UMF - Economics
Economics
Money and its acquisition form the bedrock of Mercantile life, driving both individual citizens and the giant corporations. The decision of the Earth companies to establish facilities in and around the region, which in turn grew into modern citystates, provided the Federation with vast mineral and agricultural resources which have allowed the league to remain largely self sufficient. Indeed, should the UMF choose to do without external trade it could, having no need to import staples like food or minerals. As with the Mekong Dominion, the UMF is a net exporter of goods and services and were it not for strict trade restrictions the Federation would long ago have suborned both the NLC and WFP. Arguments over these issues have long been a bone of contention between the UMF and the other members of the CNCS.
The Federation's free-market economic base is very diverse, ranging from mining and farming through heavy industry, consumer electronics and service industries like entertainment. This broad-based economy has allowed the league to prosper when others have struggled. Likewise, many corporations spread their interests through a number of fields to minimize the risks associated with economic recession. Officially the government's management of the economy is minimal, limited to regional price, demand and satisfaction indices, as well as regulatory authorities, principally financial services, intended to safeguard rather than control markets. In theory, the indices are government-sponsored market research statistics intended to report the state of the economy. In practice, subtle manipulations of these figures allow The Caucus and bureaucracy to influence the flow of goods. In truth, the indices are irrelevant to the larger companies who both carry out their own research and have considerable influence of their own through the Corporate Council. Indeed, it is the Corporate Council, when it can agree, that determines Mercantile policy.
The government does, however, have a major say in the transportation of goods, managing the extensive rail and road systems vital to international commerce as well as working in partnership with Terranovan TransRail to ensure the smooth flow of goods along the maglev routes. The government's control of the road system, or rather the beacon system that steers the automated "land trains," provides a significant portion of its revenue, each autopilot-equipped vehicle being required to pay an annual fee to use the system. Outside the league the government takes a more active role, principally in the form of trade delegations in major cities of the CNCS and AST, usually as part of a UMF consulate or embassy. Led by a trade commissioner, these delegations promote UMF goods and corporations, often serving as glorified salesmen sponsored by particular corporations. Furthermore, the UMF organizes and protects the trade caravans that wander the fringes of the Badlands, providing numerous small communities with their only source of a wide range of goods.
The net result of the league's economic success is a very high standard of living for those in work, particularly those employed by major corporations. Even allowing for the absence of taxes, wages in the Federation are above the average for the CNCS, though the companies also demand much of their employees. Working hours are long, driven as much by competition within work groups for limited promotion slots as by the employel's demands, and public holidays minimal, in turn placing a major strain on family life. However, Mercantile citizens have accepted this as the norm, the price to be paid for success and prosperity. The flip side of this i s that those who are not employed are shunned and virtually cast out from normal society. The Federation's social security provisions are minimal.
Natural Resources
The region's abundant natural resources were a major factor in encouraging settlement and continue to play a major role in the economy. Farming occurs throughout the UMF but the fertile Marathon Basin is the league's breadbasket. Agriculture is a mix of arable farming and ranching, providing raw materials for manufacturing and the pharmaceutical industry as well as food. Farm sizes vary considerably, ranging from a few dozen hectares on the Badlands fringe to thousands of square kilometers on the automated corporate farms of the Marathon Basin. Fishing is a popular pastime in the many lakes that dot the northern expanse of the UMF, but only on Lake Tristan does it take place on a commercial basis.
Logging plays a major role in the economy of the Northern Marathon Basin as well as the Byerst Plain and the Arctic regions, supplying the wood necessary for construction and furniture production. The process i s heavily automated but the devastating effects of deforestation prompted the government to enact a series of environmental protection laws.
The league's territory contains abundant mineral resources, extracted via a mix of deep-shaft and opencast mines, wells and dredging. Iron ore is particularly common in the Quinn Range while bauxite is common on the Ashington Plains and the Zihl Salt Flats in the north of the Sangar Basin. The extraction of petrochemicals plays a secondary role in the economies of both Baton Rouge and Canterbury, though the principal refineries are in Rapid City and Marathon. Several mines in the northern Westridge Range, among the few in the league directly controlled by the government, provide the league with radioactive material for weapons and power. Djakarta Point yields a number of precious metals, principally gold and silver, that pLay an important role in the electronics industry.
Energy product provides the fourth strand of the UMFs raw materials. Banks of solar panels and highly efficient windmills surround several city-states, topping up the power received from small-scale fission piles. In Ashington, famed for its high winds and low cloud cover, power generation forms a major part of the local economy.
Manufacturing and Service Industries
The UMF is the industrial powerhouse of the CNCS and is rivaled on Terra Nova only by the Mekong Dominion. Though many city-states encompass a broad range of industries, most also have some form of specialty product. Mainz is a major transport hub for trade with the WFP and the Badlands communities of the NuCoal, but it is best known as the center of the UMFs ranching and meat processing industries. Mining is associated with several UMF city-states, most notably Djakarta Point, but also Canterbury, Marathon and Baton Rouge. Rapid City and Marathon are the principal processing sites for such materials and Rapid City's industrial plants are also the UMFs largest consumers of petrochemicals, processed metals and chemicals.
The UMFs financial and information services are based in Lyonnesse, with products ranging from routine banking through pensions and personal equity plans (PEPS) to insurance and share dealing. Both Rapid City and Swanscombe also play a significant role, particularly in futures trading and securities. Though based in Lyonnesse, the Federation Stock Market also has offices in Swanscombe, allowing Mercantile financial institutions to exploit the 12-hour time difference between the two cities and continue full-scale trading for 30 hours a day. In fact, were it not for the Federation's financial regulatory bodies, principally the Mercantile Stock Exchange Regulatory Authority (MSERA), who insist on a break in trading to allow software and hardware maintenance, as well as backups of the vital data, the Exchanges would likely remain open 36 hours a day.
Marathon serves as a secondary hub for information brokering, making use of the city's advanced communications and computer systems to process and analyze data generated from a wide range of reports. Models built from census and market research data play a major role in the design and marketing of goods throughout the UMF and CNCS. Regional demographics and economic data allow precision tailoring of such campaigns to regions and city-states, and when combined with EPOS (Electronic Points of Sale) and credit rating data it i s also possible to produce successful tailored direct-mail programs. Direct-mail advertising is frowned upon even in the ultra-capitalist UMF, and thus rather than offend consumers most large companies shun the practice.
Most UMF cities have a sizable leisure industry, but none are more developed than those of Pioneer and Canterbury. The only city on the planet to experience year-round snow, Pioneer is a major tourist site, particularly popular for honeymoons, anniversaries and corporate incentive programs. Indeed, the latter form an industry in their own right, with companies like Galitzco (who also own a chain of hotels across the UMF) specializing in creating such programs to aid sales and to encourage staff productivity. Canterbury, on the other hand, is renowned for its theme parks.
International Trade
Staunch believers in free trade, the UMF imposes few restrictions on imports and exports. This has long been a bone of contention with their CNCS neighbors, who do enact tariffs against UMF goods as a means of limiting Mercantile influence in their economies. This has prompted UMF companies to seek markets outside the CNCS, particularly in the Badlands but also including AST member-states. I n the interests of national security, such trade is tightly controlled.
There are two main restrictions. The first is an embargo on the sale of advanced technology to "hostile or potentially hostile powers," which means the entire AST. It was this that prevented the UMF from selling arms to the Basal rebels in the ESE and, to their chagrin, allowed Paxton Arms to do so - although UMF lobbying did prevent a CNCS subsidy. The second restriction is on the sales or export of items deemed to be a "strategic federal resource." This also includes the sale of goods to the WFP and NLC, and was used to limit the proliferation of the Jaguar Heavy Gear prior to the War of the Alliance.
Before the Interpolar War, the Mekong Dominion was a special case, with strict limits placed on the importation of all Dominion goods as part of the ongoing economic confrontation between the two powers. With taxes and tariffs illegal in the UMF, banned Dominion goods were the principal source of revenue for smugglers in the Federation, though the growth of "gray" (semi-legal) imports before the outbreak of war had begun to cut into such operations.
With the outbreak of war between the CNCS and AST, all four members of the Southern Confederacy have been placed under total embargo and Mercantile trade negotiators have been recalled via the neutral NuCoal. Even trade within the UMF and CNCS has been curtailed, military equipment and food receiving priority over "luxury" goods. This has prompted a resurgence in smuggling activity, both into and out of the CNCS and its member states, to Badlands communities who serve as middlemen for the AST. Trade has opened up with the Free Emirates (the rebel regions of the ESE), who are now official Northern allies. The state of war, however, mans this trade is largely militarily sponsored support and brings in little to no revenue.
Prior to the War of Alliance much of the CNCS trade with Caprice was handled via the UMF and its two Gateships, the UMFGS Lhaban Emuros and UMFGS Marcus Pohlo. However, since the War of Alliance the vessels have fallen under the jurisdiction of first the Joint Terranovan Space Initiative (JTSI) and more recently the Northern Guard Space Service, and no trade missions have been allowed.
Comments