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Originally Posted by Timbo
2) It is untrue that we do not use resources more efficiently now than 10, 20, or 30 years ago. I don't want to go into a lot of detail but trust me we do.
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If I trusted everyone on the internet who said, "trust me," I'd have given all my money to a Nigerian scammer and believe that aliens were behind the Jewish plot to take over the world...
Of course we use resources more efficiently than 30 years ago. But the improvement in efficiency in labour has been orders of magnitudes greater.
For example, a farm in 1960 used one-half as much fertiliser and herbicide/pesticide than a farm in 2000; but it also used about twenty times as much labour.
So, the use of resources, while overall more efficient, is not universally so, and the use of labour is orders of magnitude more efficient than that of resources.
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3) The cost of the conveyers is mostly license fees not cost of production.
Therefore deals will be cut for different prices for different companies, goverments, etc. Also Whitestar Trading would pay almost nothing for thier conveyers so they could bring in whatever they want for almost nothing.
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Indeed. But there might be other reasons for restricting how many conveyers go out there. People can do a lot of damage with them. I mean, I'm sure Uncle Sam could sell nukes cheap to every country in the world if he wanted to, but he has other, non-commerical reasons to restrict their sale. For every extra conveyer you sell, that makes it more likely someone will do something silly with it. Sure, the Patrol can arrest him later - but the damage is done.
As to the worth of 1935 Reichsmarks, who said our timescammers would be paid in cash? I'm sure they could fit $10 million of gold on a conveyer in a single trip.