Wormholes & the New Solaruan League

kzt wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Decades of capital investment, yes.
Decades of GDP, no.

Monica was decades, Manticore was centuries of investment. But I can't find the quote.

The real issue is that RFC has not spent a lot of time discussing the economies in great detail. There are far too many things that would be interesting and fascinating and would add hundreds of pages to what are already long books.

We tend to know what the top people on a ship are doing and the TAC people but very little on logistics, for example.

And all the eco knowledge in the world would give few hints about life 2000 years from now. With AI and a lot of robots would it even cost much to build a home? Or get food?

When I lived in Europe a half century ago, most people I knew had only a couple of nice outfits. They were very careful because clothing was very expensive. That has changed. There are dozens of interesting economic facts that could be used (The French have great sauces because a century or two ago they did not have easy access to great meat. That has changed but would that even be noted in an Honorverse book?)

For Brigade XO.
I once negotiate a five year lease for a small fleet of turboprops. The opposing negotiators failed to insert an inflation clause, and as well thought to shaft me by insisting it be in US dollars. I went along with it knowing that in all probability the Australian dollar was going the opposite way to what they expected. Saved my government about $6M overall. Got a pat on the back, but no commission, sigh.

ldwechsler wrote:
The real issue is that RFC has not spent a lot of time discussing the economies in great detail. There are far too many things that would be interesting and fascinating and would add hundreds of pages to what are already long books.

We tend to know what the top people on a ship are doing and the TAC people but very little on logistics, for example.

What we know of the honorverse economy makes no sense. Like ‘What do people do?’ Combined with David’s stated ‘limit on the size of the SKM military is how many people are needed to run the economy.’ From here is looks like the SKM looks like CA or N.Y., where a fairly small number of extremely wealthy people run companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people that are mealthy, but everyone else is either getting by with their feminist dance degree job or depending on welfare, while the state is stupported by the taxes of wealthy.

kzt wrote:[What we know of the honorverse economy makes no sense. Like ‘What do people do?’ Combined with David’s stated ‘limit on the size of the SKM military is how many people are needed to run the economy.’ From here is looks like the SKM looks like CA or N.Y., where a fairly small number of extremely wealthy people run companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people that are mealthy, but everyone else is either getting by with their feminist dance degree job or depending on welfare, while the state is stupported by the taxes of wealthy.

The state is mostly supported by Junction fees, except when they needed to pay for a ridiculously large navy.

kzt wrote:From here is looks like the SKM looks like CA or N.Y., where a fairly small number of extremely wealthy people run companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people that are mealthy, but everyone else is either getting by with their feminist dance degree job or depending on welfare, while the state is stupported by the taxes of wealthy.

Ah, but that is not possible since, in the SKM, one can't receive more in welfare than one pays into the system.

noblehunter wrote:The state is mostly supported by Junction fees, except when they needed to pay for a ridiculously large navy.

We know that the declaration of war permitted a graduated income tax, as compared to the normal flat rate. It was the bounty from that which High Ridge was maintaining (as well as the relaxation from the election requirement) by refusing to sign a peace treaty. His coalition was hoping that the public works would buy votes in the election that would follow the eventual treaty. The bounty occurred because the money was diverted from naval construction and personnel.

Peregrinator wrote:Ah, but that is not possible since, in the SKM, one can't receive more in welfare than one pays into the system.

I do not think that is right; my understanding is that a person loses the right to vote if they receive more in benefits (which does not count government pay) than they pay in tax.

tlb wrote:We know that the declaration of war permitted a graduated income tax, as compared to the normal flat rate. It was the bounty from that which High Ridge was maintaining (as well as the relaxation from the election requirement) by refusing to sign a peace treaty. His coalition was hoping that the public works would buy votes in the election that would follow the eventual treaty. The bounty occurred because the money was diverted from naval construction and personnel.

I can't remember if there's any written evidence but I get the impression the flat tax is just to give people skin in the game, it doesn't materially contribute revenues to the government. IRRC, graduated income tax didn't get used until they had to effectively build a whole new wall of battle pre-Buttercup.

noblehunter wrote:

kzt wrote:[What we know of the honorverse economy makes no sense. Like ‘What do people do?’ Combined with David’s stated ‘limit on the size of the SKM military is how many people are needed to run the economy.’ From here is looks like the SKM looks like CA or N.Y., where a fairly small number of extremely wealthy people run companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people that are mealthy, but everyone else is either getting by with their feminist dance degree job or depending on welfare, while the state is stupported by the taxes of wealthy.

The state is mostly supported by Junction fees, except when they needed to pay for a ridiculously large navy.

So that’s why shutting down the junction had no effect on the SEM economy? It just goes deeper into the rabbit hole that is economics of the honorverse.

noblehunter wrote:The state is mostly supported by Junction fees, except when they needed to pay for a ridiculously large navy.

kzt wrote:So that’s why shutting down the junction had no effect on the SEM economy? It just goes deeper into the rabbit hole that is economics of the honorverse.

tlb wrote:We know that the declaration of war permitted a graduated income tax, as compared to the normal flat rate. It was the bounty from that which High Ridge was maintaining (as well as the relaxation from the election requirement) by refusing to sign a peace treaty. His coalition was hoping that the public works would buy votes in the election that would follow the eventual treaty. The bounty occurred because the money was diverted from naval construction and personnel.

noblehunter wrote:I can't remember if there's any written evidence but I get the impression the flat tax is just to give people skin in the game, it doesn't materially contribute revenues to the government. IRRC, graduated income tax didn't get used until they had to effectively build a whole new wall of battle pre-Buttercup.

I am not sure if this evidence, one way or another, but in Field of Dishonor, chapter 2, Admiral Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord of the Royal Manticoran Navy, told Baroness Morncreek, First Lord of the Admiralty:

I simply assured him we would continue to obey the lawful orders of Her Majesty and her ministers if he instructed me to continue operations. We can do that without a declaration, but not for very long, I'm afraid. If I completely suspend all current construction and divert every dollar I can from our essential infrastructure, I could probably sustain operations for another three months or so. After that, we'd need a special appropriation—assuming we don't have a formal declaration to free the Exchequer's hands—and I don't see how we can expect to get that if we can't get the declaration in the first place.

All he is really saying that a wartime budget is significantly greater than the current peacetime one. The government did increase transit fees also, which would have a more immediate effect.

To KZT's point: deficit spending is not unknown in wartime. Manticore has the same advantage in reserves that Great Britain had going into WWII.