Slush-Fund Banking

[Kaiser Sose]

Could someone please explain exactly what this does. I mean, I understand the concept, but it takes so long to get any money. I have two banks, both fully staffed with good experience, a positive treasury, and a positive income, but the money barely creeps up!! Where does it come from, from profits, from the treaury, how is it "slushed" or siphoned out, and from where??!!   "I want money, lots and lots of money, I wanna be rich!!"  

[Slacker]

I'm doing a lot of guesswork here, so if everything i'm about to say is wrong, go ahead and flame me (but do it in a funny way so that I can at least laugh before I go offline to cry about being flamed)

I think each month a bit of the treasury is put into the swiss bank account.  I'm sure its a percentage based upon how many bankers you have and how good they are at being bankers (like no one knew that already)  
The only thing I'm really certain of is the once a month swiss bank account boost, I've watched the account go up each month.  I haven't acctually tried to figure out how much its going up each time, or figure up a precentage or look at how many bankers I have or any of that.  

[IrishBrianMc]

Do any of you veteran players know if building slush fund banks are worth it?  It seems that they cost a lot to operate and bring very little into your Swiss bank account.  However, perhaps I am operating them wrong.  I would like to know because I am interested in playing "Money Makes the Man".  However, until I get an answer to this question, I think that my results will be less than satisfactory.  Thanks.

[flagator_]

I've been doing a little experimenting -- not much, just one game. But in the one game where I was watching it, I started the bank with 3 bankers of almost no skill, and added two more after a few years. They started out skimming 2/10 of 1 percent of my treasury, which was at $120,000 at the time. I forgot to pay attention to what year I started it, but it couldn't have been more than 8-10 years before Ricardo congratulated me on having stashed $10,000, and I hadn't enacted the building permit or anything else, that was my only source of Swiss income. Since my treasury at that time was about $250,000, I estimate I was siphoning off about a full percent a year with five highly-skilled bankers. So if you carry a big balance then it's DEFINITELY worth it.

[suedenim]

Note that there appears to be a bug in the slush fund bank calculations.  There's a thread all about it in "Bugs and Suggestions," but the upshot is that sometimes the slush fund transfers will just stop altogether.  Exact reasons for the bug and ways to work around it in the game are still speculative.

[2ninga]

Does anyone know what the most important factors are in siphoning money from the treasury?  I was playing New Havana and I had a over $250k in the treasury, 2 banks fully staffed with the bankers living nearby, and there was very little increase over what they were drawing when my treasury was only $100k-150k.  If it wasn't for the special building permit and some VERY serious landscaping in my final years I would not have hit the $100k goal.  Of course, that did make for one heck of an aesthetically appealing island.

[Coconut Kid]

Suedenim was very upset over what she considers to be a bug in the "Slush Fund" option.

Cross reference to her thread on the "Bug Board":
Swiss Bank Account Bug?
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=1380.0

The "Tropicology: Banks" thread points out a couple of facts which probably account for what she saw as a problem. Changing options entails a non-productive period, and the "Slush Fund" option is attendance based, i.e. the Bankers have to be in the building to be productive - like Factory Workers.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=5679.0

For garsh sakes, think about it! Embezzlement has to be concealed or the Intellectuals (and maybe the Religious) will lose respect. The more that is stolen, the harder it is to conceal.