Total $Tax Rates$ In The Honorverse? ...

Kytheros" quote="kzt wrote:

Relax wrote: Both the military side AND the commercial side both got demolished together.

Which not only blew up the manufacturing facilities and the skilled workers who both ran the machines and designed the equipment, it also blew up the 3 largest and most important fleet bases, along with the trained repair techs, spare parts and ordinance stockpiles. The fact that the RMN mostly doesn't act like this is a problem is a plot issue that annoys me every so often.

Functionally everybody who was on Wayland? - the one orbiting Gryphon - was dirtside. Just the CO, some of his staff, and an inspection team to see how the crews (especially the R&D sections) handled their evac protocols.

That's a decent chunk of construction personnel. There's probably also the personnel captured when the Peeps took out Grendlesbane in Thunderbolt. The crews constructing the forts at the Lynx Terminus. All the personnel at the various fleet bases, Hancock, Sidemore, Trevor's Star, etc. The people at Basilisk.


Yes, the amount of damage to the physical infrastructure is stupid-lots. How functionally the entire manufacturing infrastructure of a major system was in three stations is mindboggling.
The personnel losses are huge, but roughly a third of the total were dirtside on Gryphon or stationed elsewhere.[/quote]


They can also hire contract personnel from allied star-nations. I'm sure that recruiters are heading out to the Andies and Erewon to hire the needed personnel.

Lets say you are an accelerometer design engineer. Do you know jack Diddly about turbine installation procedures?

No. Can you learn how? Sure, 10 years later and many failures later, you could start to understand how to heat the bearings correctly during installation and what equipment is needed to keep the heat on and at what temperature.

Lets say you read the instruction "manual". Great, you installed the turbine. Of course the bearings were not set correctly due to stuff like this never being written down. This is something simply understood by everyone involved. Problem is, those who used to be "involved" are dead. So, you who are smart enough guy, install the bearing and assembly on the steam turbine. Incorrectly. A steam turbine that should have run for 5 years without a hitch, now has bearing imminent failure less than a year in. You do not understand why. You try being "exacting" with your alignment when you install and document it. You get special laser inferometers to detail how/what you are doing. You reinstall. It fails again in 3 months. A genius points out that the operating temperature of the machine is far higher, and the turbine grows approximately 0.2 inches. You say, AH HA!~ I figured it out! You then adjust the bearing 0.2 inches longer than normal thinking this is the problem! But, NO, you forgot that the machine is not perfectly insulated and the surrounding structure also HEATS up due to the running turbine, and once again the bearings fail in a years time instead of 3 months after installation. So, now it is 2 years into your "education" and you are no closer than when you started to figuring out what is what. So far your success rate is a whopping 20% of the old salts rate and on top of that your installation times are also much slower along with your construction times and assembly times. So, 2 years plus the above is now 3 or more years and the machine is still not functioning up to the standards required for military hardware. Someone finally has an Ah, HA! moment and decides to heat the entire structure. First you document this information from a running turbine machine installation(time eaten), then procure the apparatus required to heat everything up appropriately. This takes more time and errors to get right. Finally 5 years into it, you finally have an installation that is operating near what the old salts did routinely.

Manticoran Military hardware readiness rates are going to royally SUCK WIND for the next 10 years if this was in any way shape or form close to reality. Instead the magic wand is waved, and Manticore of all places is going to be the final assembly area... Absurd, but there you have it. Only place that would be half way appropriate is Bolthole or Haven itself.

AND IF it really is this simple to build ships, why in the 1st and 2nd Havenite war were there not thousands of SD's built? Hrmmm? They were in a drag down war after all...

Kytheros wrote:Yes, the amount of damage to the physical infrastructure is stupid-lots. How functionally the entire manufacturing infrastructure of a major system was in three stations is mindboggling.
The personnel losses are huge, but roughly a third of the total were dirtside on Gryphon or stationed elsewhere.

No, the majority of the actual manufacturing was the Sphinx and Manticore stations. There is a figure given somewhere, and the number of evacuated personnel is not close to 1/2 of the number of dead. What they have are the actual R&D staff and some of the staff deeply involved in planning and managing ship building. The fabrication guys would be mostly doing prototype work, not production work. All very important and useful, but not enough.

It's also interesting that David is essentially saying with the whole Wayland plot line that having a huge hostile fleet heading straight for your virtually naked platforms was not sufficient cause for anyone to decide to evacuate the stations around Sphinx. Umm, really?

I have been thinking that good start point for thinking about the challenges facing Manticore is to look at Germany right after WWII. While there are a great many differents there are also a great many similarities. The big one being that the entire manufacturing infrastructure was completely trashed.

SWM wrote:

saber964 wrote:You guys are overlooking several things, like the fact that not all orbital stations were likely destroyed. Hephaestus and Vulcan were but what about smaller stations like Aslan station (Ruthless) which orbits Manticore. We also don't know what happened to any privately owned stations, operated by companies like Haumptman and Dempsey. We do know that Haumptman owned several station in the Unicorn belt. Also IIRC Grayson was building at least three orbital shipyards in orbit in FoD.

All stations orbiting Manticore, Sphinx, and Gryphon were destroyed, both military and private. And all shipyards were destroyed, in both Manticore System and Yeltsin's Star System, everywhere in the systems. David has confirmed it. Hauptman did own minining facilities in the Unicorn Belt, but all his manufacturing facilities were in orbit of the planets. They were all destroyed. There are still stations out in the asteroid belts, but they are not manufacturing stations.

Sheila wrote:I have been thinking that good start point for thinking about the challenges facing Manticore is to look at Germany right after WWII. While there are a great many differents there are also a great many similarities. The big one being that the entire manufacturing infrastructure was completely trashed.

Actually its industry wasn't trashed. Its centralized industry was. While 20% of housing in Germany was destroyed, their population lost 11%, so the total effect was not as horrible as it could have been.

Economically, one has to remember that Germany had been under price controls for 12 years. This led to severe devaluation of their currency so incentive to work was nil. Once price controls were demolished and the deuchemark was introduced, everyone saw the benefit of working and pulled their buns/faces up out of the muck which they HAD put there in the first place. Unlike the Russians, UK/USA/France didn't stand on their backs when their faces were stuffed in the mud. It should be noted that currently roughly 50% of German businesses are foreign owned so to state that they recovered is not exactly true. Their recovery was paid for via technology and working hard for many years via manufacturing etc. Germany still has not recovered.

Manticore: How much will be foreign owned after this upcoming war is funded? This will have vast impact. Hauptman is effectively a rich pauper right now. Why would someone loan money to Manticore instead of build their own facilities there? Manticore with its proximity to the junction is prime real estate for manufacturing. If I was a foreign manufacturer and just saw 100% destruction of Manticoran tech base, why would I NOT start building in Manticore? Unlike Manticoran businesses who just lost near 100% of their work force, my business still has the knowledge, tools, and $$$ to build.

Anyone believing one causally hands over a decade or two worth of GDP of a wealthy world in financing without gigantic concessions to Manticore from magic bean carrying fairies is well... delusional.

Relax wrote:Technicians degrees and Engineers in its multiple fields, yup, we need you. Everyone else? - - -

Infrastructure is all important. Infrastructure requires years upon years upon years to build. It does not appear overnight. There are no snap your fingers quick fixes for lack of infrastructure.

You read about unemployment in the US. As a tech weenie, I can report I was finally able to retire at 72 years, except I still get called back maybe twice a month when the new guy gets stuck.

On the matter of

All of you business majors, sorry, you are useless.

,

it would depend on whether the person was creative or not. For routineers, you are correct. You still need people capable of organizing business systems - many tech types have come up with good designs, but didn't have the business skills needed to put together a good system.

As Robert Kayasawi notes, many people can make better hamburgers than McDonalds, but few can organize a business system of that quality.

As for infrastructure, note that even the Roman Empire in its heyday couldn't afford to provide ice cubes for the average person in mid summer. With the hot week we just had, it was very nice to be able to ice my drinks We are not more than our ancestors, we just have better tools, including system methods. Which is why those who riot because they envy others are, by their destruction, cutting their own throats. Look at Cambodia's current situation after the killing fields, and compare it to its neighbors.

To do business, you do not need a major. IE 4 year education in said field. Business is simple common sense. I ran into one of my foster boys who just graduated from Business school. You know what they "teach" for the most part? How to use software..... Yea, he paid money to learn to use software..... Something all engineering students are required to learn by themselves on top of their engineering courses. Literally it is HTML, Excel, Word, database(pick your poison), powerpoint, etc and all of 3 classes on economics. + Marketing.

Now if you are talking MARKETING, that is different. In a war, there isn't any marketing going on in an all out war. There will always be plenty of shysters around to fulfill any marketing needs during a massive rebuilding effort and war.

In war, marketing is usually called propaganda. It helps to hide the fact that they're still trying to sell you something.

Why would someone loan money to Manticore instead of build their own facilities there? Manticore with its proximity to the junction is prime real estate for manufacturing. If I was a foreign manufacturer and just saw 100% destruction of Manticoran tech base, why would I NOT start building in Manticore? Unlike Manticoran businesses who just lost near 100% of their work force, my business still has the knowledge, tools, and $$$ to build.

Manticore has demonstrated repeatedly they have no problem regulating ownership of companies based on natural origin (see Talbott, Grayson). I suspect Manty-owned/partnered business will get better tax breaks than purely foreign concerns.

Wouldn't that kill foreign investment? Would you want to let your competitors get a high-volume open-ended procurement contract? Or get a chance to see if those magic Manty manufacturing skills can be exported to their existing plants?

noblehunter wrote:Manticore has demonstrated repeatedly they have no problem regulating ownership of companies based on natural origin (see Talbott, Grayson). I suspect Manty-owned/partnered business will get better tax breaks than purely foreign concerns.

Wouldn't that kill foreign investment? Would you want to let your competitors get a high-volume open-ended procurement contract? Or get a chance to see if those magic Manty manufacturing skills can be exported to their existing plants?

Not at all. If you own 51%, you call the shots.

Besides I believe you are thinking too narrowly. You are thinking expressly about ship construction, namely military ship construction. That is the small potatoes business. The big business is all of the trade goods. The spares. The maintenance. Fusion plants have to come from somewhere. All those capacitors etc etc etc etc etc. All those systems and computers. The cheap part is the ships hull and putting the hull together.

Relax wrote:Not at all. If you own 51%, you call the shots.

Besides I believe you are thinking too narrowly. You are thinking expressly about ship construction, namely military ship construction. That is the small potatoes business. The big business is all of the trade goods. The spares. The maintenance. Fusion plants have to come from somewhere. All those capacitors etc etc etc etc etc. All those systems and computers. The cheap part is the ships hull and putting the hull together.

So the tax breaks only apply to companies with 51% Manty ownership. Considering the size of the bill, even maxing out at 49% would be incredibly useful.

By open-ended procurement I was thinking missiles, actually. You're right in that the same logic applies to the rest of the supply chain.