Today, June 22nd, marks the first full day of being a town, and the last day of a closed economy. As the Obscura Collective has seen numerous businesses open, from the logistics company PershCo to the carpenters of Aestorusian Industries, the economy is starting to truly open up. Yet not all is as well as it may seem on paper. Obscura still struggles with access to clean drinking water and with providing its seedlings a consistent supply of high quality food. Over the past two days, numerous seeds have fallen ill with various sicknesses, most commonly jaundice. The community has come together to provide remedies, but one must wonder what life would be like if measures were in place to prevent these ailments in the first place. So today I, Dylan, CEO of the Obscura Observer and Aestorusian Industries, would like to pitch a grand new vision for our society.

Firstly, we must create employment for seedlings. Currently, over 70% of seedlings in Obscura are unemployed, underemployed, or providing labor for free and paying the cost for it. We can. No, we must rectify this, by encouraging businesses to sell the fruits of their labor rather than give them away. While this system served us well at the start, it is clearly no longer meeting the needs of our people, leading to backlogged supply lines, shortages, and misallocated goods. By having businesses sell these goods, resources will reach those they actually aid far more efficiently, through buy and sell orders and a logistics company to facilitate the transfer. This will let every seedling earn their seedcoin, and spend it on goods that directly help them.

Secondly, aspiring entrepreneurs should be given a one time 500 seedcoin loan, to be repaid at 10% interest per day. These loans will allow new businesses to form while providing an additional revenue stream for the Obscura Collective's government, funding further expansion down the line. Imagine solving the hunger or water crisis by giving farmers the money to sell their crops to cooks, who buy those crops to make amazing dishes for all of Obscura. It would also encourage seedlings to specialize, potentially yielding the refined goods we need to build a space port.

Finally, yes, of course, the government should play an active role in the economy. While I have praised the merits of private enterprise, one must acknowledge that it has blind spots, areas it will never fully solve on its own. To that end, I propose a public works board: the Obscura Collective would pay seedlings to perform tasks or produce goods that benefit society at large. I envision it put to use right now, creating employment at the Public Water spot to produce clean water, which the state can then sell to us all, helping every seedling meet their most basic need. Uses like this, or paying businesses to produce goods for public works and facilities, would jet fuel our society back to the stars.

That is all for today, but keep an eye out for tomorrow.

Dylan, CEO of the Obscura Observer and Aestorusian Industries