World Tamer Economic Model Question: Wages?

[Maynard]

This may be a dumb question, but I can't get around it; using the WT rules for mining, capital equipment productions rates tied into the prices per ton model for exports, there doesn't seem to be any profits remaining, and sometimes losses, after paying wages to the laborer model as set up on the per ton pricing for exports, and using the criteria for income of 1-3 x250 Cr. x skill lvl thing in the TNE main book.

It does bring up rules for productivity and standard of living levels, etc., but I seem to be missing something here, prolly simple, on just what income a colonist can expect, as well as what a budding industrial capitalist can expect to pay for labor at say, his tech 5 or 6 machine shop or wrist watch factory?

Any ideas, or hopefully a glaringly obvious mistake in my assumptions?


Thanks, Maynard

 

[shield]

The WT model does not cover wages, etc.

A laboured is assumed to get food, housing, roads, power, consumer goods replacement, building repairs etc, as all these are subtracted from the output of the various industrial sectors to work out your services for export. It also doesn't really cover wholesale vs retail.

It is actually more suited to a command economy.

Cheers
Richard

 

[jcrocker]

Years ago I tried tweaking WT to allow it to model the economics of the bootstrap campaign in the book, but I didn't really have the time. Has anyone been able to make it work on the macro scale?

 

[Maynard]

Originally posted by RichardP:
The WT model does not cover wages, etc.

A laboured is assumed to get food, housing, roads, power, consumer goods replacement, building repairs etc, as all these are subtracted from the output of the various industrial sectors to work out your services for export. It also doesn't really cover wholesale vs retail.

It is actually more suited to a command economy.

Cheers
Richard

Yes, I've experimented with wholesale vs. retail methods, but as for the command economy, yes, to an extent it is, but it still tries to tie in production with the basic trade model, which is where it is no longer a local model and goes for the speculative trade models. It is a matter of determining cash flow, reinvestment, and setting up some kind of local tax base, also, as pure Marxist or Fascist economic models have their own defects, particularly when rapid growth is involved, as it is in the TNE setting.

As is intimated in some of the personality 'color' stories, many of the colonists are immigrating for greater economic opportunity and autonomy for themselves, not just for the colony rulers and investors, at least that's the gist of these colonization projects in game terms, so I was just curious as to if there was something already factored in by the rules designers that I was missing.

I kind of like the idea of developing industrialists, starting from scratch with a small business and a development loan, compared to the Deus ex Machina of a handful of characters starting out with a little starship, that in itself cost 10's of millions of cred, as a side game for background development, get some use of those research rules in the MT Companion book to develop local industries, etc.

Somebody has to buy and use all that salvage, and build something to sell, right? LOL

 

[Maynard]

Originally posted by Jon Crocker:
Years ago I tried tweaking WT to allow it to model the economics of the bootstrap campaign in the book, but I didn't really have the time. Has anyone been able to make it work on the macro scale?

I did some time ago, but have just now found the free time to screw with it. I have piles of notes and calculations somewhere, but some I can't decipher what I was doing at the time, and I recall having a tough time getting the number to work, as they all seemed to end up in a circular loop of allocating one sector to fuel another, then the next link, etc., which required going back to square one and recalculating from the start again. Not a big deal, if you aren't concerned with being 'canonical', but annoying as hell if you are.LOL

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Maynard:
It is a matter of determining cash flow, reinvestment, and setting up some kind of local tax base, also, as pure Marxist or Fascist economic models have their own defects, particularly when rapid growth is involved, as it is in the TNE setting.

Without getting into too much RL politics, I think that both Stalinist and Fascist economics can handle growth well, within certain parameters.

The USSR had constant and rapid growth between 1917 and the early 1960's, but then had a recession until its fall in 1989. The reason for that was that centrally-planned economies have no problem with building more of the same thing (more steel, more tractors, more locomotives, more tanks), but the centralized bureaucracy had severe problems with adapting to rapid developing tech (crossing TL lines in Traveller terms), and had serious quality control issues as there was no mechanism of "consumer" feedback (criticism would have probably sent you to Siberia). A planned economy without democracy will either get stuck in its own bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency (20% economical waste due to mere bureaucratic errors and inefficiency in the USSR) and collapse as the USSR did, will have a popular uprising which will install a democracy (like Hungary tried to do in the 1950's and then was crushed by the USSR) or will turn itself into a huge state-capitalism pseudo-corp (as RL's china). Stalinism also had a huge human cost (opression of the masses and tyranny).

And all fascist states in the 1930's had very rapid growth and technological development, the problems were the horrible human cost (mass opression, mass murder and mass slavery), as well as the tendency of fascist states to go into wars with everything around them which destroy the fruits of their previous rapid economic growth.

Also, a colony run by a corporate monopoly would also fit the World Tamers model well.

 

[Eduardo]

It gets kind of convoluted, but WT gives that 'standard of living' thing, and you can get an idea of laborer consumption from that, adding in the yearly credits for 'luxury goods', or personal consumption, whatever it is, I forget, anyway it gives a credit value and relates it to the SN number important to the politics charts. Factor in housing costs, food usage, electricity, fuel consumption, maintenance costs, etc. to arrive at a 'per capita' consumption number in credits, or as close as you can.

The main issue is using raw materials for domestic production. In many cases it looks like selling the raw materials as is brings in lots more in off world trade than producing something with it, by the time you consider the equipment and raw materials costs for 'heavy industrial' usage. But, if you calculate the cost of resource workers, like miners, and production costs for raw materials, they get much cheaper than the costs in the standard trade model, and you can eliminate a large part of the difference in price levels, and especially if you use the starport/Tech Lvl exchange rates and all the trade classification adjustments you can arrive at a 'best use' arrangement. Remember the laborer model represents 4 actual people, though.

Another thing to consider is how much it would cost to import goods rather than make them yourself. In some cases, there's a point where it costs you more to produce the item than it would on another world, but your world still saves some of the arbitrage on some goods. This would fit the command side of the new colony's demands for some goods.

All in all, though, in 'real life' new colonies make their incomes by shipping out raw materials to manufacturing countries, just as the U.S. did for much of the 1700's-1800's. It didn't really get a lot of manufacturing going until the late 1800's, and a big part of that was financed by overseas investors, so, if your colony ends up just being a raw materials and agricultural exporter, that's pretty 'historical' in 'real life' for new lands without a lot of population and local industries. It's pretty much the history of the Western hemisphere from the 1500's onward to the present day. Check out the trade classifications and you'll see that it takes a while for a colony to populate to the level of 'In', if it reaches that at all, along with the 'discounts' that accrue for that.

The model can use some work, but it's not all that bad; it can be tweaked here and there. Remember new colonies can pay their workers in land, too ...(hint hint!)

Addendum: The biggest , and most lucrative in many periods, speculative industry in the 1700's U.S. was piracy and 'privateering' ...

 

[TheDS]

While we're on the subject of this book, perhaps someone can tell me where I'm being an idiot... I made a spreadsheet to calculate the values for a single hex, and found that with normal values and TL8 or so, you would need like 30 Earths to feed the current population of 6 billion at subsistence level.

Has anyone else noticed this, or was all that grade-school math for naught? And if I'm NOT crazy, what should be done?

 

[aramis]

Others have noticed it DS. Consider that it's based upon the ideas of alien crops, so the nutrient needs are not met terribly well.

Also, a significant portion of food is harvested from the sea in the current world, and at least 1 in 5 world-wide is fed below subsistence level. (Which is survivable but has drastic medical side effects.)

Also, the "hex" mentioned is NOT the isocahedral map's hexes, but a smaller scale hex; it is a TNEism.

 

[mike wightman]

Perhaps a modifier is needed based on how compatible the biosphere is to terran norm.

This could then be increased by terraforming projects.

 

[Eduardo]

The major problem is how they've defined 'laborer', not to mention the 'livestick' rules, which in themselves can provide rations not limited to a 'growing season', ans they can provide meat and other products 12 months a year.

Here's part of the conviluted and ridiculous explanation of a 'laborer':

"Each laborer is is equal to one actual person in the colony's population. ...', followed by this gem ... "Each laborer represents roughly one quarter of a worker, representing blah blah blah ...", followed by even more confusion with "Thus, if a colony currently has 800 industrial laborers, this number includes the families of the actual industrial workers, whose number is around 200."- Page 27.

Now, this could be read as each actual laborer can actually operate 4 AL's or whatever, and actually produce 4 times the amounts given, as each member of the family is counted a 'worker', so, each actual laborer can use 4 IL's, AL's, etc.

On page 28, you then have this:

" One ration is enough to feed one person for one month at subsistence level." -Page 28

Now, is this one 'actual person', or one AL 'person', i.e the AL and their family? In that case, each ration can be multiplied by four for the actual number of people fed, if one were so inclined to interpret that vague and confused, conflicting 'Laborer' explanation.

At tech-8, this means the 27 rations per month output, with no other mods, is feeding 108 people per month, according to the way the definition of 'Laborer' is screwed up and contradictory. I don't know what the real life numbers are, but I'm willing to wager the number of workers needed to produce food these days would be close somewhere around 1% to 4% of the total workforce being in Agriculture feeding the rest in the U.S. and Europe, no?

Either that, or I'm having the same sort of reasoning problem DS is here ... but, I use the each ration feeds 4 actual people thing in my campaigns, as it works better. It's whomever wrote the rules who is to blame here.

as for the rest, it must be remembered virtually everything we eat today has been engineered for high yields for the most part, a few 'gourmet' farmers excepted, so it's no stretch to assume a new colony can gradually increase it's yields over time as well.

In the case of 'just starting out' on some new planet, using the low production values of the WTH can also be justified. Takes your picks. I'm of the opinion that use the 'rules' for transplants', and use the multiply by 4 for native crops. I also allow producing food from livestock year round. The rules make livestock a one-time cost, and is therefore a 'cheap' source of food.

There's more, but, I forget; there are 'Richness' rules, rules for native plants, etc. that can be thrown into the discussion.

What is really needed is a frigging 'Eratta' sheet from the original authors of this, but I doubt we ever get one; we'll get the 'opportunity' to buy a 'new, updated WTH' for 3 zillion dollars instead, most likely, and of course I will make a point of refusing to buy it, being of the opinion the A-holes should fix their old mistakes for those who spent the bucks on the first one without charge.

 

[Eduardo]

To continue and apply this stuff to land use, a Tech-8 'AL' needs .8 sq. Km., roughly 197 acres, and using an 8 month growing season at 27 'rations' per month, that comes to 216 rations per year, I think, which works out to 1.09 rations per acre per year, or barely over a month's mere subsistence rations for one person per acre, or 4 people per month using the 4 multiplier, clearly a ridiculous low productivity rate for that much farming land, especially at Tech-8. It doesn't even reach the poor productivity rates of early medieval England at the rate given in WTH.

Feeding around 18 people a year, around 10 acres per person per year, or 72 using the 4X multipier cheat, needing 2.7 or so acres a year per person.

Farming 197 acres, at Tech-8, and only feeding 18 people??? Why bother with farming at all at those rates? Keep the 14,400 credits in the bank, and forget farming AL's.

The size of the farm is not hugely out of line for modern independent farms as an average, I would think, and also, market gardens have higher yields per acre than bulk grains and potatoes, as well, but are much more labor intensive, I would guess, and utilize smaller plots.

I'm glad you said something, DS. I never paid attention to the land use weirdness. I don't think it's a problem with your spreadsheet or math.

Maybe the rules mean Hectares, and not sq. Km., and the writers didn't catch it in the proofreading?

 

[aramis]

686943 Ag, fishing, and forestry
281,421,906 total pop
209,128,094 18-65
0.32848%
(US Census Bureau, 2000 Census)

note also: this fails to count most illegals; they have a much higher rate of employment in agriculture than normal.

The rules are fairly explicit that they ARE for imports; correction factors have been suggested to be 3-10x the rate.

 

[Plankowner]

In the central USA (Kansas) there is a big sign that says each Kansas Farmer feeds 127 people.

 

[Eduardo]

686943 Ag, fishing, and forestry
281,421,906 total pop
209,128,094 18-65
0.32848%
(US Census Bureau, 2000 Census)

note also: this fails to count most illegals; they have a much higher rate of employment in agriculture than normal.

The rules are fairly explicit that they ARE for imports; correction factors have been suggested to be 3-10x the rate.

Ah, thanks. So, even fudging for transportation, sales, canning, processing, etc., we may be looking at 1% or 2% max., being generous, it would seem. there are probably about 20 million plus illegals running around here, conservatively. 30 million wouldn't be a stretch. Yes, I know the Feds try to claim 10 or 12 million, but they're liars for the most part. Just Cali and Texas alone has that many.

3x to 10x times may still be on the low side; using a 4X multiplier certainly proves to be too low.

In the central USA (Kansas) there is a big sign that says each Kansas Farmer feeds 127 people.

The 100 or so people fed per farmer is roughly what I'd assume. We also export a heck of a lot, on top of having a fairly high consumption of food per capita ourselves.

127 per year would require one AL to produce 1524 rations per year, or 190 or so rations per month using an 8 month season, or 47 if you assume each ration feeds 4 actual people.

 

[aramis]

At one point, the US Census had on their website that the 1990 census figures were as much as 50% off from their own estimates of the US population, based upon the STATE census figures!

 

[Eduardo]

Yes. We should consider it amazing if they get within a 50% margin of error. I fell the same way about their supposed 'unemployment' numbers and poverty rates, and, well, just about anything they put out. I tend to be somewhat trusting of the GAO, though, at least some of their pre-2000 reports and studies.

Oh, and those 'low inflation' figures they've been claiming for years are pretty close, too ... well, as long as your income is $ 4 million+, and you don't buy fuel, don't use electricity, don't eat, live in a refrigerator box at the beach, ...

 

[aramis]

Eduardo:

one thing to realize about the US Census: they are not permitted to estimate. They are only permitted to document.

The US Census must be an enumeration; no one who did not respond may be counted. As we marginalize more and more people in the US, a higher and higher percentage are missed.

Discussing further on this line, however enjoyable, would become a violation of board policies; I may even have crossed the line in this post.

 

[TheDS]

Eduardo:

Tho my memory is a bit rusty and I haven't my book here, I am pretty sure that the book was clear-enough that

1 Laborer = 1 Person

and that the extraneous explanation that it takes 4 Laborers (capital L) to make 1 laborer (small L). That's 1 actual person doing work, with the other 3 being his/her family.

I took it to mean:

1 worker
His wife who takes care of the kids
Their two kids

A stable population is made this way; a couple has to have 2 kids, so that they have been replaced when they die. (This is not from the book, this is from real life.)

So your fudge-factor of 4 shouldn't be used, and indeed, you seem aware of this by calling it a cheat in an earlier post.

Now it is certainly possible that I managed to get my hexes mixed up. As I recall, tho, the book was quite clear that they were talking about 20-km hexes, and I'm pretty sure that's what I assumed. Fertility rates for crops were calculated on planetary hexes, of which there were 490 (iirc), but they certainly allowed you to apply them differently at the 20-km scale if you wanted to burden yourself that much.

Nonetheless, the largest fertility mod was 6x, and I can't see an entire world being so high above the "average" of 1x, and even if it was, we still need another 5 planets.

The sign in Kansas that was mentioned: I've seen it a few months back, and it did get me thinking about this thread again (but I've been busy lately). Assuming it is true, it doesn't tell us how much land is being used, or how many people are working a particular acre. Sure, we could stop by at a farm and ask the guy how much land he's got and how many people he has working it and get numbers that way, but I think that will get complicated with seasonal hiring variances and such.

It seems as if a couple of guys could use modern equipment to plant, maintain, and harvest several thousand acres of corn with little difficulty, however, I recall when I was younger getting a job as a detassler for a week. Me and about 20 other kids were sent out to pull tassles off cornstalks, and we did this by hand, and it took a few minutes to do an acre (maybe 20-30). (Don't ask why, I have no idea; I've been given conflicting explanations.)

The point of that little diversion was to illustrate that it might not be a simple matter to get a hard number of "how many people are needed to work an acre for a month to raise a month's food, and how many people will that feed?"

But if you know any farmers, and you've got some idle time on your hands, then by all means, go ahead and figure this out, and everyone here will thank you for all eternity! (Hush, Loren, don't tell them what'll really happen!)

 

[darktalon]

Originally posted by Eduardo:
All in all, though, in 'real life' new colonies make their incomes by shipping out raw materials to manufacturing countries, just as the U.S. did for much of the 1700's-1800's. It didn't really get a lot of manufacturing going until the late 1800's, and a big part of that was financed by overseas investors, so, if your colony ends up just being a raw materials and agricultural exporter, that's pretty 'historical' in 'real life' for new lands without a lot of population and local industries. It's pretty much the history of the Western hemisphere from the 1500's onward to the present day. Check out the trade classifications and you'll see that it takes a while for a colony to populate to the level of 'In', if it reaches that at all, along with the 'discounts' that accrue for that.

And speaking of trade classifications, slightly over two-thirds of all worlds as generated are trade classification Ni. Only a minority of the remainder are In. The concentration of manufacturing on a few high-population (and hence well-established) worlds which export manufactured goods to the less settled colonies is built into the setting via the worldbuilding system. And given the influence real-world colonial history had on the Traveller universe, I have no doubt whatsoever that Marc Miller knew what he was doing there.