poly: Why interest rates may stay low

At 08:51 AM 3/20/98 -0800, Peter C. McCluskey wrote:

> Ok, I'll start with a very simplified version of the colonizing probes.
>... My calculations show the following rate of return
>to acquiring mass as a function of Mprobe:
>
> Mprobe || Annualized % return
>==================================
> 10^25 || 6
> 10^20 || 10.5
> 10^15 || 15
> 10^10 || 19
> 10^5 || 23

This will cause people to bid up the price of mass in the solar system well
in advance of the advent of this probe technology, and then sit on it,
rather than use it for otherwise productive activities. This will increase
the rate of return before the diaspora and reduce the rate during the
diaspora. Also, if the technology does not arrive 'all at once', it would
be worthwhile to begin using clunky first-generation probes to colonize
nearby stars, thereby providing a use for capital before the diaspora, and
once again driving down rates of return (since the initial mass base for
your analysis will be the nearest 10^x stellar systems rather than just the
solar system).

--CarlF
Received on Fri Mar 20 21:11:11 1998