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Message: <blockquote data-quote="R_Chance" data-source="post: 8058550" data-attributes="member: 55149">Trade can do bad things to specific industries. So can changes in trade patterns. The point is that it benefits the over all economy in nations. Trade creates wealth. It creates jobs. More than it costs. Politicians have spent years pointing out the "costs" of trade without pointing out the benefits of it. Americans, for example, have little to no clue who pays for saving those jobs or how much it costs. "Them", is the answer of course. Nobody forces anyone to trade. It's voluntary. If it was a negative it would not happen (unless someone has a gun to your head, but that's not trade, it's armed robbery <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ). When actions are taken to "protect" an industry / "preserve jobs" everyone else pays for that. Everyone. It generally costs far more in higher costs than the jobs it "saves" in an industry that will, typically, remain marginal. This is pretty much basic economics. There are, by the way, strategic reasons to protect industries that really aren't strictly (or just) about economics per se. It depends on the cost or producing a resource locally versus producing it elsewhere and then trading for / transporting it (well, really it's the "opportunity cost" in economic terms, not just the cash cost). If it is possible to produce anything, but hideously expensive to do so trade is still likely. It depends on the cost of interstellar travel. It is, relatively, cheap in the Traveller setting for example to transport goods between systems. That allows interstellar travel and trade to flourish. After that its all up to the opportunity costs as to who produces what and what it's traded for.Entirely true, you don't need to know. Especially the specifics. And most especially the math <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> But, it never hurts to have a rough idea about it for those trade based adventure possibilities. It also effects encounter possibilities and transportation possibilities. And it's fun... well I think it is. It's part of world building for me <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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