Space Colonies and Cultural and Biological Diversity

> I nominate TangoMan's Orbital Solars as the next recognized
> monetary unit when talking about Habitats. For those who still
believe
> that a monetary system should be based on some tangible commodity,
the
> Orbital Solars will be tied to what ever amount the market value of
> electrical power per KWH is being sold at be it dollar, eruo or
yen.
> By keeping the two monetary systems separate until time of
> consumption, would it not start to build that faith and belief
that there
> is indeed a viable economy with a product for sale.

My roundabout answer to your question and background on why I'm
pondering sovereignty and new currency is this:

To my reckoning, the industrialization of space is going to be
extremely difficult on a piecemeal basis because of the inter-
relationships between the many necessary components of
industrialization.

That said, it may involve an armada of initiatives from a multitude
of diverse actors, all planned and centrally coordinated here on
Earth, and then instituted in rapid succession to bring about an
orbital industry. This of course presumes some major reason or
product that requires us to proceed with orbital development. That's
a big unstated condition.

Once some basic industries are established, then the development
costs for successors will be lowered. Thus, the highest value
industries will go first. Their profits must be fully convertable
and backed by hard currency reserves. As more actors are drawn into
the orbital economy, the convertability of the currency will
decrease in importance because there will be transactions that
occur, and which are financed, solely in orbit.

That said, much of the value or orbital commerce may actually stay
in orbit. If not, there will be a severe imbalance of trade
receipts. If your entire profit must be converted and paid out as
dividends and nothing stays in orbit for further investment, then
we'll have a very anemic orbital economy with stagnant growth.

The best way to insure the viability of a new currency is to have
full convertability, thus the currency must be backed by billions in
dollars, euros, yen, etc. This convertability need not be on a 1:1
basis; no currency, no bank, no central bank fully funds the value
of their currency - the US dollar included. As long as you can
convert and maintain value, you'll have a viable currency.

Hopefully, orbital profits will be reinvested in orbit where they
can earn a greater return for the stockholders than could be gained
by converting the profits into dollars and paying them out as
dividends. Rapid economic growth is a balm that can sustain and even
justify many industries. They falter when growth slows because they
can't amortize their investment with the unit prices they charge.
Growth allows continually more units to be pumped year after year,
thus easing the amortization issues. With rapid orbital growth, more
profits should entice capital to stay in orbit seeking greater
returns, thus easing the convertability issues.

The velocity of the money, the speed with which it travels through
the orbital economy, from factory, to worker, to bank accounts, out
again to pay for lunar materials, back into accounts, out again to
pay for refining of metals, etc, will bolster the strength of the
economy as well, more than just using US dollars as the means of
exchange.

> Perhaps Tango Man a new economic model for the future would work
> out better based on two economic systems.

Keep in mind that I happened to jumble together two concepts in my
post. One had to do with getting an orbital economy off the ground
(pun intended) and the other had to do with events that are possibly
hundreds of years in the future after a very robust orbital society
has taken shape and where industrial processes are yielding some
unimagined efficiencies. By no means did I mean to imply that the
two go hand in hand.

TangoMan