More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“The reality is that only 5 percent of all money is created by governments in the form of cash in circulation.” The holographic dollar shrank to a minuscule size against a backdrop of scrolling database records. “The remaining 95 percent of money is created by commercial banks whenever they extend credit to a borrower.”
“Because in the modern world money does not represent value, Mr. Tighe—money represents debt. And the more debt that is created in the world, the more money there is.”
“Banks lend only the principal. However, loans must be repaid plus interest—and with long-term loans like mortgages, the total interest payments far exceed the principal itself. Unless the overall money supply keeps growing, there will never be enough money to pay back all the loans plus interest.
“Most shocking to the layman is the fact that repaying debt destroys money. If most debts were paid off, far from helping the economy, it would increasingly paralyze it. No debt would mean there was no money.”
“The Great Depression wasn’t a case of too much debt. It was a case of too little debt.”
“Debt powers modern economies, which is why it is constantly growing. The greater the debt, the larger the money supply, the more economic activity—but also the more interest that needs to be repaid to keep the system running.” Korrapati looked grim. “So at the very time that climate change threatens to destroy human civilization, our economic system compels us to pursue ever-greater business growth—which will eventually become impossible.”
“However, there is a place where near-infinite expansion can occur—is, in fact, already occurring. Where our current debt-based financial system can expand for millions of years uninterrupted.” Korrapati pointed upward. “Space.”
“Commercial exploitation of our solar system can expand the human economy beyond Earth to address the accumulated debt in our economic system, massively increasing the total amount of raw materials and energy without increasing carbon emissions or hastening climate change. It is the only sure way to avoid imminent, global economic collapse.”
“Let me get this straight: you’re saying humanity must expand into space—not for the sake of science or exploration, but to stop the banks from going broke?” “To preserve civilization.”
Tighe turned to look at the billionaire. “I have two words for you, J.T.: asteroid mining.” “Asteroid mining.”
“It’s a sad fact that some individuals don’t function well in everyday life but excel under extreme circumstances. I think you’re one of those individuals.”
“If humanity is ever going to become a spacefaring species, we
actually need to go to space—and not just to visit. That means establishing commerce there. Robots will help us, but they’re not the end goal. We need to expand human presence in our solar system—that’s the only way we get exponential growth.”
“Most of the value of asteroid resources is in their trajectory—above Earth’s gravity well, and that’s where they should remain. It’s there, in cislunar space, that I plan to establish orbiting power-generation facilities, carbon-intensive industry, and an off-world commodity exchange—the beginning of an entire cislunar economy that could usher in the near-infinite growth that Dr. Korrapati described, even while alleviating climate change.”
“The Greek letter delta is a standard notation in mathematics for a change in value. Delta-v describes a change in velocity. All celestial objects are in motion—which means you either need to accelerate or decelerate to reach them. The higher the delta-v, the greater the energy—and the greater the expense. When it comes to commerce in space, J.T., delta-v means the difference between profitability and loss. In other words: delta-v means everything.”
Back in 1985 a consortium of Luxembourg bankers known as the Société Européenne des Satellites (European Society of Satellites)—now known simply as SES—made bold investments in what was then an unproven industry: communications satellites. Those investments paid off handsomely, and by the dawn of the twenty-first century, Luxembourg was receiving two billion dollars a year in royalties alone from global comsat firms.
Here on Earth you lawyers say that possession is nine-tenths of the law. Well, Lukas, in space I think possession is going to be more like 99.99999 percent of the law. Space is a goddamned frontier. What’s the use of going to a frontier if it has rules?”
Personally, I find the respect of enemies to be sweeter than friendship. And certainly more honest—nobody ever lies about hating you.”
“Building truly useful structures in deep space—on the order of a million tons or more—from Earth-sourced materials would require investments of seven or eight trillion US dollars. And that is just to lift the materials. It does not include cost of R and D, design, and construction. Catalyst Corporation believes it can do better.”
“That is half the acceleration required to lift materials from the Moon’s surface. By cost-effectively shipping millions of tons of resources from Ryugu into a lunar DRO, Catalyst Corporation aims to drastically reduce construction and refueling costs in cislunar space—in the process kick-starting a booming cislunar commodity exchange.”
A few thousand tons of resources at the top of Earth’s gravity well would be worth a fortune. Are we really going to just turn around and fly away from that? Joyce is right; we could jump-start an entire new economy in space, and we’d all be worth a hundred million when we return.”
It’s sometimes easy to forget that the purpose of life isn’t just to stay alive.”
