Excerpt from the Growth Delusion by David Pilling
GDP per capita
This is so obvious it feels almost embarrassingly late in the day to mention it. A startlingly easy adjustment to make to GDP is to turn it into a per-capita figure by dividing it by the number of people in the country. Yet this is rarely done – at least not in normal public discourse. All too often growth is expressed in absolute terms, with no account taken of population expansion.
If your growth rate is 2 per cent but your population is also growing at 2 per cent then, on a per-capita basis, you are going precisely nowhere. Investors often get excited about the growth rates of some developing countries, forgetting that much of it is simply the result of high birth rates. The easiest way of increasing the size of an economy is simply to add people. If Donald Trump wants 3 per cent growth, it is very easy to achieve: all he has to do is knock down that unbuilt wall and invite in 10 million new people to America each year. What he really wants, however, is 3 per cent per-capita growth, which is quite another thing – and much harder to achieve.
Economists struggle to imagine how a country can possibly progress if it is not forever adding people to its workforce. That's why so many talk about Japan, with its mildly shrinking population and positive per-capita growth rates, as being in a 'demographic death spiral'. Economists are so wedded to the idea that the economy must always be expanding that they find it hard to break the logic of 'just add people'. If Thomas Malthus thought more and more people would be the death of human civilisation, modern economists think the reverse.
Yet unless we imagine the world's population increasing indefinitely, we really must begin to imagine a world where the economy eventually stops expanding – in rich, mature economies at least. That does not mean that income per capita necessarily needs to stop rising. And that is what ultimately counts. Reporting growth on a per-capita basis is a small but important step in putting people – rather than some abstract notion of the economy – at the centre of our policymaking.
+Break+
"Let's call this meeting to order then please. We're all here." The mummified head at the front of the speaker's table spoke.
Well, not the head, the man sitting to the side of it, that didn't make it any less disconcerting of course.
At least to the uninitiated, which none of those in this room were.
"Well then, let's get started then please. Reports on your Zones to start with Zone 1."
Those in the conference room started to speak.
"Zone 1 is nominal, no major changes despite raids by the FWL. Gross National Product remains steady with no change. Human stock has been increasing at 2.5% as per previous initiatives to improve education and health. Satisfaction levels remain stable at 80%. Green National Product is growing at 3.1% a year. Black National Product is decreasing at 0.3% a year. Global Happiness Rating has remained stable." The first Zone's director of surveys spoke.
And so it went as zones 2-50 spoke, with no real change except for raids by the Free Worlds League or the Draconis Combine. Then it went to the periphery adjacent realms with their little kings and pirate raids, where development was much more uneven. Human stock would fluctuate like nothing else in this region, as did Green National Product, all the natural resources that were available. Black National Product was high in this region as polluting industries were constructed to solve the problem of a lack of fusion reactors.
GDP was the number thrown at the baying masses of humanity with brains too small to understand the other numbers, but it was a good starting indicator.
One that Zone 51 disrupted with his announcement.
The planet of Tharkad, Zone 50 was on its own due to the sheer scale of it. The worlds around Tharkad, Tetersen, Gibbs, Eutin and so on were Zone 51. A Zone that just saw a decrease in the Black National Product by a whopping 4%.
Minor in the scale of the Lyran Commonwealth, but representing the shut down of at least 30 Black National Product factories.
Satisfaction increased slightly, Green National Product remained the same, Human stock remained the same, Gross National Product increased… slightly.
"Zone 51. Interrogative. What is causing the changes in your Zone." The mummified head adjacent voice called out.
The room went silent as the murmurs died down.
Then their heads turned to the Zone 51 director of surveys.
"A new factory producing fusion powered vehicles as built in the last 10 months Senior Director."
A few nodded but most shook their heads.
"Precedent says otherwise. A new fusion vehicle factory will only improve metrics by zero. Point. Five. Percentage points, and that is if I am being generous, which I am not. This change is beyond all other metrics Director."
The Zone 51 director looked like a deer under headlights at this interrogation.
He had been assigned this cushy position due to his connections. A low difficulty area with low rates of variance, a cushy job to some.
A problem since that meant he hadn't been able to identify these variances beforehand to provide a satisfactory answer.
The sheer number of resources that were invested in ensuring the economic data of the Lyran Commonwealth was accurate and up to date had been wasted if they couldn't identify an answer.
A single factory having such an outsized influence?
Bullshit as the children might say.
"This meeting will continue. Adjutant, prepare an interrogative team to investigate this factory and survey Zone 51 a second time."
"The head of Alistair Quartermain calls for the meeting to continue." The Senior Director droned on, not paying any more attention to his Adjutant as the man began to mobilise the vast resources of the Lyran Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics.
Their sole purpose was the gathering of statistics. After all, if one did not understand themselves, then how could they win a war?
Millions of personnel in the form of survey teams, digital communications teams, statisticians, collators, and analysers. All for the sole purpose of collecting over ten billion data points a year to understand the state of the Commonwealth to present an accurate picture to the Estates General and the Archon.
That a glaring 4% of difference hadn't been noticed was galling.
That was over 20 million people having their lives impacted by an increase in 2000 Kroner a year going unnoticed.
The sheer negligence involved!
+Break+
Duke Brewer glared at the planet around him.
It was not the glare of someone saying 'I hate green things', but rather, it was the glare of one that said 'really, this is the world that birthed the Commonwealth's next great industrialist?'
It was a very eloquent glare.
Tetersen.
A pleasure stop that barely showed on any stellar maps, only important because of its proximity to Tharkad, and yet, also relegated to minor world because of that same proximity.
One could only say 'build near Tharkad' for the reply of 'just build on Tharkad' to return at them.
After all, Tharkad as a planet was still largely undeveloped, why not just build there?
A question for the ages even.
So, he was here.
As Greydon Brewer, CEO of Defiance Industries as well as Duke Brewers, representing the LCAF in quality assurance tests of the newly completed factory lines for the Lyran Commonwealth's signature light Battlemech.
To his right was an auditor from the Lyran Commonwealth's Bureau of Statistics, some of the most powerful men in the Commonwealth. Not because they could call on armies, at least not in the conventional sense, but because their surveys and information were the most powerful forms of intelligence in the entirety of the Commonwealth.
The data, costing billions of Kroner to collect every year could predict rebellions with pinpoint accuracy, project successful campaigns, plan industrial development, identify espionage and more. One did not make an enemy of the BoS unless they were so stupid they should remove themselves from the gene-pool on principle.
No, one made friends with the Bureau of Statistics to gain a tantalising glimpse of the treasure of knowledge contained in their vaults.
That an auditor from that body was here on Tetersen, heading in the same direction as himself even did not bode well.
It meant that something had gone wrong with an accounting.
LIC's Molehunters had been dispatched for less.
Next to him was a board member from Lockheed/CBM, again, heading in the same general direction as himself.
Finally, Hauptmann-General Aurelius von Randt was leading the group, representing the Archon and the LCAF.
A powerful group heading in a singular direction, Mount Utility (or was it Utility Mountain? Everyone they met had a different answer) according to a newly updated map.
A factory complex within a mountain.
He felt almost nostalgic.
+Break+
Ah! People!
I look at them.
They look back at me.
Ah, right, I still had a fruit in my hands.
I wave, it was rude to talk with your mouth full after all.
I finish chewing, thinking hat the atmosphere felt a little weird. Probably because nobody was talking.
"Good morning! I know some of you I think, but like, I don't do human names very well, I'm sorry." I told them, making sure that I said that part about the faces so that they wouldn't feel like I was doing it on purpose.
"We met last month." The one in the lead said, the General.
"We did!" I said to him, "I just can't remember you name. I'm sorry, like I said, I'm really bad with names. It's a curse." I told him with a shake of my head. "My brain is just really bad with names."
He looked at me, his face moving.
The ones behind him were looking at him too.
Hmmm, oh well, I could let them meet Slim and then we could then talk about the new factories that I was laying down.
I needed RP after all.
After all, I now had 3 Ute Factories, 2 20 Ton Truck factories, and 2 Light Battlemech Factories.
That put me at 92.4 RP in total after a 1.1 bonus.
Of that, 30 RP was in use, the Ute and 20 Ton Truck factories needed half of their RP cost to manufacture for the civilian market after all. Or at least manufacture enough to be converted elsewhere.
2 RP was in use in both Commando factories to produce the Battlemechs. Since it was military hardware, I couldn't invest more than 1 RP into each factory per turn.
Which left me with 60.4 RP to use elsewere.
My solution then was pretty simple.
Expand!
Compound growth was the best growth!
2 Medium Battlemech lines for 48.
1 Heavy Areospace line for 12.
60 RP in total.
I would expand my civilian lines after that, but going big in the military sphere now meant that I would have more room to develop factories afterwards.
After all, I could only invest 1 RP into military production per turn, but a full 12 in a civilian factory.
Haha, perfect.
Oh right… I needed to do civilian manufacture to make Ursula happy.
She wanted lots of the Utes, they were perfect for conversion into military equipment from her words.
Especially with Maxxy out there helping.
Him setting up independent of the System was a great idea, meant that he wasn't stuck like I was working with RP. He could make as many military constructions as he wanted so long as he had the manpower to do it.
Still.
Ha.
Slim had asked for help, said he was going to be working on General William Slim's doctrine for a war against a highly aggressive vaguely Japanese threat.
Ha.
Working with a descendent of William Slim to wage war on the Japanese?
Ha ha!
Excellent.
Absolutely excellent.
Born too late to suffer in the muck of the monsoon jungle, born too early to enjoy a developed Inner Sphere, born just in time to be the Indian Tea Association to Slim's 14th Army.
Ha ha ha!
+Break+
Brewers thought that the young industrialist fit his mental view of an industrialist very well indeed. Not a capitalist, not someone that could wheel and deal and twist someone around with their words. Not an office couch pounder either hiding behind their reams and reams of paper the reasons as to their uselessness.
No, this was an industrialist, so focused on his goal of building industry that the rest of the world faded away into irrelevance before him.
His blithe comment about two more Battlemech lines and an Aerospace line had shocked Greydon.
His eyes had turned widened at the pre-planned designs where the Griffin 1S was going to be manufactured.
A brawler design with a Large Laser, smaller missile pack and medium lasers to make up for the lack of close in support that the Griffin 1N sported with its 1 PPC and 1 LRM 10. Both long ranged weapons with a close range limit.
Hesperus had then moved to producing the GRF-1N at the request of the Commonwealth as the Commonwealth had increasingly moved to Heavy and Assault designs, the Griffin needed less as a brawler and more as fire support.
In short, he was looking at a shift in doctrine that someone (Aurelius) was trying to push underneath the noses of the social generals that had atrophied in the General Staff of the LCAF.
Someone (Aurelius) was trying to move the Commonwealth to a more aggressive doctrine.
Someone (Aurelius) was trying to drive the Commonwealth to take an offensive movement forward to get to grip with the enemy.
Especially with the Commando 1B already rolling off the production lines of this Graf Vu's factory lines.
Greydon felt his fingers clench.
Anyone who fought the Free World's League felt a complacency that reverberated its way up one's spine to make it soft as a piece of tenderloin.
On the other hand, anyone that took the fight to the Combine knew, in their heart of hearts that by the end, there could only be one left standing. There was no space under the many stars of the Inner Sphere for the Commonwealth and the Combine to stand together.
Either the Combine dies or they do.
Their very way of life is inimicable to that of the Commonwealth's, their barbarity on full display wherever their armies marched in mutilated bodies and desecrated sites.
If someone (Aurelius dammit) wanted to take the fight to them and bloody their noses?
Well, who was Greydon to stop it?
In fact, they (Aurelius) might need some help here in the circles he usually didn't rotate through.
A chance to give the Combine a bloody nose?
Well, if this hypothetical person wasn't aiming at the Combine, Greydon would need to ease matters so that the only option was to take the fight to the Combine.
+Break+
+Break+
Excerpt from A War of Empires Japan, India, Burma and Britain, 1941-45 by Robert Lyman
It was during these months [February to July 1944] that Slim and his headquarters staff agitated with 11 Army Group and Mountbatten for permission to follow up Mutaguchi's defeat with a pursuit across the Chindwin. Slim became convinced that the only sure way of defeating the Japanese in Burma was by land, and that he would have to do it with the resources at hand. He realized that he now had the opportunity not just to expel the remaining elements of 15 Army from India, but also to pursue the Japanese back into the heart of Burma. Indeed, were he to do this, he was convinced that bigger prizes were possible, perhaps even the seizure of Rangoon itself. The taste of victory in both Assam and Arakan had injected into 14 Army a newfound confidence based on the irrefutable evidence that the Japanese could be beaten. By mid 1944 Slim was convinced that an aggressive policy of pursuit into Burma to exploit these victories was not just desirable but necessary.
However, few of his superiors saw Slim's vision as clearly as he did. Giffard certainly didn't. During May 1944 Mountbatten badgered the Combined Chiefs of Staff for a decision as to what to do next, and when they did provide orders on 3 June 1944, the issue of an overland advance into Burma was fudged. As far as Washington and London were concerned, the imperative remained the continued maintenance of China in support of Pacific operations. The Hump still took priority. There were to be no extra resources for an amphibious assault on Burma's seaward flank. Mountbatten was nevertheless ordered 'to press advantages against the enemy by exerting maximum effort ground and air particularly during the current monsoon season'. These orders didn't tell him to invade Burma, but they did give him carte blanche to pursue his enemy. Accordingly, on 9 June 1944 Mountbatten ordered Giffard to exploit to the Chindwin between the villages of Yuwa in the south and Tamanthi in the north after the monsoon. Slim, however, wanted more. On 2 July he met Mountbatten and persuaded him that were 14 Army to mount an offensive it could do so with no more resources than those that would anyway be allocated to the defence of India.
+Break+
Total RP Turn 9 2991 + 1 Year 1 Months
36 RP 12×3 Ute Factory
24 RP 12×2 20 Ton Utility Truck Factory
32 RP 16×2 Commando 1B Factory - New Built
RP Bonus Calculation = 0.8 (Indytech 3) + 0.3 (Lyran Bonus) + 0.1 (Economic Treaty) = 1.2
Total RP = 92×1.2 = 110.4