| Bernard_Oriel | Date: Saturday, 09 Feb 2013, 5:20 AM | Message # 1 |
 Colonel general
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| :D JAMIE'S ECONOMICS TIME :D
TL;DR WARNING, all those with limited mental capacities click away presently.
I think obviously canon ships have their faults. However, the figure of 20 Nebulon B-class costing the same as an ISD makes a lot of logical sense. I say this makes sense in that the proportions are roughly right if you use the Nebulon B as the benchmark costwise.
A difficult linguistic point on Wookieepedia (repeated in the original sources unfortunately).
"A single Imperial-class vessel cost the Empire more than twenty times the cost of a EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate, which was the equivalent of several star systems' annual economic output."
To me this is a very difficult one to pick apart as the English appears to me to be ambiguous.
That is the second half of the statement "A single Imperial-class vessel cost the Empire more than twenty times the cost of a EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate, which was the equivalent of several star systems' annual economic output."
Do they mean:
A. The output to produce an Imperial Star Destroyer was equivalent "to the annual economic output of several star systems" - meaning it takes the output of several systems to produce one.
B. The output to produce an Imperial Star Destroyer was equivalent "to the annual economic output of several star systems" - meaning that the cost to produce a Star Destroyer is equivalent to the separate output of several different systems?
C. The phrase is used ambiguously - it could be saying the same for the Nebulon B if you read it that way; that it took several systems output or several systems had the output alone to produce one.
Thoughts?
I suppose it could be a pinch of both. With examples.
A. Several systems required for one ISD - Let's turn to the Raioballo Sector.
If you exclude the "productive" systems in the sector you're left with this sorry six.
So low is the productivity and population in a lot of these systems, the revenue is likely pretty little. Thus it could well take all six of these systems output to stump up the credits; assuming say 1 million people spread over these systems, little economic activity, subsistence agriculture etc.. Their actual economic "output" that is to say "Surplus" might not be the 388 credits per citizen (but what is a credit?) required to fund an ISD. Plenty of subsistence farmers -never- make a surplus except in exceptional years, a further point worth noting.
Alurion system
Kesmere system
Kesmere Minor system
Neka system
Shusugaunt system
Tertiary Kesmere system
However, just to keep within the Raioballo Sector..
The Gravlex Med System has a population (in contrast to the sparsely populated worlds above) of tens and possibly upto a hundred million. With a vibrant mercantile economy and beautiful environment now being soiled by Imperial endorsed heavy industry that is rapidly turning the world into a hellhole. But a profitable hellhole.
The nearby Gravlex Minor System is much smaller in terms of population but is clearly in the same vein, a Mercantile system and so it's fair to assume it has a reasonable output.
Dear old Dantooine makes it into the "successful" list due to the fact it produces a massive agricultural surplus.
Finally there's the little known Sinsang system, an extant and prosperous Industrial World (Ord South Korea?)
So for the sake of argument let's just say these more successful worlds have a combined population of circa one hundred million. That's quite a few people. If you assumed (averaging out) that the output of the whole 100 million people was equal to say twice South Korea (which has mixed farming and industrial economics), then the annual economic product would be 3.244 Trillion Imperial Credits. Korea too hardworking and successful an example? Well lets say the average is the same as South Africa (hardly a powerhouse), then the gross product would still be 1.1572 Trillion.
What is a credit?
Via the benchmarks of silver and gold at todays rates I shall reveal to you the mysteries of "how much is a credit in real money" and because there's no real money that isn't the mighty dollar, I've used that so I don't confuse your dear brains.
One Imperial Credit is worth $5.50 if you work via gold at todays prices
One Imperial Credit is $6.73 balanced against todays silver prices.
However; these figures are absolute bollocks 
Because, these dear sources regarding metal prices were made in the late 90s. Before China decided it wanted "ALL THE METALS" and the market went nuts.
So let's return to the better days of the year 2000 (roughly when these sourcebooks gave a credit value to metals - in point of fact a couple of years later but lets not judge).
One Imperial Credit via the Gold Standard in 2000 would be worth $0.90 in year two thousand money.
One Imperial Credit via the Silver Standard in 2000 would be worth $1.06 in year two thousand money.
Thus accounting for the inflation in the dollar since 2000, but using the benchmark of the 2000AD metal prices
One Imperial Credit (via Gold Standard): $1.20 (2013 dollars)
One Imperial Credit (via Silver Standard): $1.41 (2013 dollars)
Let me find another benchmark so I can get a decent mean average of the three.
I flirted with Diamonds but they're too variable (even in star wars) by quality and cut.
So I went for dear platinum. In star wars (taking the low estimate) it is 15 credits a gram. In the middle of the year 2000 the price per gram of Platinum was $16.82. Thus the exchange rate for 2013 USD to Imperial credit via Platinum standard would be One Imperial Credit = $1.49 ($1.12 in 2000 dollars).
Thus we've taken three different metals (using the lower end of their value as listed on Wookieepedia; mostly for convenience). Plausibly the credit could have rougly twice the calculated value here if you wanted to with the higher rate (but if you want to worry about that, do your own math).
Anyway. I wrote to the Imperial Bank about changing some USD and this is what I got back.
So overall a Credit is worth (roughly) the following for the non USD users.
€1.00
£0.86
Brazilian R$ 2.71
₪5.06
Zimbabwean $518.81
From this, let's conjecture that Sinsang (that little known Industrial world in the Raioballo Sector mentioned earlier) is identical in every economic respect to Moldova (the poorest country in europe). It'd argue Moldova is also an "industrial world" (closest thing) but now in decline since the soviets stopped building things there and everything became grindingly horrible. Anyway I digress.
The average person generates 1559 Credits ($2,136) a year, while the nation/planet as a whole generates circa 5,474,452,554.74 Imperial Credits (7.5 Billion USD). This would mean that were the planet a clone of moldova, it would be able to produce 14 ISDs (if it diverted all its product to that).
Conclusion
It seems to me likely that the statement can be read either way. However, it's clearly demonstrable that a world of a few million with a relatively diminutive income could afford to purchase a large ship such as an ISD - in theory. With large systems being able to easily splash out on Armadas of them (*cough*Commenor*cough*). It's not really surprising if you consider that most core worlds possessed Star Dreadnaught size Battleships (albeit with hyperdrives at extremely low speeds meaning it could take weeks or months to go to the Rim). So I would adhere to the reading of the original statement which implies that the price of an ISD is comparable to the economic output of several separate systems. That is not to say that most have the expertise or technology to build them.
The other reading though makes a lot of sense in Outer Rim backwaters where a whole sector may not have a population of over a million or any real source of income, I could see it requiring several systems worth of new small colonies, agriworlds suffering bad crop failure etc having the production, etc to produce an ISD.
:D THIS IS HOW DOING THE MATH MADE ME FEEL 
Bernard Oriel
Senator for the Planet of Vjun
1st Earl Malreaux (Second Creation)
Vjun Delegation to the Imperial Senate
Message edited by Bernard_Oriel - Saturday, 09 Feb 2013, 5:22 AM |
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