Question on debt, and trade and population spending

[Jerkface]

Suddenly out of the blue I get massive budget issues. Multiple zones in debt 1000-2000 credits every turn.

I dig in to try and figure out whats going on, and I am seeing things I don't understand. Why is my population spending so much on materials from traders when I have surpluses? Especially food?

(See attachments)

1) I have extra food
2) Population sells food
3) Population then buys a bunch of food back, along with a bunch of other mats at ridiculous prices
4) My public budget is maxed, and no where near the amount the population is buying every turn

How do I fix this? A debt of 2000 credits per turn, for multiple zones? What the hell?

[Jerkface]

These guys are spending like politicians in front of an election. WTF? Yoo dawg, you got any of that special water for sale?

[Don_Kiyote]

Why is my population spending so much on materials from traders when I have surpluses? Especially food?

For one thing, the private economy uses a different inventory to supply their projects and dietary needs, not the one you see on the left hand side of the screen. Entrepreneurs buy these resources or commodities from a market, which you can see a part of in the 'trade' tab.

The state of the private market, both inter- and intra-zone, has nothing to do with your SHQ inventory or your zone inventories. Except where you, the player, explicitly trades between them.

afaik

Also, I don't worry about private debt no matter how large, and it seems to work out just fine.

[Thrake]

The "ridiculous" prices are fixed by market trends, ie. based on supply and demand. When you max out zones budget, you give them a lot of credits to fund their projects, ie. you increase demand, which increase goods prices, leading to debt.

The upside is that the increase of goods cost means that you will sell to traders for more credits, which allows you to maintain high investment in zones.

If you want to keep goods price low you need to let the private economy own mines.

Overall debt isn't a problem, it just ends up this way every game. A well funded zone can still build one asset a turn and show debt every turn, if it has enough credits it can repay the debt and fund a new asset.

[Jerkface]

"Overall debt isn't a problem"

But it is because it effects my budget.

[Voker57]

How does it affect your budget? You give them money, money is spent. People need luxuries.

[Vic]

Those multiple item buys by the private economy are only done when they spend credits to buy private assets. It uses a different system in certain edge cases (low inventory or prices or really high prices at traders). All sort of effects are taken into account here as traders helping the pop by lowering price as well as the pop paying for "unseen" services that transmute goods in to ones that will actually go into the construction of the private asset in question. Its okay its a bit abstract around the edges as its main goals are to apply demand on the trade markets as well as make high trade prices impact the cost. I know this sounds a bit vague, but wanted to give you an idea of what is going on.