Concerning GNP/GDP

[tjoneslo]

I'm wondering if it isn't past time we came up with a new set of rules, be it T5 or MgT based. A question I have is *why* were the Striker rules decanonized, esp since the GURPS rules just seem to echo them albeit updated to 1981 dollars.

Was there some basic flaw of some kind? Too simplistic, what?

The arguments I recall with the striker version was it wasn't part of any larger structure of economics in the Traveller Universe. The values produced made no sense compared to the tax values from TCS and anything you design from the known rules for trade (e.g. Merchant Prince).

The Far Trader rules have the complete set. GWP calculations, trade volume, and (potentially) taxes for government that are consistent with each other, even if they're not consistent with any previous version of Traveller.

On the other hand, you can probably make the argument if the Striker tables are wrong enough to be de-canonized, the similarity of the rules for Far Trader should be de-canonized for the same reason.

On the gripping hand, I'm not sure any new version of the GWP calculation would look wildly different than either the Striker or Far Trader rules. Both of these rules assume that world/system TL is really an economic indicator. The higher the TL, the richer the society.

As timerover51 pointed out, there are real world sources of economics. And you can assign a scale to them. The question becomes do you want to map the economic scale (from real world sources) onto the Traveller TLs, and extend it to the full Traveller TLs. Or you need to find a way to assign this new Economic Scale to the worlds.

The T5 rules have an Economic Extension, and the T5 Second Survey generated values for all the worlds in the Imperium. So we do have an "economic number" for all the worlds. Unfortunately, there is no mapping of the calculated RU value to any real or imagined values or have any relationship to any other economic factors.

 

[Timerover51]

You also have a nasty thing called inflation to factor in. One Dollar in January of 1977 would be equal to $4.15 in January of 2017, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator. The dollar of January of 1977 was equal to $4.05 in January of 2016 Dollars. So the $18.56 Trillion Dollar GNP of 2016, a CIA estimate, would equal $4.58 Trillion in 1977 Dollars. The US GNP in 1979 was $2,368.8 billion, per the 1982 CIA World Fact Book.

A Dollar in January of 1979 was equal to $3.47 in January of 2016 Dollars, again per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator. That would make the 2016 GNP worth $5.349 Trillion in terms of 1979 Dollars, so that there has been some actual growth in real terms of the GNP, but nowhere near the 7.835 increase in terms of unadjusted Dollars. The increase is about 2.256 times, or less than a third of the unadjusted Dollar value. In simple terms, to have the same buying power in January of 2016 as you had in January of 1979, your income would have had to increase by a factor of 3.47.

The $57,300 per capita income in 2016 looks a lot less impressive when converted back to 1979 Dollars, or 1977 Dollars.

 

[aramis]

Striker TL 7 Rich pretty much matches the 1977 US GDP per capita...

Index Mundi give the 1977 as $9,471 per capita.

6,000 * 1.6 = 9600.

Yep. US GDP.

TL 6 is circa WWII - let's check 1940-1942
1940 | 7010
1941 | 8206
1942 | 9741
1943 | 11518
1944 | 12333
1945 | 11709

and Striker says 4000.
Let's apply Rich: 6400
Industrial Rich: 8960.
Add Ag 10752.

Hmmm Ri Ag In = US During WW2...

 

[vegas]

That doesn't work Aramis. If Striker matches US TL 6 GDP with Ri Ag In mods but matches US TL 7 GDP without them, then US GDP doesn't support the figures. The modifiers used should be the same at both TL for the test to meaningful. (Unless you want to argue that TL7 US was not Ri Ag In any longer, which I doubt).

The linear growth rates in per capita GDP by TL in Striker aren't reasonable by historical standards. The geometric growth in GT:FT is reasonable and the 60% growth rate per TL is in the ball park.

 

[aramis]

That doesn't work Aramis. If Striker matches US TL 6 GDP with Ri Ag In mods but matches US TL 7 GDP without them, then US GDP doesn't support the figures. The modifiers used should be the same at both TL for the test to meaningful. (Unless you want to argue that TL7 US was not Ri Ag In any longer, which I doubt).

The linear growth rates in per capita GDP by TL in Striker aren't reasonable by historical standards. The geometric growth in GT:FT is reasonable and the 60% growth rate per TL is in the ball park.

The post WWII/ korean era saw a drastic reduction in the value of the dollar... and in the percentage of the population involved in both industry and agriculture.

 

[vegas]

Don't confuse employment with output.

Labor productivity and invested capital expanded dramatically allowing fewer people to create more goods. Industrial production* in 1977 was over 2.8x greater than its WWII peak.

The US remained the world's largest manufacture until this decade (Now 2nd). People only think in terms of Chinese goods because that is what consumers buy, but in capital equipment, the US remains the dominant producer (think Caterpillar, GE, Intel, Applied Materials, Boeing, etc.)

*Industrial production in real terms for output for all facilities located in the United States manufacturing, mining, and electric, and gas utilities. Sourced at FERD

As for international exchange rates, I think that will just confuse the issue. They are only relevant for international comparisons, not inter-temporal US measures. Also because the US moved from the gold std, to Bretton Woods, to floating exchange rates over that period, it is just noisy and not about underlying economics.

 

[kilemall]

That doesn't work Aramis. If Striker matches US TL 6 GDP with Ri Ag In mods but matches US TL 7 GDP without them, then US GDP doesn't support the figures. The modifiers used should be the same at both TL for the test to meaningful. (Unless you want to argue that TL7 US was not Ri Ag In any longer, which I doubt).

The linear growth rates in per capita GDP by TL in Striker aren't reasonable by historical standards. The geometric growth in GT:FT is reasonable and the 60% growth rate per TL is in the ball park.

This is where using either the Striker cost of equipment or TCS currency conversion comes into play.

If you convert a TL15 A starport per capita earning into a TL7 E starport rate, the high tech person is staggeringly 'rich', and conversely the low tech hind end of space person's per capita is low.

Just using the Striker table and per capita, the TL7-E per capita is 300 Cr when converted to TL15-A.

Going the other way, TL15-A per capita becomes 440,000 Cr at TL7-E. Multiplying that for modern inflation by 4, makes the TL15-A per capita to be the equivalent of a per capita in current dollars of $1,760,000.

A tech increase to TL8-E doubles the ratio and coupled with the higher baseline ratio, means TL8-E goes from 300 Cr to 800 Cr.

From TL8-E to TL8-C goes from 800 Cr to 1600 Cr.

Tech and interstellar trade matters.

And the system, while not anything like a real model for what would be profound changes to economy and life, is not as silly as just the linear per capita may look at first glance.

 

[vegas]

This starts to get in to the weeds of international (interplanetary!) economics, but there are two problems with the Striker exchange rates. First, the ratio of the exchange rate should relate to the ratio of per capita income between worlds. The Striker rates are sort of close, but don't do that.

Then there is the issue of having exchange rate affected by starport type. The implication is just what you concluded - that interstellar trade matters. But for that to be true, then you have to assume there are capital controls in place. Otherwise financial flows would make up the difference for trade and drive exchange rates back to the same level regardless of starport type. The issue with that is probably beyond the scope of most campaigns or interest of most gamers, but it probably doesn't fit with the rest of the economic assumptions around the Imperium.

 

[kilemall]

This starts to get in to the weeds of international (interplanetary!) economics, but there are two problems with the Striker exchange rates. First, the ratio of the exchange rate should relate to the ratio of per capita income between worlds. The Striker rates are sort of close, but don't do that.

Then there is the issue of having exchange rate affected by starport type. The implication is just what you concluded - that interstellar trade matters. But for that to be true, then you have to assume there are capital controls in place. Otherwise financial flows would make up the difference for trade and drive exchange rates back to the same level regardless of starport type. The issue with that is probably beyond the scope of most campaigns or interest of most gamers, but it probably doesn't fit with the rest of the economic assumptions around the Imperium.

Hmm, well, to get really weedy, the Striker table is for cost of imported equipment and what a planet could afford in the way of locally supported armaments AND imported high tech firepower.

So, cost of trade items.

The TCS table is 'flatter' and is for currency exchange, most notably interstellar polity taxation in support of peace and wartime spaceforce funding.

There is an interesting difference to play with, when the currency is out of sync with what the market says, which is very real world feeling to me. In that difference you will find some Space Soros making billions in planetary markets.

A lot of politics too if you apply the TCS tax policy and the low tech planets are paying blood taxes percentage-wise compared to the high tech planets, even though the high tech high pop planets as a whole are 'paying the bills'. Part of the explanation possibly for why low tech planets have trouble bootstrapping themselves up.

Not to mention possible noble collusion in helping to keep a planet low tech and 'third galaxy', for resource and labor exploitation.

Then of course it is important to make sure one is getting paid in CrImp or whatever the top currency is. Be a shame to score that MCr job and find out it's in D-TL5 credits.

A lot of potential story to be mined.

Flip side, a lot of players are in for the Han Solo not Star Coinage Wars, and imposing currency exchange at every port and affecting every speculative cargo will drive a lot batty or at least pining for escapist adventuring.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

Well, since the Striker rules were de-canonized, and the GWP rules from Far Trader are part of the process of generating the trade routes, the wiki uses the First In values for the GWPs presented.

If you have specific suggestions about how to alter the values presented to make them more useful to you, please let me know.

I'm not the one complaining, dude. I have no problem with either set of numbers. I generally use the GNP rules from Striker because they cover all Traveller©® Tech Levels. I also look at the numbers from TCS just to see how far off they are. If I'm feeling lazy, I might just average them. If I'm feeling motivated, I might figure a percentage of GNP for each world.

During the Cold War, the US spent about 6 percent (2d6-1) on defense. The Soviet Union spent about 14 percent (4d6). The Striker rules are as good as any.

But while we're on the subject, no one has presented any evidence that Striker has been "de-canonized."

 

[vegas]

Per Aramis when the same question was asked in a different thread:

Marc banned them (the Econ rules from Striker and TCS) from use in T20. That's how I became aware of it. Hunter quoth Marc. Marc also (several times) noted that they're not valid for the OTU on the TML.

Striker itself is canon, except for that chunk of rules.
Likewise, TCS is canon, except for the tournament rules including the economics.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

Per Aramis when the same question was asked in a different thread:

As somebody noted earlier, if the Striker rules have been "de-canonized," the GURPS rules should be as well.

If they're "de-canonized," why did Mongoose use them in their version of Trillion Credit Squadron?

If he's going to be "de-canonizing" stuff all the time, he needs to post as list somewhere.

 

[vegas]

I can't speak to MgT TCS. I've never read it. But as for

As somebody noted earlier, if the Striker rules have been "de-canonized," the GURPS rules should be as well.

That conclusion was based on the misconception that Striker and GT:FT were the same. The differences in per capita GWP across TLs and exchange rates are significant, so the conclusion doesn't really follow.

 

[Spartan159]

And while we are at it, does anyone have a workable idea to replace what we have now?

 

[aramis]

As somebody noted earlier, if the Striker rules have been "de-canonized," the GURPS rules should be as well.

If they're "de-canonized," why did Mongoose use them in their version of Trillion Credit Squadron?

If he's going to be "de-canonizing" stuff all the time, he needs to post as list somewhere.

Matthew has included a lot of "Not OTU canonical" material in MGT. Hell, some of it is clearly "Not OTU compatible"...

Only OTU authors really need to know, and up until recently, the gatekeeper was Don; Don was doing the canon checking on Marc's behalf. Don also kept to that.

For ATU creation, use whichever set of numbers you want.

As for the GTATU - it's not the OTU, it's just really close. As noted before, the relationships between passage prices are different...

CT, the HP is 1.25× the price of the MP.
GT, it's 2×. That's a HUGE change right there. (That the level of service is also different is also important.)

You can use what you want, and Marc wants new OTU material to not contradict GT when it's practical to keep to that, the GTU isn't the OTU, and it's more than just "Dulinor called off the assassination"...

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

And while we are at it, does anyone have a workable idea to replace what we have now?

GNP per capita isn't a bad mechanic. The problem with both Trillion Credit Squadron and Pocket Empires is that population determines everything. If you've got a Pop A world, you automatically win.

See my rant on the Mongoose forum a couple of years ago.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

I can't speak to MgT TCS. I've never read it. But as for

They're pretty much the same numbers, except that the average naval tax per person is now CR 1,000 instead of CR 500.

That conclusion was based on the misconception that Striker and GT:FT were the same. The differences in per capita GWP across TLs and exchange rates are significant, so the conclusion doesn't really follow.

GNP is calculated the same way and causes the same problems, so it does actually follow.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

For ATU creation, use whichever set of numbers you want.

I can see why it was "de-canonized." Most of the Traveller metahistory would've been impossible under PE or TCS rules.

 

[Condottiere]

One missing element is how much robots contribute to the economy, and whether you can tax them directly, since they can't be got at through consumption nor income taxation.

 

[whartung]

One missing element is how much robots contribute to the economy, and whether you can tax them directly, since they can't be got at through consumption nor income taxation.

The missing element is any kind of detailed world model that considers a worlds industrial output. We have "Ag" and "Ind" worlds. How the population is utilized in those industries is really not germane to the GDP. Population is certainly a driver of production, but less and less so as automation takes over. Clearly the US Agricultural output is not particularly related to the population of the US, yet we are certainly a major agricultural player in the world economy.

As TL advances, the population effect on production is reduced (and clearly this is industry based).

Population is far more a driver for consumption.