you will receive a Periodic Entitlement at the beginning of each period. That entitlement will be added to Net Available and Unrestricted Balance. Each period, the specified Periodic Savings will be moved from Unrestricted Balance to Current Savings if the specified figure is positive, and moved in the opposite direction if the specified figure is negative, provided the movement would not cause either account to become negative.
If you are early in your life cycle and your income exceeds what you choose to spend for consumption, you should specify in Periodic Savings figure equal to the amount of your excess income, so as raise interest received from savings or lower interest paid on borrowings. Conversely, if you are late in your life cycle and your income falls below what you would like to spend for consumption, you should specify a negative Periodic Savings figure equal to the amount of your shortage of income.
Wants are less compelling than needs. The Want Target specifies the maximum number of utils you should accumulate each period by buying products for consumption, without dipping into Current Savings. The Need Target allows money to be withdrawn from Current Savings for consumption purchases. If products are available for purchase, you can buy them through the Consumer Products dialog only if the purchase would not cause either the Want Target to be exceeded or the Unrestricted Balance to become negative.
Accordingly, if your Unrestricted Balances rises because your consumption is limited by the Want Target, raise the Want Target. If your consumption is far below the Want Target and Current Savings is positive, either raise the Need Target to withdraw from savings whatever amount is needed each period, or specify a negative Periodic Savings figure to withdraw a constant amount each period.
As for investments, money to pay for founding companies and buying shares is taken first from Unrestricted Balance and then from Current Savings when the Unrestricted Balance is exhausted. Money from dividends goes into Unrestricted Balance and money received from selling shares goes into Current Savings.
If the Current Savings amount is insufficient for an investment, the shortage is borrowed up to the Max. Borrowing figure shown on the Money tab of the Self panel (main menu: View >> Self). The borrowed amount appears as a negative Current Savings figure. If the Unrestricted Balance is greater than zero, you can lower a borrowed amount, and may pay reduce interest payments, by entering a smaller negative figure in the Current Savings edit box and depressing the Execute button, but you can neither reverse a loan repayment nor borrow money for consumption, even if your need target is not reached.
At the end of your life cycle, debt will be repaid from money received through selling your shares. Unpaid debt is forgiven, and leftover money is taken by a 100% estate tax.
Your score depends upon your consumption, and your consumption is constrained by national policy. If the policy of another nation is more supportive of your consumption than the policy of your nation, you should consider migrating to that nation.
National policies in GEO are divided into three categories: monetary, fiscal, and trade. Review them by selecting from the main menu View >> Policy >> [select category]. Attend especially to the trade policies, because they directly affect the prices of products, which affect your consumption and therefore your score.
Free trade (FT) is the policy of neither subsidizing exports nor taxing imports. The global economy grows fastest when FT is the trade policy of all nations, because competition is uninhibited everywhere.
Export promotion (EP) is the policy of subsidizing all exports equally. This policy is generally designed to counter the effect of other nation’s subsidies and tariffs.
Strategic trade (ST) is the policy of massively subsidizing selected industries, to the point that no company of the industry can be competitive if it is established in a nation without an equivalent subsidy and that few other nations will match because of the policy’s riskiness. This policy is generally designed to limit competition in industries with the highest potential for global economic dominance.
Import substitution (IS) is the policy of taxing all imports equally. This policy is generally designed to raise local employment by raising the effective price of imported products.
Economic theory and the everyday-world experiences of nations suggest that IS is the worst policy, but theory and everyday-world experiences to date have not determined which of the other policies is best. Policymakers are often confronted with ambiguities of this kind. So, think about it, make your decision, and learn from your experiences. You will not always make the right decision, but you can learn to live with the decisions that you make.
To migrate, select from the main menu Action >> Emigrate >> [select nation]. Then choose between either converting your offer prices on consumer products and company shares or voiding the offers, and depress the Execute button. The Confirm Emigration dialog appears to show you that your money will be converted from the currency of the nation you are leaving to the currency of the nation you are entering. Confirm your intent to migrate by depressing the OK button.
A company serves two purposes: to earn a profit and to organize your investments. You found a company by selecting from the main menu Action >> Found Company, which brings up the Found Company dialog. The Found Company dialog shows you the number of companies you may found (Founding(s) Permitted), the minimum number of shares the founded company will issue (Minimum Issue Shares), and the money you have available for founding a company (Available Funding). Your available funding is the sum of the money you have and the money you can borrow.
Edit boxes allow you to choose the industry, nation, and name of the company you will found, and to enter the number of shares you will buy in the company you found. A disabled edit box for an item means that you must accept the entry shown. The arrowhead at the right end of an edit box is a selector you can use to pick among the available options. Choose a name for the company that does not exceed eight characters. The name cannot be changed, so avoid a name that might be awkward or embarrassing. A name that does not suggest a particular industry may be best; because an industry-specific name would be confusing were the company to switch to another industry later. The number of shares you are buying should be no less than the same number shown as Minimum Issue Shares, unless you intend to set aside remaining shares for other members of your group. The company can neither employ executives nor begin operations until it sells out its minimum issue. Depress the Execute button to make your decision effective.
If execution is successful, the company’s identity will appear in the Founded area of the dialog. Double left click on the nickname to bring up the Company view panel. It contains the following tabs:
· Balance Sheet: Shows the company’s balance sheet.
· Income Statement: Shows the company’s income statement.
· Detail: Shows bank deposits and loans, revenue by nation, investments, and resources on hand.
· Control: Shows executives and ownership distribution.
· Performance: Shows return on investment, earnings per share, market share, and market growth.
· Capability: Shows constraints on production, production outputs, company experience, capacity, and resource requirements.
· Subsidiary: Shows subsidiaries founded, shares acquired, and the performance of the acquisitions.
Every shareholder can choose either to control voting rights to the shares that shareholder owns or to assign those rights to another shareholder, who would then be designated as vote holder. By default, the program assigns voting rights to the shareholder who already controls the greatest number of outstanding shares. The eight shareholders who control the most shares are the company’s directors. The director who controls more than half of the outstanding shares is the controlling director. All directors can vote on takeover offers, but only the controlling director can set company policies and employ a manager.
You exercise your ownership rights to a company in which you own shares by selecting from the main menu Action >> Direct Company to bring up the Select Company to Direct dialog. The dialog shows the names of companies that you own either directly or through a subsidiary. To see details about a company, double left click on the company’s name. To direct a company, select it by left clicking once on its name. Then depress the Go to Work button to bring up the Direct Company dialog. The dialog contains five tabs, and one Execute button, which when depressed executes all changes on all tabs at one time. The tabs of the dialog are as follows:
If you have just founded an adequately financed company that you intend to operate, so that it is more than a holding company that invests in other companies, you should proceed to employ a manager. Do this by selecting the Manager tab. Then proceed in one of two ways.
First, you can accept an offer to work that appears in the Offer to Work area of the Manager tab. To do this, click on the offer to select it, check the Accept Offer box, and depress the Execute button to accept the offer.
Second, you can make an offer of employment to the person you wish to employ. To do this, in the Your Offer of Employment area of the Manager tab enter the nickname of the person you wish to employ to be the company’s manager. Then enter the Salary that the company will pay to the manager every period in which the company is solvent, and the Stock Options that the company will issue to the manager. Then depress the Execute button to send the offer to the desired manager. Employment is not effective until the person to whom the offer is sent accepts the offer, even if that person is you.
Stock options are treated in the same way under both methods of employment. The stock options’ strike price will be set to the company’s book value when the employment offer is accepted, and the stock options will be vested when the manager has been employed continuously for longer than the new hire adjustment duration, as shown on Capability tab or the Bank Detail tab, depending on the company’s industry, of the Company view panel (click the View Company button to bring up the Company view panel).
Stock options are a form of performance-based deferred compensation. To minimizes the salary’s immediate drain on the company’s cash and maximizes the performance-based element of the manager’s compensation, leaving the salary at its default minimum value and entering the highest acceptable stock-options value.
To assure that your company is well managed at the start, you should employ yourself as the company’s first manager if you can. You cannot, however, manage more than one company at any one time, because that would be a conflict of interests. So, if you already are managing another company, you must resign that conflicting job before you can manage the newly founded company.
GEO allows for two types of companies: banks and nonbanking companies. Both types of companies need managers, but the bank manager’s job is different in kind from the job of manager of a nonbanking company.
The manager of a bank sets financial policies for the deposits the bank accepts and the loans it issues. Participants and nonbanking companies will execute deposit and loan transactions with the bank within the scope of those policies. With each transaction, the bank’s cash position is immediately adjusted to meet the nation’s banking reserve requirement by lending to and borrowing from other banks, including, as needed, the nation’s central bank.
The manager of a nonbanking company supervises a seller, whose job is to set the company’s sales policy, and, if the company must purchase resources for its operations, a buyer, whose job is to set the company’s purchasing policy. The manager also acts on the company’s cash position by depositing money in banks and taking out loans from banks.
To manage either kind of company, select from the main menu Action >> Manage Company to bring up the Manager dialog. If you have been offered the manager’s position of a company, the offer will be listed in the New Job Offer area. Accept the offer by left clicking once on the listed company’s name, and then depressing the Accept Job Offer button. Depress the Go to Work button to bring up the Manage Company dialog, which contains, for nonbanking companies, one or more of the following tabs:
If the nonbanking company is new, you should proceed to employ subordinates in the same way that you were employed by the company’s controlling director. You may employ yourself as your own subordinate, provided you are not already employed in that position by another company. In that case, you must either resign that conflicting job or employ someone else.
The nonbanking company’s manager also is in charge of the company’s banking operations, so select the Bank tab. Deposit idle cash in an interest-bearing account by selecting a depositing nation (with the deposit tab on top, click on its row in the listing) and entering the deposit amount into the deposit edit box below the listing. Similarly, you would borrow money for the company by selecting a loaning nation and entering the loan amount in the loan edit box. In both case, you can check Compound interest into principal to add each period’s interest to the principal. If the Term edit box is enabled, you can fix the term of the deposit or loan to the number of periods you specify. This fixes the interest rate for the term and zeros out the balance at the end of the term. If the term deposit or loan is with a foreign nation, you also can check the fix-forward-exchange-rate box to fix the exchange rate at the end of the term. When you fix the forward exchange rate, you limit your risk, as an arbitrageur would, because the effect of your banking transaction does not depend on the vagaries of the exchange rate at the end of the term. When you do not fix the forward exchange rate, you absorb risk, as a speculator would, because the effect of your banking transaction does depend on the exchange rate at the end of the term.
Cash earns no interest, so you should deposit all unneeded cash to earn interest. Companies do need cash to cover salaries, purchase resources, and acquire subsidiaries, so you must manage the cash. Depressing the Execute button makes entries on all tabs of the dialog effective.
Select Action >> Sell Product for Company to bring up the Seller dialog. If you have been offered the seller’s position, the offer will be listed in the New Job Offer area. Accept the offer by left clicking once on the listed company’s name, and then depressing the Accept Job Offer button. Depress the Go to Work button to bring up the Sell Product for Company dialog.
The They Bid to Buy area shows the best current bid for your company’s product, and enables you sell the product immediately, provided the company has Available Quantity for sale. To accept the bid, enter a Quantity to Sell Now and depress the Execute Sale button, which executes a one-time sale.
The We Ask to Sell area is for you to enter the company’s offer to sell its product. The offer remains the same from period to period, until changed. You choose how the product is to be sold, either by accepting the best bid that is at least as high as the Reserve Asking Price you specify or by accepting the first bid at the Invitation Asking Price you specify. Make your choice by clicking on one of the two bullets and entering the corresponding asking price. If the company’s product can be inventoried, the Target Inventory Level will be enabled. In that case, you can change it to limit the company’s product inventory to the level you specify, but you should limit inventory, and therefore production, only if the company’s product inventory is excessive. Depress the Submit Offer to Sell button to send the offer.
Production occurs at the beginning of each period, followed by the automatic selling of company products. Accept-first-bid products are sold to the highest bidders at the asking price, after which accept-best-bid offers are sold to the remaining bidders at the bidding price. Products not sold are made available for purchase afterwards on a first-come-first-served basis at the asking price. The default price of zero keeps the company’s product from being sold, as an offer to sell at zero price is considered an invalid offer. So, the lowest valid asking price is $1.
Price determines the offer’s priority in the market, with the higher priority going to the sales offer at the lower price and the purchase offer at the higher price. Products of companies with sales offers at the lowest prices are sold first, to customers whose purchase offers are at the highest prices. Accordingly, if you choose the accept-best-bid mode of sale, you should set a reserve asking price no higher than necessary to cover the company’s marginal cost, to assure that the sales are to those who bid the highest, because the price your offer fetches is the price of their bid. If your company has no need to buy resources, it has no marginal cost, in which case the sensible reserve asking price, given competition, is $1, the lowest valid price.
The Target Inventory Level controls production. At the start of each period, the company produces at its capacity until it either uses up all necessary resources or has accumulated product inventory to the targeted level. Production then ceases for the rest of the period, to resume again at the start of the following period. Accordingly, the Target Inventory Level must be greater than zero for production to take place. If you leave it set at default to the largest acceptable figure (9,999,999), the company will produce as much as it can, which is the most sensible policy for a company without excess product inventory. For companies with no resource-purchasing requirement and therefore no variable production cost, production to capacity is always best, so this figure is automatically set to the maximum possible production and cannot be changed.
The product market can be viewed at the beginning and end of each period. To see the market at the beginning or end of the period, select from the main menu View >> Market, followed by the time and industry of your choosing. The panel that appears lists and graphs the offers to buy (demand) and offers to sell (supply). For the market at the beginning of the period, depress the Forward, Stop, and Backward buttons to see how offers to sell were matched with offers to buy. Observe that for each nation offers to sell on a first-bid basis are executed before offers to sell on a best-bid basis and that the highest-priced offers to buy are executed first. Across nations, the pattern may be distorted by subsidies and tariffs.
The product market’s history can be viewed from the production, resource, and consumption perspectives. To see the market’s history, select from the main menu View >> Product History >> [Production/Resource/Consumption] History, followed by the nation and industry of your choosing. The panel that appears shows tables and trends. Price Per Unit refers to what suppliers received for the products sold on the Production History panel, and to what the customers paid for the product bought on the Resource History and Consumption History panels.
Company production capacity generally rises with employment. Select from the main menu View >> Technology to see how the base production capacity of companies of each nation and industry varies depending upon the number of executives employed. Thus, if your company employs you as its only executive, then its production is constrained by the Base One-Executive Capacity, whereas if it employs someone else besides you, its production is constrained by the Base Two-Executive Capacity. Given sufficient required resources, higher capacity gives rise to higher production and higher revenue that can cover the compensation of the additional executives. The higher capacity accompanying additional executives does not depend on the particular employment position that is filled. Generally, you should retain the manager’s position for yourself and fill the seller’s position first, because the seller is subordinate to the manager and the least demanding position, followed by the buyer’s position if one is needed.
You can compensate those you employ with a salary and stock options. The salary your company pays must be no less than the nation’s minimum salary and no more than its maximum salary (main menu: View >> Domestic Policy). Stock options cannot be more that the number of outstanding shares. Moreover, a manager who does not also control the company cannot compensate a subordinate more generously than the manager is compensated, either by raising a subordinate’s salary above the manager’s own salary or by issuing to a subordinate more stock options that the number of stock options that the manager has received.
Fundamentally, employing others to work for your company is a sensitive human relations issue. Talking is necessary, a process that the program facilitates with its instant-messaging feature. You can use the feature to post your company’s job opening and to negotiate terms of employment..
To post a job opening for a seller, bring up the Manage Company dialog (main menu: Action >> Manage Company >> Go to Work). With the Seller tab selected, depress the Employee Message button to bring up the Message Box of Manager dialog. Select the To all bullet, and enter your job-opening message into the accompanying edit box. Depress the Enter key or the Send Message button to post the message. You can restrict your posting to a specified section, nation, group, or individual by selecting the appropriate combination of bullet and edit-box item.
To see posted job openings for sellers, bring up the Seller dialog (main menu: Action >> Sell Products for Company). The Employer Message button will flash if unread messages from companies to sellers are in your message box. Depress that button to read those messages.
To accept an offer to work as a seller, select from the main menu Action >> Manage Company. Press the Go to Work button. Acceptable offers to work will be listed in the Offer to Work area. If you want to accept an offer to work and if the position is occupied by a current employee, perhaps yourself, then you must dismiss the current employee first. To do this, in the Your Current Employee area, check the Dismiss Immediately box and depress the Execute button. Then left click on the nickname of the person whose offer you want to accept, check the Accept Offer box, and depress the Execute button to make your employment decision effective.
Stock options can be redeemed or exercised. If redeemed, the company pays you the difference between the company’s current option-adjusted book value and the option’s strike price as a supplement to your salary. If exercised, the company sells you shares at the strike price. You can choose to redeem or exercise any number of your stock options at any time after they are vested, which occurs when you have been employed continuously for longer than the New Hire Adjustment Duration (Company view panel, Capability tab). If you resign or are dismissed, your vested stock options are automatically redeemed for you.
The relative advantage between redeeming and exercising stock options depends on your financial resources, where you are in your life cycle, and the company’s dividend policy. If your financial resources are low, you are close to the end of your life cycle, and the company pays no dividends, then you should redeem your stock options. If the situation is reversed, you should exercise them. You should hold on to the stock options if the company’s adjusted book value is low, its business is risky, but its growth prospects are good. In this last case, if you redeem the stock options, you gain little, and if you exercise them, you risk losing your investment.
To redeem your stock options, go to the dialog of the job for which you were granted the options. So, if you were granted stock options to manage the company, select from the main menu Action >> Manage Company; if you were granted stock options to buy resources for the company select Action >> Buy Resources for Company; and if you were granted stock options to sell the company’s product, select Action >> Sell Product for Company. From the Manager/Buyer/Seller dialog, depress the Redeem Stock Option button, and specify the number of stock-option shares you wish to redeem.
To exercise your stock options, select from the main menu Action >> Trade Stock >> *All >> *All to bring up the Select Stock or Takeover Target dialog. Left click once on the name of the company whose options you want to exercise. Then depress the Go to Market button. It brings up the Stock of … dialog, which has three tabs:
Select the Stock Option tab. In the They Ask to Sell area, enter the number of stock options you want to exercise in the Shares to Buy Now edit box. Then depress the Execute Purchase button.
Your immediate superior decides your salary. If you are a buyer or a seller, the manager decides your salary. If you are a manager, the controlling director makes that decision. The manager’s own salary is the upper limit of the salary the manager can set for subordinates, unless the manager also is the controlling director, in which case subordinates can have salaries higher than the manager’s own.
The controlling director raises the salary of the manager by bringing up the Direct Company dialog (Action >> Direct Company >> [select company] >> Go to Work) and selecting the Manager tab. The manager raises the salary of subordinates by bringing up the Manage Company dialog (Action >> Manage Company >> Go to Work) and selecting the Buyer tab or Seller tab. In either case, the superior enters the new salary in the Current Salary edit box of the Your Current Employee area, and depresses the Execute button makes the change effective.
An executed salary decision cannot be lowered without the subordinate’s concurrence. To lower a salary, the superior must execute a new job offer to the subordinate that specifies the lower salary, which the subordinate must accept to be effective. If the subordinate accepts, the salary is lowered to the new figure with no loss of tenure, and therefore no loss of production capacity arising from the subordinate’s employment. If the subordinate does not accept, the superior can force the salary reduction by dismissing and immediately re-hiring the subordinate, but doing so causes the subordinate to lose tenure and the company to lose production capacity associated with the loss of tenure. The re-hired subordinate must keep that position for the New Hire Unproductive Duration (Company view panel, Capability tab) before the loss is resolved.
If you know what it takes to make a company in your industry highly profitable, you should look for an opportunity to leverage your competency by acquiring a less successful competitor and improving its profitability. Moreover, when a company acquires a competitor, both the acquiring and acquired companies share subsequent production experiences that improve the efficiency of both companies, which gives the pair a sustainable competitive advantage over other independent companies.
To acquire a company, you acquire its shares. A convenient way of acquiring all the outstanding shares of a company is through a statutory takeover. The process involves three steps:
The controlling director of the acquiring company submits a takeover bid by selecting from the main menu Action >> Direct Company >> [select acquiring company] >> Go to Work >> Acquisition tab >> Trade Stock & Takeover Company button >> [locate targeted company] >> Takeover Bid button to bring up the Takeover Bid Targeting dialog. On the dialog, Premium Over Basic Value is the total amount over the targeted company’s book value, or over zero if the company’s book value is negative, that the acquiring company offers to pay to acquire complete ownership of the target. A valid bid requires a premium of at least $1. Percent Cash is the percent of the purchase price that the acquiring company offers to pay to the targeted company’s shareholders in cash; the rest will be paid in shares issued by the acquiring company at its book value, adjusted for stock options. Depress the Submit Bid button to submit the bid.
Nothing results from submitting a takeover bid unless directors of the targeted company know of the bid and vote to approve the bid. So, tell them about the bid before submitting it, and remind them of the bid after submitting it. The program’s instant-messaging feature can be used to communicate with them (depress the Company Message button on the Select Stock or Takeover Target dialog to bring up the Message Box of Investor dialog) when face-to-face talk, the better method for important matters such as this, is not possible.
Directors of the targeted company will see submitted bids on their Advice panel when they log in. To approve a bid, each director selects from the main menu Action >> Direct Company >> [select targeted company] >> Go to Work to bring up the Direct Company dialog. With the Power tab on top, the approving director checks the Approve Offer box and depresses the Execute button. When a decisive number of directors have approved the bid, the bid is designated as accepted.
Nothing results from an accepted takeover bid until the controlling director of the acquiring company executes the takeover, by bringing up the Takeover Bid Targeting dialog again, and depressing the Execute Takeover button. Afterwards, the targeted company becomes a subsidiary of the acquiring company, the acquiring company appears as the sole owner and director of the targeted company, and shareholders of the targeted company are left with the combination of cash and shares in the acquiring company specified in the bid that was accepted.
The value of the competitive advantage gained by the acquisition of a competitor is difficult to quantify. It depends on the pre-acquisition production capabilities of the companies (more capable companies gain more), on the number of other competitors the acquiring company has already acquired (bigger families gain more), and on the ability of the acquiring company’s controlling director to oversee a larger group of companies. Considering the difficulty of assessing value, a takeover bid that offers a token premium of $1 and 0% cash is expedient. In this case, the offer is for a pure merger with no cash changing hands, so the shareholders of both companies will share in the results of the merger in proportion to the pre-merger book value of the shares they own. If the merger turns out well, every party to the merger wins; if it turns out poorly, every party loses. On the other hand, if cash changes hands, the party that bought may pay too much, or the party that sold may have sold for too little. One party gains at the other’s expense when the money paid does not precisely match the value received. Consequently, more diligence is called for on offers that involve cash.
A new industry can be more profitable than one that is mature, because the competitors are fewer. Even so, the profitability of an industry depends also on its technology and on government policy, which may vary by nation and industry. So, before venturing into a new industry, you should identify the nation and industry that is best for your venture. Examine each industry’s competitiveness (main menu: View >> Competition), its technology (main menu: View >> Technology), and government policy (main menu: View >> Policy >> Trade & Foreign).
Your venture can be founded directly or through a company you control. If founded directly, the venture will be financed from your personal resources. If founded through a company your control, the venture will be financed from the company’s resources.
To found the venture directly, select from the main menu Action >> Found Company. To found the venture through a company you control, select Action >> Direct Company >> [select company] >> Acquisition tab. For both cases, fill in the edit boxes and depress the Execute button.
The financing for founding the venture directly comes from your current savings. If the current savings is insufficient, the money will be borrowed automatically up to the level of your maximum borrowings.
The financing for founding a venture through a company you control comes from the company’s cash balance. You may be able to add to the cash balance by taking out a bank loan. From the main menu, select Action >> Manage Company >> Go to Work >> Bank tab >> Loan tab. Select the desired nation; enter the desired loan amount; specify the term, if enabled; check the compound-interest box, if desired; and then depress the Execute button.
Either way, you may find that you do not have sufficient financing to meet the venture’s minimum financing requirement, necessary before you can proceed to staff the venture. To resolve the problem, you might found the company directly and then direct your established company to buy the remaining shares (main menu: Action >> Direct Company >> Acquisition tab >> Trade Stock & Takeover Company), or vice versa. Consider also persuading other members of your group to buy shares in your venture. If they are persuaded, they may agree also to be employed as the venture’s executives.
The company you control may be in the wrong industry because the company’s competitors are numerous, have a great deal more experience, or have much better government support. In this case, switching industries, to the extent allowed, may be the best solution.
To switch a company from one industry to another, you must be the company’s controlling director. The controlling director executes the switch by selecting from the main menu Action >> Direct Company >> [select company] >> Strategy tab. In the Switch to Another Industry area, select the desired industry into the Industry combo box. If the Dismiss unneeded executives & void employment offers check box is enabled, then the selected industry does not require one or more executive positions (buyer or seller or both) that are occupied or for which the company has one or more outstanding offers of employment. Checking the box causes the checked action to be executed with the switch when the Execute button is depressed. Leaving the box unchecked retains the unneeded executives and the employment offers. The retained executives will be furloughed, because they have no work to do, so they will not be paid.
The choice on dismissing or retaining unneeded executives should depend on the likelihood that you will switch the company back. If you might switch the company back, then you should retain the unneeded executives, so that the switch back will restore the company’s staffing to its state before the switch. Otherwise dismissing the unneeded executive releases them into the executive-employment market, where they may be, to their advantage, immediately available for employment by another company.
To staff the new venture, the controlling director must employ its manager, who in turn will employ its buyer and seller. Inasmuch as no participant can be employed in the same position with more than one company, those accepting employment in the new venture lose any like position they may have in another company. This is the opportunity cost of their new employment, which they may recover with a higher salary, stock options, or both.
The new venture may need to purchase resources. To purchase resources, the company’s manager must employ a buyer, who could be you. The buy selects from the main menu Action >> Buy Resources for Company >> Go to Work to bring up the Buy Resources for Company dialog. The two edit boxes of the dialog are labeled Maximum Bidding Price and Safety Stock, which is enabled only when resources can be inventoried. The buyer fills in enabled edit boxes and depresses the Submit Bid button. The program purchases resources from the market based on the buyer’s bid and the quantity needed for the company’s production.
Companies bid in the same marketplace as consumers, but the company’s position is weaker. For the consumer, the different products can substitute for one another, because the utils they supply are indistinguishable. For the company, nothing else can substitute for the needed resource, so production will be lost if an unsuccessful bid results in a shortage of the resource. Lost production leads to lost sales and lost profits that in turn can lead to insolvency. For this reason, companies should assure that their bids will be successful by setting higher maximum bidding prices than consumers.
The safety stock is the addition quantities that will be maintained in inventory after each production cycle. It serves as a buffer for periods when the company’s bid for resources is not completely successful. The program buys resources for the company above the safety-stock level on a just-in-time basis. Thus, it computes the resource requirements for full-capacity production, subtracts inventory quantities exceeding safety stock, and bids from the market for the balance.
Select from the main menu Action >> Manage Company to bring up the Manager dialog. If you have been offered the manager’s position of a company, the offer will be listed in the New Job Offer area. Accept the offer by left clicking once on the listed company’s name, and then depressing the Accept Job Offer button. Depress the Go to Work button to bring up the Manage Company dialog, which contains, for a bank, only one tab, the Finance tab.
The Finance tab enables the manager to set the bank’s policy on loans and deposits. The manager sets these terms by editing three figures: Loan Premium Above Interbank Borrow (LP), Deposit Discount Below Interbank Lend (DD), and Maximum Term (MT). LP and DD are specified in basis points, each point being one hundredth of a percentage point. MT is specified in periods.
The interest rate that the bank charges for loans by participants and nonbanking companies is LP basis points above the Interbank Borrow rate, which is the interest rate that the bank pays to borrow money from other banks. LP is therefore the bank’s contribution margin on loans.
Similarly, the interest rate that the bank pays for deposits by participants and nonbanking companies is DD basis points below the Interbank Lend rate, which is the interest rate that the bank receives for money lent to other banks. DD is therefore the bank’s contribution margin on deposits.
The bank’s customer base consists of every participant who is a member of the bank’s nation and all solvent nonbanking companies, even those that are members of a different nation. Participants take out demand loans from a bank of their nation when they borrow money; they place demand deposits with a bank of their nation when they save money. Participants neither take out term loans nor make term deposits, and they do not do business with foreign banks. On the other hand, nonbanking companies can choose the term of their loans and their deposits, and the nationality of their banks. If the term that a nonbanking company chooses exceeds the MT of a commercial bank, that commercial bank is shut out of the company’s banking business.
The nation’s central bank is banker-of-last-resort for participants and nonbanking companies. If no commercial bank is available, because none has been founded or all are insolvent or inactive, then banking transactions are consummated directly with the nation’s central bank.
The bank that gets the banking business of a potential customer is the bank that offers the best interest rate at the time the customer’s banking transaction is initiated or renewed. At that time, each transaction is randomly assigned to the one of the available banks that offers the best interest rate. This means that only the banks with the lowest LP of the nation will share in the nation’s loan business, and only the banks with the lowest DD of the nation will share in the nation’s deposit business. Accordingly, a commercial bank assures itself of business by setting a low LP, a low DD, and a high MT. The price of the assurance is low contribution margins and high risk. The bank’s manager must strike a balance between assurance of business on one hand, and contribution margins and risk on the other hand.
Irrespective of the policy that the manager sets, a bank will be hamstrung if its capital base is too low and if its manager has not been employed for a sufficient number of periods. If the bank’s capital falls below the nation’s minimum capital adequacy ratio (total equities minus investments divided by the sum of demand and term loans), the bank cannot take deposits. If the bank’s manager has not been employed continuously for longer than the new hire adjustment duration, the bank cannot make loans. The bank’s controlling director is the party that should attend to these issues.
GEO simulates life; it does not replicate life. One aspect of life that GEO does not replicate is the uncertainty of the ending of life. In GEO, you decide when your life cycle ends by placing an order for beginning a new life cycle, but you must wait past the no-order duration (main menu: Action >> New Life) before you can place the order. Placing an order enables you to specify when you will transition from your current life cycle to the next life cycle. If you place no order for beginning a new life cycle, your current life cycle will end when no periods are left (main menu: View Self >> Consumption tab), and a new life cycle will not begin until you submit consumer bids for all products. The periods between the end of your current life cycle and the beginning of the next one will be a dead interval during which your personal performance and group credits will be zero. You avoid the dead interval by placing an order for beginning a new life cycle.
Be sure to liquidate your assets and spend your money before transitioning to a new life cycle, otherwise GEO will liquidate your assets for you and the government will take all of your money, in payment of the 100% estate tax. Your assets consists of any stock option that you may own that have a redemption value and any investment that you may have.
If you own stock options (main menu: View Self >> Activity, look under Option in the list of employers), the options may have a redemption value. To ascertain their redemption value, from the main menu select Action >> Manager Company…/Buy Resources…/Sell Product…, depending on the employment position for which the stock options were granted. If the Stock Option Value in the Your Current Employer area is zero, you do not own any stock option associated with that position that has a redemption value. Otherwise, depress the Redeem & Exercise Stock Options button, enter the number of stock options you own in the Option Shares to Redeem edit box, and depress the Execute button. The payment you receive for your stock options adds to your salaries for the period. Do the same for the other employment positions for which you have stock options.
If the value of your investments (main menu: View Self >> Investment tab) exceed your debt (negative Current Savings, View Self >> Money), you should sell all the shares you own before your current life ends. To sell the shares you own, select from the main menu Action >> Trade Stock & Takeover Company >> ~Portfolio >> [select a company in which you own shares] >> Go to Market >> They Buy tab. In the Shares to Sell Now edit box, enter the number of shares you own, and depress the Execute Sale button. Repeat the process for other shares that you own.
The money from selling the shares will be placed in your Current Savings. Provided the Current-Savings amount is positive, money will be withdrawn from it for consumption up to your Need Target (View Self >> Money tab). If the Need Target is low relative to your Current Savings, you can raise it (main menu: Action >> Consume Products & Set Budget >> Set Budget button >> edit Need Target >> depress Execute button).
To place your order for a new life cycle, select from the main menu Action >> New Life. Check the Begin new life before box and enter one period beyond the number of periods required to exhaust your Current Savings. Then depress the Execute button.
If you had placed an order for a new life cycle, your new life cycle began in the period immediately following the end of your previous life cycle, so your consumption of products is uninterrupted. Otherwise, you must place bids for all consumer products (main menu: Action >> Consume Products & Set Budget) to begin a subsequent life cycle, as you did to begin your first life cycle.
You may have founded a company in your first life cycle. When that life cycle ended, you either sold your shares in your company or the shares were sold for you. Money from the sale of shares that you may not have spent when your previous life cycle ended was 100% estate-taxed by the government. The material wealth you accumulate in each life cycle ends at the conclusion of the life cycle.
Although you may be able to found another company, buying an existing company is generally better than founding one, because (a) the investment required to acquire a controlling interest in an existing company is generally less than the investment required to found a new company, (b) the experience that the existed company may have accumulated enables it to produce more products and do it more efficiently than a newly founded company could, and (c) the company may already be a profitable, so no effort would be required to make the company profitable. Although you also may be able to buy back the shares of the company you sold, generally, your payoff will be better if you buy the shares of a company whose standing is better than that of the one you had founded. Another company might have more experience or undervalued assets, for example, so that its shares are priced less relative to its value.
To buy the shares of any company, select from the main menu Action >> Trade Stock & Takeover Company >> [select the company with a number in the Sell Discount column, which means that its shares are for sale at the specified discount below book value] >> Go to Market. On the They Sell tab of the Stock-of dialog that appears, enter the number of shares you wish to buy in the Shares to Buy Now edit box. Then depress the Execute Purchase button.
Generally, the best shares to buy are those offered for sale by the government. The government serves as market maker for the shares of companies. It always offers to buy shares at slightly below book value, and it offers to sell the shares it owns on the same basis. The government cannot control any company, so whoever controls the most shares among those that the government does not own controls the company. Accordingly, when the government owns every outstanding share, anyone who buys one or more of those shares controls the company. If the company is profitable, you can, after buying just one share, employ yourself as the company’s manager and specify your own salary. For this reason, the shares of profitable companies that are entirely owned by the government are especially attractive. These companies are tagged in the Status column of the Companies panel (View >> Companies) as Private-0%, meaning that non-governmental parties own none of the company, so the government owns every outstanding share.
Currency speculation can be extremely profitable, but it also is extremely risky. Taking extreme risks, however, is rational if you are both the controlling director and manager of a company in which you have little ownership. In this case, you, as the company’s controlling director, can issue to the company’s manager (yourself), a large number of stock options that will be very valuable should the company realize extremely high profits from your speculative transactions. Yet, if extreme losses result, your own losses are limited to your salary as the company’s manager and the value of the shares you own, which you can dispose of by selling the shares for whatever you can get for them, which may be nothing.
To speculate on currency, select from the main menu Action >> Manage Company >> Bank tab. Select View Menu >> Exchange and Interest Rates >> Exchange Rate to bring up the Exchange Rate view panel. Then review each nation’s exchange-rate history by clicking on each nation-labeled tab, so that it appears on top, before depressing the View History button to identify the most overvalued (expensive, Rate above value) and most undervalued (inexpensive, Rate below value) currencies. Two measures of currency value are shown, relative net unencumbered foreign holdings (RUFH) and relative current account balance (RCAB).
RUFH is the direct basis of GEO’s exchange rate. When the exchange rate floats (Exchange Rate view panel, Exchange Peg Factor = 0.), exchange rate and RUFH are identical in value. Otherwise, the exchange rate settles at multiples of the peg factor closest to the RUFH.
RUFH includes international banking transactions excluded from RCAB, so RUFH is more volatile that RCAB, because wealthy participants and companies can move money in large quantities between nations fast. Accordingly, RUFH is the better short-term predictor whereas RCAB is the better long-term predictor of the currency exchange rate.
Select as your targets for speculation the most overvalued and undervalued currencies support by RUFH and RCAB trends in the same direction. Return to the Bank tab of the Manage Company dialog. Click the Loan tab so that it appears on top, select the nation with the overvalue target currency from the list, and enter the largest number you can into the Loan edit box. Note the Balance amount of the loan. Next, click the Deposit tab so that it appears on top. Select the nation with the undervalue target currency from the list and adjust the number in the Deposit edit box until the deposit balance matches the loan balance. Entering Term figures and checking Compound interest are optional, but be sure to leave Fix forward exchange rate unchecked on both the loan tab and the deposit tab. Then depress the Execute button.
If after a short interval currency rates change in the direction you anticipated (overvalue target currency falls and undervalue target currency rises), you will see a large Net Foreign Exchange Gain on the company’s income statement. If the gain appears as a large negative number, however, you lost. You are most likely to win if you are the only party speculating, because then currency values move gradually and predictably. If many people speculate, however, currency values become more volatile and less predictable.
The principle is this. Speculation is smart if you are the first person to act on the opportunity, but speculation is foolish if you, noticing what others are doing, emulate their actions.
You may be able to augment the profitability of the company you manage through covered-interest arbitrage. In GEO, the process consists of taking a compound interest term loan from a nation with a low interest rate on loans, depositing the proceeds in a compound interest term deposit in a nation with an interest rate on deposits that is higher than the interest rate on the term loan, and fixing the forward exchange rate on both transaction to the current rate of exchange. You do this by selecting from the main menu Action >> Manage Company >> Bank tab. With the Bank tab on top, select the Loan tab to take out the loan and select the Deposit tab to place the deposit. Then depress the Execute button to execute both transactions simultaneously.
Governance policy should be designed to improve the welfare of the nation, so the first step in planning the policy is to determine where the nation stands. Common indicators of national standing are the nation’s gross domestic product (main menu: View >> National Income), unemployment rate (main menu: View >> National Goal), and consumer price index (main menu: View >> National Goal).
Trends are particularly informative. To view trends, depress the View History button wherever it appears, to bring up the History view panel, containing a table and graph for 10 periods of each parent-panel line item. On the History view box, depress the Proceed button to direct the program to gather data for 10 more historical periods. Depress it again for another 10 more periods, and so forth. Depress the Don’t Pause button to direct the program to gather data from all available historical periods.
To export the historical data to a spreadsheet program, where it may be conveniently analyzed, depress the Export button, which exports the data series of the selected tab, or the Export All button, which exports all of the data series of the set. The exported data is formatted as a CSV file that can be read by spreadsheet programs.
Government policies in GEO are divided into three categories: monetary, fiscal, and trade. Monetary policies comprise the bank reserve requirement and interest rates. Fiscal policies comprise taxes, the periodic entitlement, the company founding fee, and limits on salary payments. Trade policies comprise export subsidies and import tariffs. GEO allow these policies to be controlled by three methods: