Getting paid in space

Doug,

Okay, lets have a look shall we.

First, I have to agree with you, no system is perfect and when you have
people involved you will inevitably have some that will try to abuse the
system but that is what the police are for but then you run into the problem
of politicians who will want to work the system for their benefit, this is a
problem for the politics of the time and the law enforcement of the habitat.
I am going to ignore the problems of bad guys doing things they shouldnt
because that becomes a matter of law and politics and that is outside the
scope of this thread.

Okay, to move on, the problem of a Green habitat arguing that they have a
special need so they should be treated differently, this isnt really a
concern. Let me explain. I have problems with the idea of a GREEN habitat,
they are all going to have to be Green, down here you dump muck into the
river, it goes down to the ocean and vanishes, you pump it into the air and
then its gone with the first wind but if you do that in a habitat you will
still be drinking and breathing it years later, its one thing to foul your
city but you would think twice before doing the same to your bedroom. No,
all habitats will be Green to a much greater degree than we are down here.
Now some may argue that they recycle more, and use less to do more, well so
what, power in space is not a limited resource, there are huge masses of
metal just floating around out there

Let our imagination run wild for a moment, in the year 2020, a mid sized
private company makes an accidental discovery, they have a new tech that can
ignore gravity, no rockets, no $10,000/Kg to orbit, just a large and
expensive machine that is a big as a super tanker, will hold 250,000 tonnes
and can put each one of those tonnes into high earth orbit for the low cost
of just $100 and can make a run to orbit once a day with a ground crew of
just a few dozen. Overnight the world is changed, lots of groups start to
build orbital habitats (the medical research of 2020 has shown that extended
time in less than 1G has health problems that we can not yet fix, the lower
the G the faster your health fails), Mars and the Moon are fine for a short
stay but you can not live there. This being the case there are lots of 1G
habitats being built. By 2025 the first ones are ready for people to move in
to. Now lets really make this a real fairytale, nobody objects when they
declare independence.

Are all of these habitats going to go off by themselves or are they or
rather a few of them going to stick together? Most likely both and each one
will put in place its own currency and its own system of deciding the value
of the currency. Indeed this is going to be a massive experiment, with
different political and financial systems there are going to be some that
thrive and some that fail. No doubt there will be some that will use the
good old gold standard and I predict that they will be one of the systems
that fail, slowly as they find they can not keep up with a changing
financial system, without the flexibility the innovative types leave for
habitats that have the ability to expand their economy quickly where they
could make big money fast.

There is going to be every kind of economy possible but if they trade among
themselves there has to be some way of deciding what the Zlotys used in
Hab-XYZ-123are worth against the Pounds used in Hab-ABC-321and the Drachma
used in Hab-ZYX-321and the Lira used in Hab CBA-123.

There are 1000 habitats in various parts of the solar system, some have
strong economies and some have less strong and some, weak economies, so the
exchange rate will vary from time to time and currency to currency, just
like the situation we have today. But consider, if a group of habitats with
either common ethnic background or a common philosophy or some other common
focal point or even just being near to each other in space, join together in
a loose commonwealth with a common currency, this allows the to compete with
larger nations, using the common currency to demand a better deal.

We have a situation like this today in the EU, with the Euro but this
currency is having problems because some of the members of the Euro group
have stronger economies than others and the governments and banks must work
hard to keep the currency within the self-imposed limits they have set. The
question we must ask is why are they having such a hard time keeping the
currency in the range they have set? The answer is simple, the Euro is a
fiat currency, it only has the value the banks/government/markets say it
has, so the policy makers have to set policies that the banks and markets
interpret as being in line with keeping the currency inside the limits set
by the governments. With each government having different weaknesses and
strengths this become a constant juggling act, of course if the currency was
based on a ** GOLD ** standard then this would not be such a problem but
it would have its own different problems.
STORYTIME:
The habitat I live in is called, Hab-DAR-046, a classic island three style,
with a combined population of just over 20 Million, 16 million in the City
cylinder and 4.3 million in the Rural cylinder. Two cylinders, 60Kms long
by 10Kms wide, linked together by a large structure with a 20Km X 20Km X
20Km non-rotating box used to house the major micro-G factories and a few
dozen smaller tethered and free flying boxes that ranged in size from just
20m X 20m X 20m to 2Km X 2Km X 5Km, the free flying units are where there is
either no air or a low pressure or need to be isolated from any vibration.
Hab-DAR-046 is well governed habitat with a well educated workforce doing
well paid high tech work, the economy is booming but even so, with just 20
million people its economy is never going to match something like the USA
in size but its money could be stronger and more stable and to help in this
Hab-DAR-046 has just agreed, along with 50 other habitats to adopt a common
currency, the Mark. This will give them a currency backed by a billion
people, they are about to become a major market, it helps that all 50
habitats (by 50 I mean political units, most are made up of units with two
counter-rotating units) are near to each other in space. But this lot are
very smart and they dont want to be stuck with the kind of currency that is
pulled this way and that as one or the other of the members has trouble
meeting the obligations of the currency treaty. So they opt for a **GOLD**
standard but again they dont want the limits of gold, so they use my energy
based standard. (I will not go over its workings again). This new group is
just 50 habitats out of the 1000 habitats but they have a good solid
currency and because it is stable it resists the attacks by those who try to
cause a run on it or try to manipulate it to their advantage.

As for the other habitats out there, they are all using the system of
currency that they think will work best for them, a few a real gold backed,
a few use energy based currency, some have duel currencies (that is one for
use inside by the inhabitants and a second currency for use outside with
others) and most are just like today, fiat currencies. So the Green habitats
can was that they are special cases, using less power than other habitats
and all I can say is, WHY???? As for those who overproduce power, again why?
Even if energy is cheap, it still has some small cost and generating power
just to boost the value of your currency, the cost of generating the power
would eat up the gain you get for the extra power. The thing here Doug is I
think you are making a very common mistake, people use to think that because
Gold was money, then Gold itself had value, this is not the case, Gold has
value because it is rare. There are rarer metals than Gold but it is used
for historical reasons and because it does not tarnish, if you used Gold
only for its practical uses, it cost would drop quickly. Having energy
backing the currency should not lead anybody into thinking that energy
itself is what has the value (okay, before anybody tells me, YES, I know
that energy has value, what I mean here is that the joules are not thing you
spend), the other thing to remember is I keep saying ENERGY, not
electricity, if you use artificial lighting in your habitat or you use large
mirrors to reflect sunlight, so what, both are energy.

What I am proposing is that the wealth (and the currency) of a society is
linked to the energy usage of that society.

I do not think an energy bases system is going to be used by everybody, I
just offer it as a way to have the stability of a **GOLD** standard with the
flexibility of a fiat currency but without the problems, as I first said, it
is a compromise.

Hope this one helps, again let me know if somewhere I have messed up.

Darren Brown

On 20/8/06 4:13 AM, "Douglas May" wrote: