"Obsolete SDs" Waste not...

If they really need cargo ships that badly it would be better for them to go the Liberty Ship route. Mass produce a very simple and basic freighter design.

pnakasone wrote:If they really need cargo ships that badly it would be better for them to go the Liberty Ship route. Mass produce a very simple and basic freighter design.

The thing is, they don't even have to do that. What do you think all those recalled merchies are doing at the moment? The market in the Talbot Quadrant isn't big enough to take up the slack, and the Silesia run will be covered by those already doing that run. There will probably be a few tentative Haven Sector runs, but like Talbot, it'll probably take awhile for that market to open up fully.

I suppose there's also the new friends the SEM now has in the Verge, but that will also take a bit of time to spin up. Even if those markets get saturated quickly, there's still going to be a surplus of merchies.

In the end, there's no need for new build merchant vessels, and especially converted SDs. I'd estimate roughly 30% of those merchies are going to sell their ships outright, if they can, or have them repossessed by the bank if they can't get enough jobs to pay the loan on the ship.

Edit: Re: your last sentence above... Freighters are already simple and basic - mostly just an empty shell with a reactor, some living space and life support for about 30-40 crew, and cargo handling equipment. Can't get much more simple or basic than that.

MaxxQ wrote:The thing is, they don't even have to do that. What do you think all those recalled merchies are doing at the moment? The market in the Talbot Quadrant isn't big enough to take up the slack, and the Silesia run will be covered by those already doing that run. There will probably be a few tentative Haven Sector runs, but like Talbot, it'll probably take awhile for that market to open up fully.

Mostly being sold at auction at about 3 cents on the dollar to pay off the loans?

Manticore has no exports and probably only military imports, which will be delivered from Beowulf in ships from Beowulf or from Haven in Haven ships. Being cut off from >90% of the human population means they now have at least 20x as many ships as they need.

But luckily freighters are easy to build, as the SL which is really short on freighters, will be building them as fast as they can. Which means that the these new freighters will have locked up all the regular customers of the Manticore Merchant Marine. Of course, the MMM has no way to pay the contract default costs for the trillions of dollars of cargo that the absconded with or failed to deliver per contract.

I did use "If" in my post.

As far the loans are concerned if the are owed to banks out side of Manticore system I would like them try and foreclose with the current crises. As for the loans owed to banks based in the Manticore system will they be willing risk public out cry by foreclosing on patriotic merchants that returned home at the governments order.

The same situations can be applied to any penalties for contract defaults.

If I recall correctly some one pointed out that it would take years if not decades for the lawyers, courts, and other government officials to clean up the situations generated buy Case Lacoön one and two after the crisis ends.

Your right, actually. This would also take down the entire banking and insurance sector on Manticore.

The ships are several billion dollars each. There are several thousand ships. Assume 10 banks run the financing business. How much reserve do you think a bank has when it has 800 billion worth of non-performing loans?

Oh, as for insurance. Those stations that blew up? They were worth at least a decade of the gross system product. Not to mention the many millions of people on the platforms who died in work related accidents. "I don't have 35 trillion dollars to pay off my policy holders!"

kzt wrote:Your right, actually. This would also take down the entire banking and insurance sector on Manticore.

The ships are several billion dollars each. There are several thousand ships. Assume 10 banks run the financing business. How much reserve do you think a bank has when it has 800 billion worth of non-performing loans?

Oh, as for insurance. Those stations that blew up? They were worth at least a decade of the gross system product. Not to mention the many millions of people on the platforms who died in work related accidents. "I don't have 35 trillion dollars to pay off my policy holders!"

Almost certainly the insurance polices had an Act of War clause, meaning that they company doesn't have to pay off in the event of an Act of War, which OB can be considered - or at least argued - for decades in the courts.

MaxxQ wrote:

pnakasone wrote:If they really need cargo ships that badly it would be better for them to go the Liberty Ship route. Mass produce a very simple and basic freighter design.

<SNIP>

In the end, there's no need for new build merchant vessels, and especially converted SDs. I'd estimate roughly 30% of those merchies are going to sell their ships outright, if they can, or have them repossessed by the bank if they can't get enough jobs to pay the loan on the ship.

Edit: Re: your last sentence above... Freighters are already simple and basic - mostly just an empty shell with a reactor, some living space and life support for about 30-40 crew, and cargo handling equipment. Can't get much more simple or basic than that.

However, this is something the SL will probably be doing (or considering doing.) While most Freighter designs are fairly basic, that doesn't mean they are simple and quick to build. A design built specifically for bulk construction in mind could be cranked out in much less time than current designs. I'm not saying that current designs are inefficiently designed, but they are designed for low production construction.

If we go Kaiser style construction, parts would be built on massive assembly lines, and designed as such, much like modern LACs are made. The reason all ships aren't built like this - it is inefficient for low production numbers, but when you are churning out hundreds or thousands, of nearly identical items in a relatively short period of time, it does make sense.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Almost certainly the insurance polices had an Act of War clause, meaning that they company doesn't have to pay off in the event of an Act of War, which OB can be considered - or at least argued - for decades in the courts.

Ok, so let's say you run the manticoran equiv of Intel. A very profitable company. Last year they sold 55 billion, with profits of 11 billion. Each fab cost 5 billion dollars, requires 2 years to build and requires specialized machinery from a dozen different vendors. And you have 16 of these. One day they all blow up. How do you replace them without insurance?

You owe money to the bank and to your bond holders that they expect you to pay on time. Without the specialized equipment that is no longer built (because they also blew up) it is impossible to rebuild. And the people who biome that gear have a lot less profit and will also take several years to rebuild.

Oh, and you also lost you fab design team and most of the actual processor design engineers. You have life insurace policies on them, and their kids are looking for you for money. You are self-insured for this (what are the odds...), and you have 20,000 employees killed, and owe an average of 250,000 each (you run a highly profitable company), doubled because they were killed at work. So you need to come up with $10 billion right now.

So you need to fund your suppliers with billions for years while also paying off your creditors, the survivors of you dead employees and then conning up with 80 billion dollars to build your plants while also trying to train and entire new generation of engineers and techs.

Will these jokers still have any customers left when they finally ship new product in 5 years? Or will their current customers have already changed their designs to use readily available Andi or Beowulf designed and built processors? You run a bank. Are you going to loan them 150 to 300 billion dollars for this plan, or are you going to invest in Beowulf or Andi space?

And there are hundreds of other Manticoran firms that are in the same place.

kzt wrote:Your right, actually. This would also take down the entire banking and insurance sector on Manticore.

The ships are several billion dollars each. There are several thousand ships. Assume 10 banks run the financing business. How much reserve do you think a bank has when it has 800 billion worth of non-performing loans?

Oh, as for insurance. Those stations that blew up? They were worth at least a decade of the gross system product. Not to mention the many millions of people on the platforms who died in work related accidents. "I don't have 35 trillion dollars to pay off my policy holders!"

In both World War One and World War Two, the United Kingdom had a War Risks Insurance Scheme. Essentially, the government became the Insurer of Last Resort - and controlled merchant shipping by controlling which routes were insured.

Given the relatively calm way that the Manticoran Merchant ships respond to the recall - one slightly desperate request to complete this run is about the extent of it - there's likely some equivalent on Manticore. The merchant skippers don't seem to be expecting to be bankrupt once they get home; they're worried about the immediate contract payment that covers the bank payment due before they report in.

I would point out that recovering from the devastating economic effects of a major war is a damn sight more survivable than the tender mercies of the OFS. If WW2 and the UK is anything to go by, Manticore will have recovered in twenty to thirty years - but planets were suffering under the OFS unto the second and third generation.

Bluesqueak wrote:In both World War One and World War Two, the United Kingdom had a War Risks Insurance Scheme. Essentially, the government became the Insurer of Last Resort - and controlled merchant shipping by controlling which routes were insured.

Given the relatively calm way that the Manticoran Merchant ships respond to the recall - one slightly desperate request to complete this run is about the extent of it - there's likely some equivalent on Manticore. The merchant skippers don't seem to be expecting to be bankrupt once they get home; they're worried about the immediate contract payment that covers the bank payment due before they report in.

I would point out that recovering from the devastating economic effects of a major war is a damn sight more survivable than the tender mercies of the OFS. If WW2 and the UK is anything to go by, Manticore will have recovered in twenty to thirty years - but planets were suffering under the OFS unto the second and third generation.

When WW1 started, there was much rejoicing in the U.K., Germany and France as the armies marched into battle. It turned out that the war didn't quite work out like the cheering crowds expected.

And then the entire export industry of Manticore suddenly was destroyed, along with several decades worth of gross system product worth of investment. So now they suddenly have nothing to ship to anyone, and this won't just go away as soon as the the politicians stop being dumb.

How many decades worth of gross system product do you think the government of manticore has on hand in cash? I would suspect much less than one.