The Smart-Fraction Halo's from Orbit (was Halo from orbit)

--- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> North Korea is an autarky and thus has no means to facilitate
> currency trading.

This does not apply to Orbit.

> Earth will likely be buying a lot of energy from Orbital
> structures

The opposite is more likely to be true. Earth has vast energy
resources.

> there's not much that they can do with [...] surplus
> Earthbucks way up in orbit because those Earthbucks no longer
> represent an efficient medium of exchange because the cost for
> shipment of goods is so excessive.

An important axiom to remember is that no commodity exists in a
vacuum. As price rises, so does incentive to substitute. Robotic
machine-shop equipment is one means to such substitution. To buy
a synth-physical product from Earth, a license is purchased, and
the product is manufactured locally on robotic machines. I
imagine that this would form the basis for a major local
industry -- telefab, telephysicals, telemodities, or
telepresents (wordplay on telepresence). For example, the local
Tangoman Telefab might build a loyal following of customers
because of its consistant high-quality of on-demand (fully
licensed) tele-commodity duplication.

Besides that option, myriad commodities are expensive-enough to
make $100/lb shipping negligible. $800 shipping for a $3,000
Macbook Pro would not be a big deal. There we are again with
simply value/mass ratio.

However, it is important to remember that the people living in
Orbit would likely be high-income. Shipping costs would not be
a big deal for such people living in Orbit, for the same reason
that overnight rush shipping costs are not a big deal for
people living in Manhattan. A deal-breaker it isn't, especially
when other commodities, such as zero-g, are cheap or free. As
there are ski-bums who live in Colorado, and surf-bums living
in Hawaii, there will undoubtedly be fall-bums living in Orbit.
Fall-bums get a quadrillion dollars worth of zero-g in exchange
for a small extra-expense/mass on imported items. Why would
they mind?

> The only markets that would allow efficient trade between
> Earth and Orbit are those which bypass the necessity for
> shipping, ie. information

This is important. Earth has vast amounts of IP. Orbit
denizens can sell IP and will likely use their surplus earnings
to buy IP. For positive trade balance, their expenses need to
be trimmed and/or their product needs to be valuable and/or
they need to work long hours. The low-IQ would simply not make
it in Orbit, any more than they can make it right now in
Silicon Valley or Manhattan. That is important to keep in mind
when considering trade-imbalance potential.

> information/knowledge trading the obvious pitfall is that if
> the information/knowledge isn't built on a foundation of
> competitive advantage (building on unique orbital
> characteristics) then it will likely be provided more
> efficiently from Earth-based sources.

Unique advantage of the information-content is not important.
All that is essentially important is that
high-enough-productivity individuals be attracted to living in
Orbit. Selling their IP for high prices, they would be able to
afford to buy plenty of Earth-origin IP, as well as items like
this:
http://www.sim2usa.com/frameset_video_enter.php