Why did it take so long to deal with Silesia?

hanuman wrote:

J6P wrote:it is unhelpful to make sweeping statements that ignore that truth

You just made gigantic sweeping statements and are railing on others not to?

hanuman wrote: Do you mean this one?

I thought you said you were not going to go down that road?

runsforcelery wrote:[9] In terms of Grayson, it wasn't access to interstellar trade which was so economically transformative. It was access to modern interstellar technology, which it acquired through its alliance with Manticore much more than through general interstellar commerce. This is, in fact, one of the huge pro-Manticore influences in Yeltsin; the Graysons understand what Manticore's tech transfers have meant to themselves and to their children's futures. The Grayson economic boom, however, is largely self-fueled as the constraints on food production are gradually eliminated or at least greatly reduced (courtesy of Skydomes), as industry becomes geometrically more productive (courtesy of those tech transfers and of Manticoran investment), and as the Grayson labor force's purchasing power expands in step. The only real export product Grayson has at the moment are starships — military or commercial — and I believe that one can safely assume that Grayson will become/remain part of the Manticoran shipbuilding industry's network for the foreseeable future. In most other respects, however, Grayson's much more likely to be a net importer in the interstellar economy.

Don't know how much this will help, but there it is.

Edited to correct math error.

Wait a second, Mr Weber. I do not wish to offend you, but you're not entirely correct. Sure, Grayson might not be DEPENDENT on interstellar trade, but what exports it does have (those ships you spoke of) do bring in an awful lot of money to help pay for the development of its economy and industrial capacity.

It might not be vital to the Grayson economy, but the revenues derived from exporting starships would mean that the tax burden on Grayson's taxpayers have to be far lower than it would without that revenue. Also, it means that Grayson's government can achieve its economic goals much FASTER than it would without the revenue earned from those exports.

Lastly, a wise government would wish to diversify the economy to the point that some disaster doesn't cause an economic disaster as well (I'm talking here of a hypothetical disaster, NOT specifically the Blackbird Strike). This brings me back to my previous points. In order to diversify, investment is needed (the old saying that to make money, one needs to spend money applies), and in order to achieve such diversification within a given period of time without taxing one's own citizens and businesses into the ground, a government needs outside sources of revenue. Which the Grayson government will be getting from its starship exports.

In other words, although not dependent on interstellar trade, such trade is still crucially important for Grayson's economic revitalisation, I'd think.

J6P wrote:PS. Grass grows everywhere. Any planet that can sustain a population, other than a VERY rare oddball like Grayson, will sustain grain production.

That's not even true here on Earth.

In the Honorverse, there are planets like Potsdam which, IIRC nearly killed the original colonists because they couldn't grow rice (or almost anything else) that was edible. Being "conquered" by Gustav Anderman was the only things that saved them.

J6P wrote:I thought you said you were not going to go down that road?

Whatever part of my online personality (which very closely resembles my real personality, I assure you) gave you the idea that I'm the kind of person to retreat from deliberate provocation?

I'm a rather ornery kind of person, you know. Laid-back and easy-going, but yeah, ornery as hell.

Weird Harold wrote:

J6P wrote:PS. Grass grows everywhere. Any planet that can sustain a population, other than a VERY rare oddball like Grayson, will sustain grain production.

That's not even true here on Earth.

In the Honorverse, there are planets like Potsdam which, IIRC nearly killed the original colonists because they couldn't grow rice (or almost anything else) that was edible. Being "conquered" by Gustav Anderman was the only things that saved them.

Harold, that's something that I don't get about some posters. Don't they understand that we're talking about thousands upon thousands of different planetary environments and ecologies - many of which might be similar to Earth environments and ecologies, but many of which will be far different from anything we know on Earth?

hanuman wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:[9] In terms of Grayson, it wasn't access to interstellar trade which was so economically transformative. It was access to modern interstellar technology, which it acquired through its alliance with Manticore much more than through general interstellar commerce. This is, in fact, one of the huge pro-Manticore influences in Yeltsin; the Graysons understand what Manticore's tech transfers have meant to themselves and to their children's futures. The Grayson economic boom, however, is largely self-fueled as the constraints on food production are gradually eliminated or at least greatly reduced (courtesy of Skydomes), as industry becomes geometrically more productive (courtesy of those tech transfers and of Manticoran investment), and as the Grayson labor force's purchasing power expands in step. The only real export product Grayson has at the moment are starships — military or commercial — and I believe that one can safely assume that Grayson will become/remain part of the Manticoran shipbuilding industry's network for the foreseeable future. In most other respects, however, Grayson's much more likely to be a net importer in the interstellar economy.

Don't know how much this will help, but there it is.

Edited to correct math error.

Wait a second, Mr Weber. I do not wish to offend you, but you're not entirely correct. Sure, Grayson might not be DEPENDENT on interstellar trade, but what exports it does have (those ships you spoke of) do bring in an awful lot of money to help pay for the development of its economy and industrial capacity.

It might not be vital to the Grayson economy, but the revenues derived from exporting starships would mean that the tax burden on Grayson's taxpayers have to be far lower than it would without that revenue. Also, it means that Grayson's government can achieve its economic goals much FASTER than it would without the revenue earned from those exports.

Lastly, a wise government would wish to diversify the economy to the point that some disaster doesn't cause an economic disaster as well (I'm talking here of a hypothetical disaster, NOT specifically the Blackbird Strike). This brings me back to my previous points. In order to diversify, investment is needed (the old saying that to make money, one needs to spend money applies), and in order to achieve such diversification within a given period of time without taxing one's own citizens and businesses into the ground, a government needs outside sources of revenue. Which the Grayson government will be getting from its starship exports.

In other words, although not dependent on interstellar trade, such trade is still crucially important for Grayson's economic revitalisation, I'd think.

Not really. The total income from selling those ships is a very small fraction of the GDP of the Yeltsin System. It is not nearly as big an impact as you imply.

SWM wrote:

hanuman wrote:Wait a second, Mr Weber. I do not wish to offend you, but you're not entirely correct. Sure, Grayson might not be DEPENDENT on interstellar trade, but what exports it does have (those ships you spoke of) do bring in an awful lot of money to help pay for the development of its economy and industrial capacity.

It might not be vital to the Grayson economy, but the revenues derived from exporting starships would mean that the tax burden on Grayson's taxpayers have to be far lower than it would without that revenue. Also, it means that Grayson's government can achieve its economic goals much FASTER than it would without the revenue earned from those exports.

Lastly, a wise government would wish to diversify the economy to the point that some disaster doesn't cause an economic disaster as well (I'm talking here of a hypothetical disaster, NOT specifically the Blackbird Strike). This brings me back to my previous points. In order to diversify, investment is needed (the old saying that to make money, one needs to spend money applies), and in order to achieve such diversification within a given period of time without taxing one's own citizens and businesses into the ground, a government needs outside sources of revenue. Which the Grayson government will be getting from its starship exports.

In other words, although not dependent on interstellar trade, such trade is still crucially important for Grayson's economic revitalisation, I'd think.

Not really. The total income from selling those ships is a very small fraction of the GDP of the Yeltsin System. It is not nearly as big an impact as you imply.

I don't have the relevant data, so I might very well be wrong. Still, even a small fraction of the GSP (gross SYSTEM product) would still be a significant absolute amount of revenue, wouldn't it?

hanuman wrote:I don't have the relevant data, so I might very well be wrong. Still, even a small fraction of the GSP (gross SYSTEM product) would still be a significant absolute amount of revenue, wouldn't it?

"A million here and a million there, and before you know it you're talking about some real money." -- some politician I don't remember half as well as I do his quote.

The income from ship-building is more than offset by Grayson's investment in Naval Construction. Shipbuilding has more indirect impact on the Grayson economy and standard of living through workers wages than direct impact of interstellar sales.

hanuman wrote:Harold, that's something that I don't get about some posters. Don't they understand that we're talking about thousands upon thousands of different planetary environments and ecologies - many of which might be similar to Earth environments and ecologies, but many of which will be far different from anything we know on Earth?

Eh. Planets where a large population of unmodified humans can survive for extended periods in an open-air environment would seem likely to be able to support growing cereal grains somewhere. Of course, there are planets in the Honorverse that pretty much aren't populated by unmodified humans ...

hanuman wrote:I don't have the relevant data, so I might very well be wrong. Still, even a small fraction of the GSP (gross SYSTEM product) would still be a significant absolute amount of revenue, wouldn't it?

The only customer mentioned in the text was manticore, which would certainly help pay for the advanced fabrication systems needed to build warships. But I would tend to doubt they bought enough (or grayson could build enough) to cover the cost of the huge fleets the GSN built.

It appears that essentially trade is only useful if you want to buy stuff from someone else, and a lot of planets don't need to do that. If you are effectively self-sufficient in critical resources and can manufacture modern machine tools/fabrication system (which seems to be the case for most of the core worlds) the main thing interstellar trade does is allow you to buy some things for less then you can make them, which adds to the standard of living of the population. In addition. it allows you to buy luxuries that can't be obtained locally.