When we say new mothers, how much are we talking? If she gave birth last week, I think we should lay off. Of these 80 women, how old are their children?

Did we decide on whether some elders should work/we should raise the maximum working age to increase production.

Another thing we haven't considered yet, which I think we absolutely must implement, is allowing people not of the age to work, to work anyway. For some benefits, 'credits' that can be spent on having children taught etc. for example. That way we can even create a local economy, in which we in the end decide on where the 'money' goes and how much it should be..
Giving people not currently working incentive to work.

On the vote for the mothers, I just voted NO. Though what I really want to vote is "Wait one turn". Perhaps we can agree on that?

Steephie makes an interesting point about the local economy. We should tap into it / create one, since it gives incentives to the population. (See: the birth of capitalism to ensure compliance).

Magistrate, could you explain a bit how people exchange here? Is there a currency? Is there a periodic market for goods? which goods are valued highly? And also, are the locals particularly drawn to items that we have taken from the Kingdom?

steephie: We were waiting for an answer to the following question, which you just reminded me of: What is the life expectancy of this island?

About instilling a local economy: The Magistrate has recently told us that what the colonists want are things they can't find on the island. Those were their incentives before the Governor died. Right now we have ale and cloth to provide as incentive.

Prado, beyond ale and cloth we have other things. Education. Healthcare (hopefully). If they work, we will agree to teach their children. If they work, we will take care of them.

That's my reasoning. Let's offer them things that don't really cost us anything, such as education, or things we should provide for our own sakes anyway, such as healthcare, in return for working more than is demanded, rather than goods that actually have value to us, such as our trade goods, first.

When they don't need education or healthcare anymore, we can use the trade goods instead.

Also, if we can produce a surplus of products, we can trade with the homeland!

As such, I think we should inquire what resources that we can produce are demanded in the homeland. It's always nice to have a stack of gold to buy stuff from the homeland when we need something!

Let's make sure the natives only value the worthless pieces of paper we give them though, so they don't want to get paid in gold too..

Second sentence may have been a bit too long. Tell me if I need to rephrase.

Ah yes, a form of currency could be developed. THat would be great. Of course, we have to have something to back that currency up with.

That's giving them education, health care, trade goods etc. in return. They can buy everything they care about with the currency we make.
Of course, we'd have to make sure that the natives don't get to trade with other trade ships so they don't sell all their goods for a load of useless paper from opportunistic traders, totally ruining our economy..

Alternatively, they can 'buy' everything we have for them with wheat, wood etc.

Not sure what'd work better.

Haha, yes, that will have to be controlled.

Almost like setting up the company store; mark up commodities and regulate their pay so that they're forever indebted. Actually, I'm not advocating that. It would lead to significant troubles down the line.

Well, we should let them succeed a little. But we need to keep them on a leash.

Shouldn't we be having the missionary begin teaching them anyway?

HB: Care to come up with a better plan, then? Complaining isn't much of one, and waiting to come up with one is something we can't afford.

What's the main problem (around the economics)?

Proposal:

-I propose that upon learning the social effects of putting women,children, and the elderly to work we should put as many to work as the colony would culturally allow.
- It is my further suggestion that we begin to get ready institutions for health and education and use a free healthcare and education system as our means for paying the colony.
-This should hold us over until the next ship arrives in 3 months. Upon which time we can buy cloth and other commodities in high volume to be used as payment to the colonists. ( I am against the use of ale to pay our colonists as it could lead to alcoholism and negative repercussions)
-When the next ship arrives we can request the king send a large quantity of pressed metal coins, these metal coins can act as our local currency for the time being, be more resilient, less exposed to forgery and in times of crisis can be used to make more ammunition and other metal equipment.
- I also believe that we could try to set up a distillery and begin making apple and wheat based liquors to be sold back to the kingdom. Alcohol will survive the long trip back to the kingdom and has a ensured market.

We need workers. We barely have enough for pearls and wood. We have none for tomatoes and apples (which the farmer needs workers for), game hunting, or chickens. And we don't have enough workers for wheat, so we have to tap into our wheat reserves this month.

I agree with CB. Especially on the bit about ale as incentive. If we do that, workers will show up drunk and hungover, making them less productive.

Problem: Not enough workers
Possible alternatives: (1) get as many working as will culturally allow (as mentioned by CB)
(2) Don't worry about it
(3) Prioritize items (pearls, wood, tomatoes, apples, gaming, livestock, wheat) and pull workers to the highest priority for the short term

Just brainstorming without thinking about consequences immediately.

Re: metals
If the dispatch turns up a place where we can begin a mining operation, that would do us all the better.

I also think we should consider the repercussions both positive and negative that requesting pilgrims.
Positives:
-More work force
-More loyalty to king
-Mainland education
-Could help the missionary to convert

Negatives:
-Animosity and civil disputes
-Need more housing (thus more work would be consumed)
-More work would be consumed to feed them.

I think we should try to bring in more skilled people. Carpenters would be nice. Maybe a prospector/miner. Various other forms of craft.

@KC- I agree but if we had a ship full of people that could really help us.

Meanwhile, let us recap what needs to happen this month.

-Meet with Elders
-Decide on age requirements for working, young and old (see Elders for input)
-Decide to incorporate mothers of young children into work force, (see Elders for input, discuss specifics, ie age of children)
-???

What am I forgetting?

Assign workers to the farmer and give the missionary something to do.

-Meet with Elders
-Decide on age requirements for working, young and old (see Elders for input)
-Decide to incorporate mothers of young children into work force, (see Elders for input, discuss specifics, ie age of children)
-Assign workers to farmer
-Task Missionary
-???

On a side note: I think we should consider allowing the HC to vote in issues. With the amount of participation falling off daily. We lost Warden and ag and I am sure others are to follow. Allowing the HC to vote may be more representative of our even smaller group.... but we can consider this later.