The CDS Cash Balance
Recently, the question has arisen in idle chat regarding how much money the CDS community has, and more importantly, whether its rumored high bank balance still exists. Of course, anyone can look at the monthly report to find out. Visit the Financial Reports page on the website to examine every monthly report since May 2005. https://cdsdemocracy.org/cds-treasurer/reports/
But looking at one report, shown in L$s, may not convey the full sense of how we managed our cash over the years, and really what the impact of our Chancellors' hard work to maintain their budgets has resulted in. So I thought I'd collect in a chart all the cash balances from every report over the years, and show that chart in US$s, which, while it is not the RL currency of all our members, still gives a more "RL sense" about how much money we have, and how we've used it. Here it is:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
It's really very interesting. This is my reading of it, but your own readings and comments would be much appreciated.
The report says to me that from our financial founding in April 2005 until April 2015, exactly 10 years, we gained a cash reserve of US$16,000. The occasional drops represent the outlays for purchases of sims, although the trough in July 2013 may simply be a poor economic climate and a shortage of residents.
Then, between April 2015 and April 2016, we suddenly dropped US$6000. I can think of no reason why, but maybe others can deduce the reason.
And since April 2016, also very interesting, we have held flat at about US$10,000... really an amazingly consistent performance considering our difficulties in keeping parcels occupied. For this last, I can only express my congratulations to our various Chancellors who have held the line on their budgets the best they can, especially since so much of the revenue flow is outside their control.
Some folks have questioned the proper use of this "cash reserve". I think it's obvious from the chart that one thing the cash reserve does for us is to enable the community to survive a sudden loss of US$6000 while hardly even being aware of it. We were certainly aware that the balance was slipping. But we also knew that there were still funds left and that while we needed to become especially cautious, we were not threatened. So... a primary purpose of the reserve is to buttress the day to day existence of the community.
But it's also true that, should our future history continue to look like the results for April 2016 thru now, that's US$10,000 going unused. So... should ideas surface which, through the investment in a certain amount of that reserve, cause the longer term improvement of our financial fortunes, we should consider that available. Always knowing, of course, that events might cause us to need to absorb a large portion of that money, as they did in Apr 2015 to Apr 2016.
Anyway... food for thought. I will include this chart, updated each month, in our monthly reports going forward.
Sudane..................
