Can SSPS kWh's be payed for? (was Molaunches, and price goes down

> That was not contested. Those bits come in different denominations.
> It has been proposed that Earthbucks (any bank computer-bits
> representing units of denominations of any nation on Earth)
> would "suffer from non-convertibility by virtue of lack of trade or
> insufficient trade."

Here is a report which details exactly the principles I'm referring to:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080527.woileconomy0527/BNStory/energy/home

The rising price of oil is making international trade of heavy cargo
prohibitively expensive, and acting as an incentive for importers to
find products such as steel closer to home, new research by CIBC World
Markets shows.

For heavy products, rising shipping costs are eroding the low-wage
advantage of China over North America, say chief economist Jeff Rubin
and senior economist Benjamin Tal.

If oil prices continue to rise, the soaring cost of global transport
will act like a major tariff barrier and lead to a substantial slow
down in international trade, they argue.

"Globalization is reversible," they state.

These days, the cost of oil is the equivalent of imposing a tariff
rate of about nine per cent on goods coming into the United States. At
$150 a barrel, transport costs act like a tariff of 11 per cent. And
at $200, all the trade liberalization efforts of the past 30 years are
reversed, Mr. Rubin said.

Oil prices now account for about half of total freight costs, and for
the past three years, for every $1 increase in world oil, there has
been a corresponding one per cent increase in transport costs.

"Unless that container is chock full of diamonds, its shipping costs
have suddenly inflated the cost of whatever is inside," Mr. Rubin
said. "And those inflated costs get passed onto the Consumer Price
Index when you buy that good at your local retailer. As oil prices
keep rising, pretty soon those transport costs start cancelling out
the East Asian wage advantage."

More fundamentally, the soaring oil price will prompt a major
rethinking of how production is organized, Mr. Rubin argues, and could
even lead to a revival of North American manufacturing.

Already, U.S. imports of Chinese steel are declining dramatically,
while domestic production is rising at rates not seen for years, they say.

China's steel exports to the United States are falling at a
20-per-cent annual pace, while U.S. domestic production has risen by
10 per cent in the past year. That makes sense, the economists say,
because Chinese steel producers need to import iron ore from the likes
of Australia and Brazil, then turn it into steel and then pay huge and
rising freight costs to send the hot-rolled steel to the United States.

Regional trade looks much cheaper in comparison, they say.

As oil prices continue to climb, shipments of furniture, footwear and
machinery and equipment are likely to meet the same fate, the
economists say.

"In a world of triple-digit oil prices, distance costs money," they
say in a paper released Tuesday. "And while trade liberalization and
technology may have flattened the world, rising transport prices will
once again make it rounder."

What I've been arguing is that a $350 transportation surcharge on a $5
tube of toothpaste is going to severely cut down on the goods that are
imported up into a Habitat and will spur on domestic production, even
if the cost of the tube of toothpaste starts at $20. Sure, it's 4x
more expensive to produce in orbit than it is on Earth but it's quite
a savings compared to $355 that it costs to buy a tube imported from
Earth.

With trade between Earth and Orbit curtailed by high shipping costs
there will be a diminished market for foreign exchange. Income earned
by the Habitat from selling power to Earth will most likely be
exchanged first for products which don't incur a shipping penalty and
if any surplus exists it will likely be directed towards investment in
IP or other factors that don't require shipping, so instead of
importing drugs they buy a license and manufacture their own supply.
The cost to fabricate the manufacturing equipment might amortize over
a small enough amount of the drug when shipping costs are factored in.

High shipping costs distort foreign trade decisions and the resultant
foreign exchange rates. This principle will be dominate calculations
when shipping costs are $1,000/lb or even $100/lb.