Commonwealth Economics -How much Credit in real world money?

[Lalande]

I always interested in world details because I considered myself as a writer and I loved the Transcendence settings. Federation (CW) vs Evil Empire (Ares), scheming alien power, swashbuckling (or laserbuckling) pirates, mysterious religious cult, human subspesies, everything we need to establish some good old space opera. But lets not stray to far.

Enough with the introduction. So, I curious about what CW Credit exchange rate with some of real world money. Looking at the XML data, I got that 1 Credits can buy this thing:
142,85 kg water-ice.
56,66 kg titanium ore.
6,34 kg Grade A grain.
3,84 kg White Rice
3,84 kg Red Nebula Beer.
and others.
I know that the price are placed as gameplay mechanics. (Cause wow, titanium in SPACE is much more worthless than rice or grains. Then again, maybe food was harder to get in space, while titanium asteroids are plenty?)
Using world grain price (I choose wheat) from Googling: 326.45 US$ per metric ton (June 2011), so that means 1 kg wheat is 0.32 US$. That means if we use wheat as indicator, 1 credits equal to ~10.88 US$.
But I can;t believe we can buy 56 kg titanium only with 10 dollars.

Anybody had opinion about this. I love epileptic trees.

[Ttech]

Well, I don't know about how the conversion would work, I'd base it more on water as its a important commodity. However remember it is the future and the prices can be different, titanium might not be so expesnive then. Though I don't know if that is the case.

[Drako Slyith]

I would think that wheat would be much, much more valuable in space, since it has to be carried light years to stations. Also, there are many more people, and so far only 2 planets capable of growing food.

[Ttech]

I would think that wheat would be much, much more valuable in space, since it has to be carried light years to stations. Also, there are many more people, and so far only 2 planets capable of growing food.

Good point there, water might be easier to come by using mining techniques.

[Song]

I would think that wheat would be much, much more valuable in space, since it has to be carried light years to stations. Also, there are many more people, and so far only 2 planets capable of growing food.

Good point there, water might be easier to come by using mining techniques.

Although purifying it takes a lot of energy. You don't want your water tanks pressurising themselves and bursting because there's a load of dry ice or methane stuck in there.

[Drako Slyith]

But there are a lot of sources of pure water which wouldn't need much purification. Just in our solar system, there's Europa and Saturn's rings, both of which have a lot of pure water.

[Ttech]

We can assume its fresh, but considering how big stations are, I assume they can provide food at least in part of the station. So food for ships might be expensive because it has nowhere to grow it. Unless its a big ship. So that could be the modern gas.

[Atarlost]

I'd go with a rice index. It's similar to the bread index sometimes used to compare pre-industrial currencies.

[Ttech]

GCRI (C & R)
Galactic Consumables And Rice Index

[Lmoy]

Titanium ore is common as dirt in Transcendence. Add that to the fact that the ore will probably need to be refined to remove impurities, and I think $10 for 56kg is pretty realistic.

[shanejfilomena]

i was working on it: probably can be done better by others but being as the stations round things up , you really do not hear about the other forms of currency in the credit / Rin systems:
C=Credits : Common Wealth use Currency
s= meteorsteel coated Zinc nuggets ( prized by Bazaar merchants on planets because they are almost impossible to steal )
d=Dyon coated Nickle, a simple currency devised among pilots and dock workers ( for tips and games among the bored crew) that eventually was adopted by regular merchants.

*** MeterorSteel coated Zinc is Shield interfering, personal shields could not hide the currency for a thief
**Dyoin Dust coated Nickle was eventually prized because the credit was imprinted with data that could be worthless if attacked by or some accident caused an EM Pulse : the "d" remained valuable and is often called a merchant's insurance.
============================================

Cost ...of living, food and drink years
1d. bun at Chelsea Bun House, Van Maanen System; 2011
1.25d. One pound of barley flour; 2087
1.75d. One pound of wheat flour; 2087
3d.-3.5d. One quart of beer
3.5d. One pound of treacle(molasses); 2095-6
4d. One pound of butchers meat- veal, pork, beef, or lamb; or two mackeral in Van Maanen System 2097
4.5d. One pound of wheat flour; 2095
6d. One pound tobacco 2095
7d. One pound of sugar; 2095-6
8d. one pound of bacon; 2095-6
10d. one pound of butter; 2080s-2090s
1s. a "cream cheese" in York Colony; 2082
1s.6d. A chicken in Van Maanen; 2055
2s.3d. A chicken in Van Maanen; 2085
2s.4d. Six pounds of cheese at a Lalande grocer's
2s.6d. One pound of "fine French fruit " at Hena's Star System; 2090
4s. One pound of low-quality tea; late 2080s-early 2090s
4s.6d. One pound of brand name cocoa; 2086-7
12s. approx. price of one pound of high-quality tea; early 2090s
15s. average monthly grocers bill for Corporate Shipping; 2080s
C59 13s. food expenditure for household of Col. Laurie of Newburn Colony,Ross 248. early 2095

C=Credits : Common Wealth use Currency
s= meteorsteel coated Zinc nuggets ( prized by Bazaar merchants on planets because they are almost impossible to steal )
d=Dyon coated Nickle, a simple currency devised among pilots and dock workers ( for tips and games among the bored crew) that eventually was adopted by regular merchants.

========================================================
Taxes in 23th Century .
Cost Tax amounts
3d. duty /gallon on gin at mid-21th century
5s. stamp tax on marriage licenses and certificates.
10s. tax on gold watches(one exempt per household) from July/2097-March/2098
18s.2d. tax on a shopkeeper with 7 Holopanes, and an annual rent of C6 2097
C10 duty /gallon of gin sales 2036-2043
C10 annual tax, per male Clone servant; introduced 2077.
C100 5s. average Citizen's tax bill at time of Eridani Revolution 2380
C400 average tax assesment for York Colony shopkeeper, 2097

C1000 annual license fee for a hawker on foot in the Commons of a station prior to 2085, and after 2089
C8000 annual license fee for a hawker with 1 HoverCart aboard a station prior to 2085, and after 2089
C1200 14s. tax on a shopkeeper with 23 Holopanes, annual rent of C5000, a MicroSaur, and a servant in 2097

=============================================
Central Bank of The CommonWealth standard Credit denomination introduction
First issue date Value Last issued
2025 C100 2143
2025 C50 2143
2025 C40 2143
2025 C30 2252
2025 C20 2143
ca. 2030 C1,000 2143
ca. 2030 C500 2143
ca 2030 C400 by 2203
ca.2030 C300 2285
ca. 2030 C200 2128
ca. 2030 C90 by 2203
ca 2030 C80 by 2203
ca. 2030 C70 by 2203
ca. 2030 C60 by 2203
2059 C15 2222
2059 C10 2143
2065 C25 2222
2093 C5 2157
2097, March 2 C2 2221
2097 March 2 C1 2226

[shanejfilomena]

Titanium ore is common as dirt in Transcendence. Add that to the fact that the ore will probably need to be refined to remove impurities, and I think $10 for 56kg is pretty realistic.

not so sure about that because Titanium is one of the biggest supplies used in early to later ships, while it will get replaced by other and better compositions, it is allegedly run into the endangered list for near Sol systems for a long time.

However, if it is common in a system : we can then compare it to rice or wheat based on it's availability:
45 - 60 in a table, gold is 5-10 : so if it is abundant enough, yes, the price would be nothing as high as in Sol.
However that leads to the question: where the heck are we? how far are we from the most needy systems that would influence the prices.......

Right now in the nearest Sol Systems I know of : : its around 8.75 per Kg.

[digdug]

from wikipedia

Titanium is always bonded to other elements in nature. It is the ninth-most abundant element in the Earth's crust (0.63% by mass)[27] and the seventh-most abundant metal.

then again:

Rocks brought back from the moon during the Apollo 17 mission are composed of 12.1% TiO2.

Titanium is a fairly common element on Earth, and a very common element in Asteroids and regolith. On Earth, most of the price of titanium is due to the energy required to reduce it from TiO2 to Ti metal. Ti is very reactive and get oxydized very very easily because of the stability of the TiO2.
In a futuristic economy such as Transcendence universe where energy is fairly abundant (helium3 reactors for civilians!) it's fairly reasonable that Ti is a very cheap material.

[george moromisato]

Note also that titanium ore is not 100% titanium. An ore is a composite rock that contains the desired metal/element, but it has to be refined to get the pure stuff out.

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