Star Knight wrote:@Thirdbase
1) I think grain is cheaper to ship than many other things, You can haul it in big tanks, loading and unloading will be very easy.
But that’s a detail, the question is indeed if its profitable or not.
And I think it is.
You think, you have no proof. And why would it be cheaper to ship 10 tons of grain, than to ship 10 tons of molycircs? or 10 tons of aircars? Take a look at a modern shipyard, all those neat containers, they haul just about everything.
2) Grayson survived, yes. By investing a high percentage of their annual GDP.
It would have been much, much better for them if they could have imported the stuff..
Speaking of Grayson, thanks so much. You made me remember something from Honor of the Queen:
“Masada is badly over-populated in terms of its productive capacity,” Houseman went on, “and Grayson requires additional infusions of capital for industrial expansion. If you opened markets in the Endicott System, you could secure a nearby planetary source for foodstuffs and sufficient capital to meet your own needs by supplying Masada with the goods and services it requires for its population. The boon to your economy is obvious, even in the short term. In the long term, a commercial relationship which serves both your needs could only lessen—perhaps even eliminate—the hostility which has divided you for so long. It might even create a situation in which naval expansion becomes as unnecessary as it is economically wasteful.”
So there is trade going on with food.
That was Houseman proposing trade going with food, if you remember correctly Masada and Grayson went to war. So there was no food trade happening there.
3) You can terraform Mars, sure. If you have money to throw away you can do such prestige things. Or can build a fleet of merchant ships that will be able supply you for all eternity for that kind of money.
Why is terraforming Mars a "prestige" thing? You build good ships if they are going to last for eternity.
4) What happens when food haulers don’t show up in the real world? Price for goods will increase, demand will go down. You pay more, ships will keep coming.
That’s how capitalism works.
Well I suppose that when half your population has died from starvation that demand will be down.
Furthermore, why should you pay 5 times more when you haul it through space??
That's true, it may be 10 times as much.
Those merchant ships haul an incredible quantities and do so for decades if not centuries.
Do you have any evidence of this?
The cost of shipping will be minimal, crew salaries and wormhole fees will be the main expenses.
Again do you have any evidence of this? You are also forgetting maintenance costs, excise taxes, duties, bribes, and all the other fun things in modern and future commercial shipping.
5) Why not? Cause they don’t have to? There is no need for Beowulf to waste perfectly good real estate or beautiful landscape on farming.
Have you ever seen a tall grass prairie? I wouldn't call them beautiful. But that doesn't really answer my question.
6) This is not about just feeding people. Of course that is possible. We are able to feed 15 billion if we have to. But this is not about feeding people. This is about meeting demands of a fully developed society.
I can order and buy norwegian salmon in the States if I want to or canadian bison in Europe if I feel like it and pay for it. No try to do that on a planet of 7 billion people. And the same for a couple of trillion.
Norwegian Salmon, and Canadian Bison are luxury foods, which I have repeatedly stated would still be imported.
Any iam quite sure that the current world population is anything but 6,877,734,572.
Correct, the estimate now is World 6,877,810,361 see what a difference a few hours makes. That is the US Census Bureau estimate of the current population.
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html7) Problems where solved by importing food.
I don’t know why you call Grayson pop limited.
Because it was mentioned in several places in the book, that Grayson Steadholders limited their populations to what they could support.
From IEH:
It had been rather refreshing for both Honor and Nimitz to meet an entire planet of people who were willing to accept the 'cat on his own terms, but it did mean the Graysons were also more likely to grasp that Nimitz and Samantha's new friends were, in effect, the opening wedge of an invasion. A friendly one, perhaps, but still an invasion. One of Honor's traditional authorities as Steadholder Harrington was to decide how many and which emigrants would be allowed into her steading. In Grayson's grim, early days, it had also been the steadholder's harsh duty to determine which of his steaders had to die if that was what was required to balance population against the maximum strain his steading could bear, and Honor was unspeakably grateful that decisions like that were no longer necessary. Yet Grayson remained a planet with a commitment to the tradition of balancing people against resources which would have delighted the most rabid of Old Earth's pre-space Greens, and that was the environment into which Honor proposed to introduce treecats.
8) Sure, why shouldn’t there be billions of Humans on an icy planet? Cold nights means lots of pregnancies ;)
There is no reason for not having a big population. Since you can import food.
Because in general humans don't like the cold.
9) Yes, Honor wasn’t accustomed to the scale of Grayson farming domes cause the rest of the universe imports food if they can grow it themselves effectively.
Provide evidence that your statement is true.
10) Ships are a one time investment. It will amortize itself in no time. Then there is only maintance, crew salaries and wormhole fees. Not much cost for an incredible cargo space.
That desalination plant and irrigation system is the same way, plus you aren't going to have all the fees, taxes, duties and other little incidentals of traveling between independent nations.
11) Sure, grow your grain. On a planet that isn’t suited for it. I have farmplanet in the next starsystem and a fleet of cheap multimegaton merchants. I flood your markets and ruin you in no time. Than I have a monopoly and dictate the price.
Please provide evidence that you can do that? You keep saying it is cheap, but you never provide proof. Oh, and while you are elsewhere procuring your grain, I am lobbying my government to raise import duties on grain and other staple foods. Getting inspections done to keep foreign disease out, possible toxins, etc. Increases in the Health and Safety Inspections of ships carrying foodstuffs etc.
12) They wont import only exotic things. They will import the basic food supply also. There is no reason not to do so if its profitable.
But is it profitable? You haven't shown any evidence that it is.
13) Just like in the real world. Or not?
Sort of, except that in the real world, places like the US suddenly start shipping in emergency supplies of food. But if your communications are slow, like in a universe where it takes days if not weeks to get messages from one place to another, then it will take weeks if not months for food to be brought in. On earth that message goes out in seconds, and aid can be shipped in days if not sooner.
14) I bet you can buy real cow for the right price …
Revivified, ie. thawed from suspended animation, but then again as was mentioned before good beef should be aged.
