SIRC-3

=Richard the Belligerent=
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==Chapter 3==
The Beginnings, as told by Matthew Rake. Friend, Confidant, and Fellow Food Critic of Richard Cameron. Published 2789, Unity City Press, Terra 
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Dick, that's Richard's nickname right? Like, all Richards used to be called dick back in ancient... um... Wales? Or was it Scotland? Eh, who gives a shit. Always told me that brains are like stomachs. They get full and sometimes you need to take a walk to ease the pain before you get eat more.
 
Or, in this case, get more ideas.
 
Or maybe just to eat a little.
 
You know, because food is great.
 
Which basically for Dick meant that he would call us up, we would come over and then find places to get food to eat.
 
By we I mean me and the other boys and girls who enjoyed eating as much as Richard did.
 
Why did we run over to Dick's place when he wanted to get something to eat?
 
All of us had food of our own right? I hear you ask. Like, we're all incredibly rich and have pocket money that makes the noble houses of other realms look like fucking povos right? Why do we go to Dick for food?
The answer? Dick knew where the best stuff was.
I'm pretty sure he used his personal Blackwatch guard, or maybe even the Star League intelligence services to find it out for him, which naturally meant he had more resources than we did.
 
By that token, he knew where the best stuff was while we were still bumbling around.
 
Like, seriously, I told him about how much better he was at finding better food than we were and he was like 'yeah. Maybe I should help out here.'
 
Which is why the Richard Food Ratings is a thing by the way.
 
Hah! We're two chapters in and you thought that the food critic part of it wouldn't be talked about, but here we are!
 
The Richard Food Ratings or RFF was born because me and Dick, and maybe a few others, figured that all of these places we ate at... we better give it a score.
 
All the better to figure out if we wanted to go back to it right?
 
I never imagined it would turn into something that is spread across the whole Inner Sphere.
 
Like theirs a local one for each planet, a sector-wide one, a nation-wide one, and then a sphere-wide one.
 
If you want to know where the best eats are, you need to check out the RFF, or so the kids say it these days.
 
Anyway, where was I exactly?
 
RFF?
 
Wait, no, I was talking about the time after Dick 's coronation as First Lord, where everything got kicked into high gear for the Star League.
 
I didn't know anything about that at the time though right?
 
All I heard was that Dick had made a big mess of things, then Kerensky, the big general, had made it all better again.
 
Anyway, we all shrugged our shoulders, this was Dick. When didn't he make a mess of things? He was usually right, but he was still a massive dick about it.
 
Like, the time, when we were talking about sex education and he told us that more men die used to die of venereal disease than bullets. Right there, in the middle of the restaurant.
 
Showed us some pictures he had on his noteputer as well, right fucking there!
 
Sure it looked like an overripe Durian, which wasn't so bad, but then he swiped left and we all started gagging.
 
Fucking blue cheese, my fucking favorite! Ruined because of him!
 
What a dick right?
 
Just, like, ruined a perfectly good bagel because he wanted to show that he was right.
 
It makes me so happy to learn that an ancient Terran nickname for Richard is Dick. Because he's a massive dick.
 
Anyway, anyway, back to my point. This is Chapter 2 and the Economy or something right? I'm not sure, this is just me talking into a microphone and I forget these things. It's why I have my assistants run Krupp instead of myself you know?
 
Would rather sell it all off but, the old man made me sign a piece of flimsy that said I couldn't sell Krupp for any reason. The old bastard even had a clause in it that said if I sold, there would be an automatic 1 billion Star Dollar bounty put on my head.
 
The old bastard really liked to ruin my fun and he's even doing it from beyond the fucking grave!
 
Anyway, back to the point, the whole reason we started this chapter. Me and Richard and the others were eating in this little hole in the wall. The best ethnic food can usually be found in places like that, let me tell you!
 
It was in a place called Tibet on the Asian subcontinent, something about it being a mountain country or something.
 
Who cares right?
Anyway, it's inside of Tibet that we were trying out these things called momos. Basically dumplings... but they had cheese inside.
Fucking, mind-blown right?
 
Cheese dumplings, fried or steamed?
 
Sign me the fuck up.
 
We ordered something like 200 between the 9 of us and we were chowing down. Some of the best fucking dumplings I ever had and it was in this place that looked like it might have been from a thousand years ago.
 
Seriously, the wood was like... some cheapass wood from the local forest, but so many people had sat in these chairs and on these tables that they were practically shiny.
 
Hell, there were even portraits of people on the back walls that looked like a photograph machine from centuries ago had taken the photos. They were in black and white even. Who does that?
 
Anyway, it was really really old, the only piece of modern tech inside was the vidscreen.
 
Hell, no joke, they were even still using gas burners inside the place.
Gas burners.
Let that compute for a moment, because it seriously shocked us.
 
We've see some old stuff before, but this? This was ancient!
 
Most of the place was valuable because it was old essentially.
 
Dick loved it, spent time just touching the walls and stuff. Drank their tea and acted like he knew what he was doing with the whole tea ceremony thing or whatever. Who even knew when Dick decided to act pretentious like that.
 
The television looked old too, like this big box of a thing that even had its own wooden frame around it.
 
Which was where all the trouble started right?
Dick was watching it when the really pretty news anchor, whats-her-name... Natalie. Right, Natalie was talking on the screen to this professor guy.
 
Man she was pretty. Like, she wasn't hot. I'm worth a few hundred billion Star Dollars right? I know what I'm talking about when I'm talking hot. They're out the wazoo wherever I look, hell even in Unity Palace they're all over the place.
 
Courtesans that double as assassins or diplomats or clerks or whatever the fuck. What they all have in common is that they're hot, and they're nobles.
 
But Natalie?
 
She was real pretty, like, someone who would pat your head and say 'it's all okay'. That's how pretty she was.
 
Man, we all had a crush on her, let me tell you. Burst my balls something fierce when I found out when I was 15 she was married to a Major-General. Sure, I could try and go for it, like I said, I'm rich, but he was an SLDF Major General. Probably would have whupped my ass.
 
Anyway, where was I?
 
Right, the professor guy.
 
Looked like a real academic or whatever too. Tweed jacket, pipe in his pocket, shit hair, shit hat, shit pants, shit shirt, nice tie. Face was like a big wrinkled ball sack, and let me tell you, I've seen some ball sacks.
 
We all washed and showered after Dick's mandatory gym time in the changing rooms and, let me tell you, we knew everything about each other.
 
Like Dick having a dick!
 
Hah!
 
Gottem!
 
Anyway, the professor.
 
No idea who he was, but then things escalated like a fart during a fuck and all of us would know his name later. Just, right now, we figured he was important because, holy fuck did Dick escalate.
 
Judas Arnhot the guy was, in charge of a Star League department or something.
 
All I knew was that Richard watched it and, like, I wasn't joking about him having super-science upgrades or something, snapped the chopsticks he had in his hand in half.
 
Like, just, squeeze and crack, the things snap like twigs. They weren't the shitty bamboo ones either, these were hard wood.
 
His hand's bleeding onto the momos and he's just, fucking, staring at this guy like he wants him dead.
 
I even remember the time right? It was 11:47, on the dot. The little hand was pointed at the 11, the long hand between 9 and 10. I already knew how to read those clocks, Richard taught us when we were like 7 or something.
 
Anyway, 11:47, that's when the economy started shaking because Richard, let me tell you, was pissed.
 
Hell, I don't even know why, something about forcing the Periphery hicks to use the Star Dollar as their only currency. Something about integrating them closer with the Star League. Which isn't a big deal right?
 
I can just drop by anywhere, drop off some Star Dollars and get what I want. No need for exchanges and shit. Hell, imagine how much less of a pain in the ass it would be if I didn't need to get money from the bank every time I wanted something to eat.
 
Well, not me, my assistant, but you get the idea right? Huuuge pain in my ass.
 
No idea why it was such a big fucking deal, but it set Richard off something fierce.
 
Next thing we knew, the ball sack was sent packing off Terra and Richard was ripping the civilian departments of the Star League apart.
 
Not literally, but, like, what's the word.
 
Allegorically.
 
Yeah, he was ripping them apart allegorically.
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A Rebuttal to the Analysis of The Reign of Richard the Retard by Izmuth Powell, Atreus, 3030
 
It is telling that Professor Jericho uses a man that has been dead for centuries as the target of his vitriol against economics as a profession.
 
Dead men cannot fight back.
 
Unfortunately for the good professor, Judas Arnhot has many seedlings that have been spread by his work, seedlings that resent the implication that the Professor did not understand economics on a basic level.
 
Worse than that, Jericho, in implying that the Professor's analysis of Richard Cameron's reign was biased due to the unfair and unprofessional manner he had been dismissed from his position. Attempts to bring doubt into Professor Arnhot's entire career with his accusations.
 
This ad hominin attack is just one example of the flaws in Jericho's analysis into the good Professor's work.
 
In this rebuttal, there will be close analysis of the accusations that Jericho makes and a pointed rebuttal to them.
 
By the end of this rebuttal, the reader will be able to discern just how out of his depth Jericho is, and thus, incapable of criticizing economics as a social sciences professor.
 
((skip 12 pages))
 
The first such error is the attack on Professor Arnhot's assertion that the nationalisation of industry led to a drop in economic performance for the Star League as a whole.
 
Unfortunately for Jericho, we do have the statistics provided by the Department of Economic Relations for the time period of 2751-2756.
Imports and Exports as a Percentage of Star League Trade
 Imports and Exports as a Percentage of Star League Trade
Star League Member State Trade	2951 	2956
Lyran Commonwealth 	23% 13%	11% 17%
Federated Suns 	19% 29%	9% 10%
Draconis Combine 	20% 30%	12% 12%
Free Worlds League 	23% 3% 	8% 10%
Capellan Confederation 	15% 25%	3% 9%
As can be seen from the above table, there was an enormous decrease in Imports from the Periphery, as well as an enormous decrease in Exports as a percentage of trade in the Star League.
 
This drop of trade naturally led to a drop in GDP, with a roughly 23% drop in total GDP falling between the period of 2751-2756.
 
With such stark numbers, it is a wonder the Professor Jericho can, with a straight face publish a work rejecting Professor Arnhot's assertion that the nationalisation of Great House Assets in the Periphery resulted in an overall drop in economic activity in the Star League.
 
It brings into question Jericho's numerical literacy if he is making such basic mistakes given that it this table was also quoted inside Professor Arnhot's own work.
 
Such obvious numbers would lead to the understanding that such strong handed action by the First Lord would naturally destroy the economic progress of the Great Houses.
 
Increased regulation will always lead to the degradation of industry's ability to meaningfully make profits and benefit the common man.
 
This is a well known fact and Jericho's rejection of this demonstrates his lack of qualifications as an economic speaker.
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A rebuttal of Izmuth Powell's stupidity published by An Actual Economist, 3031, Taurus
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Unfortunately for Izmuth Powell, this author, who chooses to remain anonymous is an actual economist.
 
One who has published this open letter in the hopes that GDPers (those who wholeheartedly believe in the Arnhot school of thinking) will finally die and burn in the trash-heap of history. Where it is joined by such illustrious figures as Minoru Kurita and Ewan Marik. Doomed to burn into irrelevance as the reality of their utter failure becomes widely known to the common people of the Inner Sphere.
 
But, let me make it clear, that this is not an attack on Izmuth Powell as a person. Rather, this is an attack on all of those that consider Arnhot as someone important, someone to emulate. Powell is merely one among many I am targeting with this.
 
For their bullheaded clinging to the past does nothing but drag the entire economics profession into the dirt. A process that destroys what respect remains after the GDPer school successfully lobbied the Free Worlds League to adopt a policy of Austerity in response to a perceived high level of debt.
 
Which, as we all know, led to the civil war of 2890.
 
This economist then, will attempt to salvage what she can from the complete and utter shit house that is the reputation of economists throughout the Inner Sphere because of those like Izmuth Powell who cling to outdated and downright malicious economic theories.
 
Let us start with the GDPers obsession with GDP.
 
An obsession which results in their name, the GDPers.
 
GDP, in simple terms, is Gross Domestic Product. As a number it represents the total worth of all goods (tangible products) and services (intangible products) in any specified economy.
 
An economy being specified as a bounded environment in which transactions take place between people who trade, produce and consume goods and services.
 
Now, GDP offers a simple and easily calculated number by which one can measure the economic performance of a nation. Especially if a number of different years are collated and the results compared against one another to create a trend line.
 
However, there is a reason why economics has moved past the use of GDP as the sole measure of wealth. As it was prior to Richard Cameron's time as First Lord. His instruction that resulted in such measurements as human wellbeing, happiness index, livability index, education index, employment index, and more supplanting GDP as measures of not just the economy, but economic health and economic sustainability of multiple levels of a single, wider economy.
 
All of these together contribute far more to a wholesome understanding of the economy, and thus, infuriates the GDPers.
 
That the GDPers cannot let go of the fact that the Star League moved from two measures of economic performance to more than 30. Each tailored to understanding a different aspect of humanity as opposed to trying to condense the confusing mess that mankind into a single number. Is itself a sign of their inability to understand basic economics.
 
Those two measures being the use of GDP and GDP per capita (GDP divided by the number of people in any given economy).
 
As GDP can only measure value of goods and services, it does not actually measure whether or not these goods and services are priced correctly. Nor does the measure of GDP accurately ascertain whether or not the goods and services are of adequate quality.
 
It can merely use the received number value and assume worth. Assume that everything is at a competitive price and that everything is of competitive value.
 
Some readers likely already understand just why the GDPers have become irrelevant as history progresses forward. Their every attempt at gaining influence backfiring on all of those that might hire them.
 
Indeed, the publication of Powell's work in every paid publication is a representation of just where the GDPers have taken their influence from.
 
That of the public forum where the easily led and gullible general population take their word as gospel. Ignoring the fact that nearly 300 years of development of the economic school has radically changed the landscape they so fervently cling to.
 
A rather rude shock to aspiring economists who arrive at university and see first hand how different it is from Arnhot's work.
 
Let us use Powell's first example and rebut it.
 
Powell states that there is an overall decrease of imports and exports in relation to the Great Houses and the Periphery States due to the actions of Richard Cameron. Thus, indicating an overall decrease in economic activity in the Star League as a whole.
 
This is measured in terms of GDP in a rather horrendous table that has been corrected below. Note that Powell did not check as to whether his dates were correct.
 
The Corrected Table is below, as well as the measurement that was omitted.
Imports and Exports as a Percentage of Star League Trade
 Change in Great House-Periphery State trade during the period of 2751-2756 from a base figure of 2751's trade total. (Omitting the Terran Hegemony)
Star League Member State Trade	2751 Imports	2751 Exports	2756 Imports	2756 Exports
Lyran Commonwealth 	23%* 	13% 	11% 	17%
Federated Suns 	19% 	29% 	9% 	10
Draconis Combine 	20% 	30% 	12% 	12%
Free Worlds League 	23% 	3% 	8% 	10%
Capellan Confederation 	15% 	25% 	3% 	9%
% of Total GDP equivalent in trade.
Note the new title. The change in trade is a percentage of total trade in terms of each Great House's GDP, not a percentage of the Star League's total GDP.
For an even clearer table, refer below:
Imports and Exports as a Percentage of Star League Trade
 Change in Great House-Periphery State trade during the period of 2751-2756 from a base figure of 2751's trade total. (Omitting the Terran Hegemony)
Star League Member State Trade	2751-2756 Import Changes	2751-2756 Export Changes
Lyran Commonwealth 	12% Decrease 	4% Increase
Federated Suns 	10% Decrease 	19% Decrease
Draconis Combine 	8% Decrease 	18% Decrease
Free Worlds League 	15% Decrease 	7% Increase
Capellan Confederation 	12% Decrease 	16% Decrease
From our new understanding of GDP, it becomes quite clear then that the entire premise of Powell's argument stands on some rather shaky ground.
 
The volume of worth may have dropped, but does this on its own indicate an overall drop in economic wellbeing?
 
The simple fact that we are using GDP does not tell us of trade volume between the Great Houses and the Periphery. Nor does it tell us of exactly what that trade contained. Worse still, there's a distinct lack of any kind of information regarding why the FWL and Lyran Commonwealth saw an increase in trade during this time period.
 
Was the damage to the economy simply not as bad as Powell and Arnhot state it?
Or, is it more likely that the trade has remained the same but the Great Houses can no longer overcharge the Periphery States and use their House Regiments to force exploitative contracts on said Periphery States?
 
Or, perhaps, it is more likely that this change in GDP matters very little because of the disparate state of the economies and their structures between the Great Houses alone, not even mentioning the Periphery.
The very nature of different economies interacting baffling those of Arnhot's generation, forcing them to use such measures as applying a single measure of GDP across the entire Star League to make sense of the situation. Comparing the Command economy of the Draconis Combine against the Corporate/Government merger that is the Free World's model is a lesson in madness. Not even mentioning the Lyran Commonwealth's industrial focus with Archon influence.
 
Rather than develop new tools to understand the new contexts they found themselves in, Arnhot used old tools improperly and thus failed all economists as a whole.
 
Without an understanding of the underlying economy, nor the other, more intangible factors that make up a human population, there can be no understanding of the economy.
 
For people make up an economy, and people have wants and needs as taught in most primary schools.
 
Wants are the unlimited desire for goods and services.
 
Needs are the necessities of life, that once denied lead to death.
 
An inability to understand people and a focus solely on money with the unitool that is GDP has resulted in the GDPers being ostracised from the academic community and relegated to popular culture. An economist can no longer solely focus on numbers.
 
A modern economist must also be a sociologist, for how else do we understand the irritating and yet infinitely fascinating creature that is mankind? Moreover, how do we model mankind using economic models if we do not understand the basic variable that is the individual human?
 
Unfortunately, their impact has severely damaged the reputation of economists across the Inner Sphere and it is up to economists such as this author, to save the profession from being relegated to the same status as soothsaying and physiognomy.
 
For example, let's compare the numbers given by Powell with that taken from the Periphery States themselves.
 
Even if we use GDP as a measure, the Periphery States saw an overall increase on average during the same time period.
Imports and Exports as a Percentage of Star League Trade
 GDP Change from 2751-2756 in Star League Periphery States
Star League Periphery States	2751 GDP 	2756 GDP
Magistracy of Canopus 	1.1 Trillion*	2.5 Trillion
Outworlds Alliance 	0.78 Trillion	1.9 Trillion
Taurian Concordat 	2 Trillion 	3.1 Trillion
Rim Worlds Republic 	3 Trillion 	4.9 Trillion
* Measured in Star League Dollars
This increase came as a result of the Periphery States receiving the proceeds of the nationalized industries. Instead of them being used to exploit the people of the Periphery, instead Richard Cameron appointed the garrisoned SLDF units as the 'guardians' of the Periphery States and granted priority recruiting and taxation revenue from said states so long as independent inspectors could verify they were treating their duties seriously.
 
For example the XLIII Corps within the Magistracy of Canopus, located in the metropolitan heart of the Stellar Nation used their position to encourage industrial growth in the nation state. All the better to supply their own forces with both equipment and reinforcements. This was to such an extent that the XLIII Corps grew to the size of an Army Group within 5 years (even if they were lacking the metal to be fully counted as such). Recruits from the Magistracy of Canopus forming the overwhelming majority of these new recruits.
 
This symbiosis of what had been a previously adversarial relationship between Periphery state and SLDF units completely altered the economic, social, cultural, and political landscape.
 
By addressing the more humanist concerns of the population of the Periphery States, Richard Cameron improved their overall economic situation.
 
None of this was visible solely through the use of GDP as a measurement of economic health, nor did Powell's concerns address the First Lord's reasons for nationalizing such large swathes of industry.
 
"To prevent another Reunification War you fucking morons," is his direct quote when questioned on the matter by Ewan Marik. In which the First Lord was entirely correct. The exploitation of the Periphery States was leading to outbreaks of outright rebellion in some cases. Many individuals and groups being turned into slaves in all, but name by Great House corporations backed by Great House military units. A lack of Star League protection leaving these people ripe for exploitation. If the First Lord had not passed his act, it has been estimated, by SLDF intelligence at that, that a wide-spread rebellion would have broken out within 10 years.
 
Needless to say, as this open letter was written from Taurus, there was no rebellion. Instead it was a highly successful plan that reduced tension against the Star League, while also developing the economy and society of the Periphery States.
 
This reduction in tension would in turn, lead to enthusiastic support for the Star League. As the Periphery States saw themselves benefiting at the cost of the Great Houses which had so exploited them prior.
 
Indeed, the Periphery, within 3 years would form the so called 'Periphery Regiments' of the SLDF and form a knife in the back of the House Lords. A means by which Richard Cameron kept them pliant as he wrestled with further economic reform to the Star League as a whole.
 
Join one economist as she explores this tumultuous time in history... and brings legitimacy back to the all economists by destroying those who weigh our legs down with the concrete of incompetence through facts and logic.
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