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Subject:   Traveller-digest V1996 #248
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Traveller-digest            Sunday, 14 July 1996        Volume 1996 : Number 248

(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. RE: The Iridium Standard 
         2. Re: Starship Construction
         3. Re: The Iridium Standard
         4. Re: The Iridium Standard

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Jonas Karlsson" <Jonas.Karlsson@Mail.Bostaden.Umea.SE>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 11:59:55 +1
Subject: RE: The Iridium Standard 

> From: That Computer Guy <darkstar@udel.edu>
> However, we can look at many other countries that do have successful,
> privatized mail carriers and know that the USPS's claims may not have
> much validity to them.  8)

Heh. Here in Sweden the (former state monopoly) Post Office *bought* 
it's main (and pretty much only) competitor after it's competitor was 
about to go bankrupt. It did this 'in order to maintain competition'. 
See, if there was no competing company, then there would be no 
competition. Never mind if the Post Office owns it's main competitor. 
<shakes head in wonderment>

/Jonas

------------------------------

From: "Jonas Karlsson" <Jonas.Karlsson@Mail.Bostaden.Umea.SE>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 12:02:43 +1
Subject: Re: Starship Construction

> From: Joe Walsh <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
> On Fri, 12 Jul 1996, Paul Walker wrote:
> 
> [Informative list of real-world ship-building costs snipped]
> > I came up with a figure of 8.83 years for 100
> > workers.  This is an incredible amount of time.  I think the Starship costs
> > are broken!

Hmm. Now, I don't know enough to do this myself, but what happens if 
one factors in things like exchange rates due to TL differences? Or 
automation (presumably one could use the factors from SSDS?)

> I don't know how 
> popular it would be with the gaming public in general, but I'd like to 
> see a supplement for Traveller that dealt with all of the economic issues 
> raised on the lists - and more.  "Economics of the Imperium" or something 
> like that.

For a trading campaign something like you suggest would be a godsend.

/Jonas

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 19:38:29 PST
Subject: Re: The Iridium Standard

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> On Fri, 12 Jul 1996, Stuart L. Dollar wrote:
>
>> Very, very true...
>>
>> In an environment where communications are limited to the speed of
>> the fastest ship...information is THE most valuable cargo...
>
> Exactly...Has anyone given any thought to the myriad of private x-boat
> knock offs that would almost certainly be prevalent in the Imperium?  Like
> the Fed-Ex's and UPS's of the Traveller universe...

Take it a step farther. Consider the attitude of the Postal Service
towards UPS and Fed-Ex. They are attacking on several fronts:

1. it's *illegal* for anyone but a postman to put something in your
   mailbox. Also, the postal service controls the *design* of
   mailboxes.  If it isn't approved, they don't have to put mail in it.
   This results in a fair amount of inconvenience in delivering if you
   are competing with the Postal Service.

2. it's *illegal* to send materials via any sort of courier service
   unless they are *urgent. The USPS has started taking companies to
   court over this. They have to pay the USPS charges on any
   "non-urgent" mail sent via Fed-Ex or UPS. And guess who gets to
   determine "urgent"?

3. The USPS is *really* pushing the fact that their "overnight" service
   is cheaper than Fed-Ex and UPS, but they don't mention that that
   they do not *guarantee* delivery on time (or even at all!)

Given that the xboat service is run by a branch of the Imperial
government, I'm willing to bet that they won't be any more open to
competition.

This leads to some interesting scenario possibilities.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
shadow@krypton.rain.com         <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 13:11:53 +0200 (METDST)
Subject: Re: The Iridium Standard

Eris Reddoch wrote:
>On 07/11/96 at 04:33 PM,  Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk> said:
> 
>>I don't know about the first part, but the thousand years of
>>experience included the virtual ruining of the Spanish economy by the
>>huge amounts of gold they brought back from the New World.
> 
>The governments of the French, Dutch, Italians, English, and Germans of 
>the 17th and 18th century still did everything they could to maximize the 
>amount of gold they had.  Did *they* think the gold brought back from the 
>new world destroyed the Spanish economy?  I doubt it.

So do I (in fact, I _know_ they didn't). What has that got to do with it?
There are lots of things that can only be properly understood in
retrospect. It's not what they thought that's important, but wether or
not they were wrong.

>Did the English and Dutch privateers who stole shiploads of gold do it
>to save the Spanish from themselves?  <g> Nah!  They did it because
>they believed gold was wealth, and they wanted it for themselves and
>their countries.

Under a gold standard getting gold is good for the individual, but bad
for the economy. Think about why printing more money is bad: Say you
have 1,000,000 bank notes representing the total wealth of a society.
Now the government prints 250,000 more notes. Straightaway the other
notes are worth only 80% of what they once was. But the government gains
from it (in the short term, anyway); they've suddenly acquired 20% of the 
wealth.

Now say you have 1,000,000 gold coins representing the total wealth of a
society. Now someone finds gold enough to mint 250,000 more coins. That's
a good thing for him, since he suddenly owns 20% of the total wealth. But
it's precisely the same effect as with the previous example. Everybody
else looses. There are only two differences: 1) With bank notes it is
much easier for a government to do this, since you can't do it under a
gold economy unless you find more gold; and 2) under a gold economy this
theft/"redistribution of property" happens _automatically_ if more gold
is found whereas with bank notes it takes a concious decision from someone
to do it. 


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8
 


------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #248
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