Paragon City Welfare Institute

Greetings, heroes of Paragon City. As many of you know, the recent explosion of capitalism in Paragon City, thanks to the hard work of Wentworth's Fine Consignments, has made available many products and services that were once but a dream in the eyes of the many. Once, subjected to the harsh reality of being forced to buy Enhancements from crazy mutant children or mad scientists, heroes now find themselves in the position to buy and sell goods directly! The days of completing some menial, sometimes life-threatening, task for a no-good back alley dealer to get your enhancements are gone!

With this advent of budding entrepreneurs and the ingenious craftsmen who build and sell powerful enhancements out of nothing more than some mundane, inanimate carbon rod, the strength of our Hero population has never been greater. A single Blaster taking on an entire armada of Council fascists was laughable just a mere few years ago. Now, it's an every day occurrence, thanks to the mastery of enhancement crafting! Our streets are undeniably safer than ever before.

However, there's something else out there on the streets, something new, something we all try to ignore. Just yesterday I met Madam Mystery. A struggling, unemployed mother of 3. She came to me and told me her story, how she struggles just to afford TOs, and how she has to fight -2 minions just to make ends meat. She can barely afford a multi-missile turret for her supergroup base...and even if she could...it would barely fit in what could more be described as a supergroup shack. Of course, with the greedy energy corporations driving up the cost of electricity, she couldn't afford to pay the energy build anyway.

When she can convince her sister or... some other family member to watch her children, she does her best to seek out and fight crime where she can, struggling to scavenge any usable scraps from whatever foe she manages to defeat. She has to be selective over who and where she fights, too, as if she were to contract any kind of illness she wouldn't be able to afford treatment because after she lost her full-time job as a grocery store bagger, her health insurance cut her from their plan. Her only hope when she or her family does get sick is to phone her second cousin, an Empathy defender, but of course, he lives hours away and more often than not, he's out on some mission with high-class heroes, to whom the struggles of Madam Mystery of beneath them.

See, Madam Mystery is a controller. A Gravity/Trick Arrow controller, who can't even afford to make more Oil Slick arrows because Big Oil keeps driving up oil costs to line their own pockets. Her enhancements are all red... and have been for some time. Some of them even fell out in the last battle she fought. Somehow, she finds the time to search for a team, but no one wants her. All the big rich heroes care about is taking along their emps and their kins so they can clear the mobs faster, make more money, earn more items, and sell it all on the market. Madam Mystery can't even afford the arrows to use half her powers, that's why the only ability she knows is Entangling Arrow and Poison Gas Arrow. No one cares about AoE sleeps... They get richer, and Madam Mystery gets hungrier.

When asked why she herself doesn't use the market, her simple response was she just doesn't understand it. She never got the high class education that the upper crust was privileged to. She can't even afford to leave Galaxy City, let alone take a course on Inventions in Steel Canyon. She sells everything she can find to the Vendors set up across the city, vendors who prey on people like Madam Mystery, giving them a mere fraction of what their items are worth.

*cue to picture of Madam Mystery helping up a small child, while gold clad, uncaring heroes soar overhead, unaware of the child's plight, towards the AE building*

Last week I met Super Joe. An Iraq War veteran who served his country as an Fiery Melee/Energy Aura reformed Brute. After growing up on the wrong side of the law, stealing, hurting, and terrorizing others for years, he changed his ways. He decided that in order to repay his debt to society, he would join the Marine Corps, as the people of Paragon spit on him when he tried to rescue cats out of trees. His convoy drove over a roadside IED. Super Joe was gravely injured, however, no other marines in the attack received any injuries. How could this happen? Super Joe told me "cuz I draw too much aggro and /EA sux without IOs."

Now Super Joe is dependent on a broken health care system, in a waiting line for super hero organ transplants that will never come... because the rich heroes that could be potential doners are soft-capped to melee/ranged/aoe and have good self-heals. It'll be years before Super Joe gets his Super Liver, if he doesn't succumb to Super Alcoholism first.

Madam Mystery is your sister, your aunt, your mother... Super Joe is your son, your brother, your uncle. Madam Mysteries and Super Joes are everywhere you look. They're on the street corner, panhandling for a influence handout. They are at the vendors, pawning away their potentially valuable goods, because the elite at Wentworth's locked them out. Their kind aren't welcome among the inner-circles of the rich Paragon heroes. Some even lowered themselves to trying to get day jobs at enhancement shops, just to get the measly bonus enhancement in the event they ever complete a mission.

Speaking of which, let's talk about the elite for a moment. They roar through the skies, with the 500 million influence builds they earned off the backs of the poor, controlling market prices, and selling simple items like Common Salvage for ridiculous prices. Common folk don't have any choice but to pay their prices, as the idea of going out there and actually trying to find their own Thorn Tree Vine is simply incomprehensible. They payout weeks worth of influence just for low level recipes so they can eek out almost useless additional bonuses. While Madam Mystery gains 0.125% debt protection, the elite cadre of Marketeers that sold her that recipe for tens of thousands of influence use her money to buy up the purple recipes for extraordinary prices. And we all know the prices are only that high because the greedy heroes don't want the so-called "lowbies" to have them.

So the rich get richer and the richer they get, the more they can drive up the prices. While they are out destroying the strongest super villians in the world just to SHOW OFF, who's going to take the cats out of trees? Who's going to help the police arrest common crooks? That's right. Madam Mystery and Super Joe. While the upper crust is off gallivanting around in alternate dimensions, the destitute and starving heroes who haven't forgotten their oath to protect the people of the city are in our communities, doing the dirty work that's below those elite who got where they are simply by manipulation and walking over the backs of the weak.

Big Oil doesn't care about you. Big super Insurance doesn't care about you. Big Super Pharma doesn't care about you! You're the hard working folk who get walked over. How could you possibly help yourselves when the odds are so stacked against you? You can't. That is why I, you're Mayor, Maraca Kabob, am proposing the Paragon City Welfare Institute. Let me explain to you what this program will do:

*Levy a 45% influence income tax on all Heroes who earn over 250,000 Influence a day.
*Add an additional 5% tax on all Wenthworth transactions to be paid into the PCWI
*Introduce an oversight committee on all Wenthworth transactions to approve all sales and business conducted. I will appoint an auctions "Czar" to head this committee.
*Common Salvage and recipes will be taken from the top 90% of earners and put into a "grab bag" for use by those making under 25,000 Influence per day.
*Force greedy Supergroup Base creditors to make loans to anyone who applies. The 45% tax mentioned in item 1 will be used to pay out for those who can't afford their Supergroup bases.
*institute a single-payer Super Health Care system to provide quality, government run health care to all super heroes, all currently registered super heroes will be required to apply for this health care system. In order to pay for this program, an additional 20% tax will be levied on non-super civilians making over $250,000 a year. I will appoint an experienced Empathy defender Czar to spear head this operation.

I believe that with this system, the Madam Mysteries of our fine city will finally be able to get the leg up they need. No longer will she be forced to sell her simple chemicals, Polycarbons, or IO recipes to the greedy vendors. And Super Joe won't have to wait in line to get his ...... well maybe he will. No longer will the elite few have absolute control over the market. No longer will they extort the poor for the items that they NEED in order to fight crime on our streets. No longer will they fly around in their corporate power armors, spending millions on frivolous vacations while the weak struggle to afford the upgrade to DOs.

Madam Mystery will finally get the Supergroup Base she deserves, and the Super Rich will be forced to give back the money they didn't earn, don't need and don't deserve.

Is this satirical or did you try to actually make a serious proposal/opinion in a well written story with a few silly things throw in for fun?

Satire over the "wah ebil marketeers" "wah common salvage is too expensive" "wah i need to be purpled out to solo council" people

Very well written I enjoyed it.

"Introduce an oversight committee on all Wenthworth transactions to approve all sales and business conducted. I will appoint an auctions "Czar" to head this committee."

I nominate Ragman as an, undoubtedly, impartial supervisor. I would like to stake my reputation on him being a fair and honest Czar who would do nothing but think of the super wealt--I mean the casual player.

Should have added in a part about the Mayor taking over the Freedom Phalanx and firing Statesman lol

"I nominate Ragman as an, undoubtedly, impartial supervisor. I would like to stake my reputation on him being a fair and honest Czar who would do nothing but think of the super wealt--I mean the casual player."

Sounds good to me! Lets just hope he doesn't turn out to be a commie or anything.

*swoons at the beauty of what was said by the OP* Wow....very enjoyable read!

:P

Amusing story - thanks for the chuckle.

I think Iltat has already got the Welfare Institute part covered with their
annual SG "Enrich the Poverty-Stricken" multi-billion give-a-way...

Of course, several billion only goes so far, so perhaps your reform program
can help the downtrodden, unappreciated, hand-me-down spandex wearers
in our fair cities...


Cheers,
4

Sir/Ma'm,

In response to your recent article, I must forward these recent findings. Please note that I am personally involved in the subsequently mentioned study at a level that National Security regulations would put me and my family at great risk were my correspondance known. Altough I cannot for disclose my identity or department, you have my absolute personal assurance as to the veracity of the conclusion mentioned. I cannot forward to you the entire study, as data flow is monitored, and the study is simply to large to avoid scrutiny. My summary however is quite accurate, and deserves mentioning in your next article.

Heh, sign me up as a "Super Joe." Anything that'll help me get the stuff I want faster is more than welcome.

tl:dr, V.

All the best to your revolution tho =)

Subjugate the position and abuse the locals.....

I've had too much sugar to read all of that, though it certainly does look well written. I even saw the word "Madam" as I scrolled past it all. Bravo.

Oh, and, I would truely enjoy seeing a tax applied Heroside, and watch all the marketeers flee to the rogue isles. It would make my day.

Neo, that was awesome!

I'm on a conference call and spat coffee out through my nose. Excellent writing, thanks for making me LOL and spit while on the phone. =P

You'll have to point me to some other gems you've written.

I approve of this program and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Nice post

i would have to say no. i actually help people in this game. just this week, i gave 30 mil to 2 diff people i didnt know. not to mention all the PLs to lowers in AE ove the past couple weeks... just go to justice and ask round bout Jess A. Bell. she's WELL known.

thanks for the offer tho Sardine.

far as the post, guess someone was bored.