Member Worlds and Imperial Credits

[Dragoner]

The USA certainly had a currency long before it had a central bank.

Wrong, the US had a central bank from the very beginning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_central_banking_in_the_United_States

GURPS Traveller material is some of the best-written of all Traveller versions.

From I what I have read here, I must disagree.

However, I have little interest in any further discussion along these lines; so much I have seen is incorrect, and I do not have the will to argue for the facts. I have now seen the face of sci-fi economics and I must say it is quite silly; at least it is not ST's "everything is free."

 

[Dragoner]

I know I'm not the one to fix what you wrote, but perhaps you meant here by your evident lack of knowledge about the matter. This is quite different, as not knowing about a subject doesn't mean lack of education. If so, even those who win Nobel Prizes could surely be labeled as lack of education.

My own knowledge about economics is probably not better than Hans', and sure worse than yours, and I dont believe I lack education, just my education has been centered on other matters.

You are correct, what I wrote was too strong of words (though in my defence, I was just rephrasing what he had originally posted himself). Not that Hans had not been posting in a similar manner towards me. Ranke sounds a bit Prussian, maybe he was just looking for a battle, or maybe my Salzburger blood causes a negative reaction? C'est la vie.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

depends on when and where...

MTU mentions mercreds, used in the initial expansion from Terra by various merchant guilds. Also there are markz, used by the Dominion sometime later. This does not preclude local currencies. In fact, one world, Hastorr, uses living plants and seeds as currency well into the Dominion era.

 

[MCEvans]

I voted for most systems have there own currency. I did this for two reasons, one it just makes sense to me and two it's semi-cannon. Cannon is some worlds have there own currency.
Source - LBB7:Merchant Prince pg. 45

Units of Exchange: Sometimes shipments between worlds consist of money itself. Interstellar trade eventually produces an inequality in the balance of payments for specific worlds, and to bring the economy back into equilibrium, a physical exchange of money is required.
Some worlds have there own currencies, and some are produced off-planet (perhaps at higher tech level worlds). Shipments of money for local use are thus periodically necessary.
Not only governments create and administer money. Some corporations may also create money for use within their organizations, especially when local governments are unable to maintain stable currencies.

Now IMTU CrImps are used in the starport and outside areas like "startown" and major interstellar government centers. Most local businesses within 50km of the starport double price things, like most EU countries did before the Euro came into full effect.

As for company script, can you say "I owe my soul to the company store." :devil:

 

[Agemegos]

I look at the widely divergent tech levels of the various worlds in the Traveller Universe and reckon that it is extremely unlikely that a uniform monetary policy would be suitable for them all. In other words, the Imperium is not an optimal currency area, nor anything like it.

Now, you can sustain a uniform currency over an area that is not an optimal currency area—the USA is not an optimal currency area—but things get pretty rough unless you have a mechanism for substantial fiscal transfers. And the Imperium really doesn't seem to do anything like enough to effect fiscal transfers on the scale required. I think that if the various worlds of the Imperium all or even mostly tried to use the CrImp as a local currency the results would make the present travails of the Euro Area look like a teddy-bears' picnic.

I would definitely expect that world and Balkan governments in the Traveller Universe would issue their own currencies, if for no other reason than to allow them to run individual monetary policy. A few might use CrIMp locally if their weak institutions had proven incapable of maintaining a currency, or if they were so small and so open to trade that their economy were entirely dependent anyway—assorted countries in the world these days do that with such as the US dollar, the euro, the Swiss franc, the New Zealand dollar, the Australian dollar, etc. Some worlds with economies that are unusually tightly-integrated might operate currency unions. And of course you're bound to find governments here and their in various stages of the 15-to-30 lifespan of attempts to make water run uphill, economically. But the broad rule ought to be each world or Balkan issuing its own currency. Or the entire issue being ignored for roleplaying convenience.

 

[Frankymole]

I think the budget rules in Trillion Credit Squadron had some conversions which modified what you could buy with credits depending on the world's statistics - economic indicators, affecting essentially an interstellar "exchange rate". One of the early magazines like White Dwarf (or could it have been the TAS Journal??) also had some stuff about convertinf to local currencies on the more primitive member worlds. I'd expect everything inside the starport fence to be in Imp credits though.

 

[Timerover51]

When it comes to determining whether a planet uses the Imperial credit or its own currency, I look at the planetary characteristics, population size, space port, and government type. Low population planets, especially with harsh planetary conditions, where they are going to be dependent on outside technology for survival, are going to use the Imperial credit. Planets with populations in the millions or larger are probably going to have their own currency, and that is always the case for Balkanized planets.

 

[david.wendelken]

The thing about your currency being under the control of a different entity is that you lose some control over your economy.

If you want to 'prime the pump' and create local investment to encourange local development (perhaps to create more goods for export), you can't just print more CrImps and dump them into circulation locally; you don't have the authority to do so. But... if you have a convertible local currency, you can, if you feel you need to, take a (temporary) hit on the interstellar side (devaluation vs. the credit) in favor of pumping more (freshly printed) 'crowns', 'dollars', 'yapstones', 'cowrieshells', or whatever into the local economy.

So, you use the CrImp for interstellar stuff, or as a reserve currency - kinda like a lot of countries use the Dollar or the Euro today. But your local economy is denominated in your local currency, and under your own government's control should some action be needed.

Exactly.