[Kikuichimonji]

Originally Posted by Fat FlareBlitz

it's possible to instantaneously transfer a percentage of your money to another account (i.e. what you do in GSC if you ask your mom to hold some of your money) so it's possible that every time you receive winnings from other trainers it is the after-tax amount.

The PokeGear and its components are never mentioned anywhere in first-gen Pokemon, so I'm inclined to believe that the tech was developed somewhere in the gap between first and second gen.

Originally Posted by Fat cantab

And remember the player character is a ten-year-old kid.

I don't think the age of RB's player character is ever specified.

Originally Posted by Fat cantab

And the whole E4 and Gym Leaders are the government thing is without basis. I think it far more reasonable that they are what they seem to be - the best players in the world's most popular sport, Pokemon Battling.

One of the sources I drew inspiration from when writing the OP was Devil Survivor, which questioned how a world where people ran around with monsters capable of lethal force would actually work. If a trainer with a fire breathing dragon at his command began extorting money from people, who would oppose them? Pokemon represent real and manifest power that trainers can exert over other people, so it would stand to reason that the trainers with the strongest Pokemon could rule the world, and kill any who might oppose them.

Of course, this was an idea formulated with a lot of faulty assumptions in mind; I'd always envisioned Charizard as being this big when in reality his height roughly that of an adult human. That's doesn't preclude the possibility of Pokemon of this size being capable of lethal force, but it does make it a less-obvious conclusion.

Originally Posted by Fat FlareBlitz

we know that the government is responsible for basic infrastructure like roads (no tolls like there would be on private roads) and probably also for the financial support of education institutions, like museums and Pokemon schools (all of which are free if I recall).

I never pictured the roads of first-gen Pokemon being anything more than hard beat dirt paths or minimalist boardwalks. As far as I know, there aren't any road vehicles to speak of in Kanto, and it seems like pretty much everyone walks everywhere. Even if it is a government project of some kind, it certainly can't be a very high-maintenance one.

Schools are an interesting point. In all of first gen, only two trainers make references to school, and both of them are Super Nerds. It's worth noting that Super Nerds in general tend to carry more cash than other juvenile trainers, suggesting the possibility that education might be limited to the privileged and wealthy. I realize that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but consider this: while references to school in first gen are minimal, whereas in second gen there is a class called "schoolboy." ("Schoolboy" is a new trainer class; it doesn't replace "youngster.") Based on this, it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude that public schools popped up somewhere in the time between first and second gen.