[@Ashgan] I don't mean hive mind when I said that as more "don't make them boring AAR posts". I know that in one of my NRPs, the idea that you have multiple people of different classes was heavily stressed. What the king may know will be different than an upstart noble or a soldier or a common worker; its to give that sort of "characterization" to the posts and make the posts and thus the nature feel a bit more human and alive than just reciting history. There are many kinds of people in a nation, why should you only be showing one person or one group?

tl;dr - Just have the nation be a very schizophrenic individual.

As for the budget, a part of the idea is that the GM could introduce things which would force a change on to some values. IE: Weather kills off wine grape plants and wipes out a portion of the Trade Goods profit. It was a variable changeable by GM but there's merit in what you say.