Currency and Trade

As more and more corporations and citizens found themselves living and working in outer space, outside of the boundaries of any country, a push for new laws and regulations took place. This period of time is known as the Corporate-Stellar Revolution.   The logistics of travel and trade between Earth and people living in space are expensive.   By necessity, most extra-planetary employment is offered on a contract-basis, with most jobs lasting anywhere from 3-6 months, to well over a decade spent in outer space. This left employees and employers in a grey-area as far as how transit between Earth and the workplace were handled. If there was a set date for transit, this meant that employee's who were fired or ended their contracts early were required to stay until that date, using valuable resources on-board the station until then. Alternatively if employees were allowed to leave or return as they pleased, the expenses of such a trip are well into the millions, having the potential of completely bankrupting a company or leaving everyone stranded in space. This also meant that an employee's ability to spend their earnings was incredibly limited, as they could only access goods that were stocked at their workplace. Ultimately, this resulted in many corporate bankruptcies, debts, and lawsuits until suitable regulations were put into place.   It was determined that while extra-planetary, currency and wages are effectively worthless for long-term contracts. In order to return value to currency, corporations were required to keep and maintain a minimum variety of consumer and luxury goods for their employees to spend their wages on. At first, this was done by providing employees with the ability to request items that they wanted to buy, and the next time that the station would receive a resupply shuttle, those items would be purchased, and included. However this often meant that the company was paying a premium in order to purchase goods from other suppliers, and would need to spend more money on the fuel to transport them. In order to combat this, many corporations began to offer their own brand-versions of commonly requested goods that could be made or acquired on-site, thereby freeing up space on the resupply shuttle, reducing the frequency of trips, and reducing the expense of purchasing market goods.   As the use of extra-planetary manufacture became commonplace, most of the money earned by employees was eventually recirculated back to their employers, and a push was made for employers to be allowed to subsidize a portion of their wages with company credits in order to face sales and income taxes. If you are outside of planetary borders, who do you pay income taxes to? If you buy something in outer space, is there a sales tax? By allowing employers to subsidize wages with private currency, sales tax and income tax would be reduced. Companies would be able to pay their employees "more" because the money would be guaranteed to recirculate back to them, and any credits that were unspent do not effectively count as company expenses. Both employees and employers stood to gain from this new regulation.   More and more people were drawn to the prospects of finer wages in space, and extra-planetary corporations reaped the benefits of cheap labor and reduced taxes. Eventually, the number of goods and consumers on Earth were outnumbered by those in space, and the privatized economy took prevalence over federal.   With many corporations having real-estate on other planets, it wasn't much longer before the value of certain companies rivaled or even exceeded that of entire nations on Earth. Many such corporations no longer provided goods in exchange for currency, and instead only offered them for private credits or corporate shares, which had become the new liquid currency, despite it's volatility. It was regulated that companies paying their employees in credits were required to allow their exchange with corporate shares, giving credits real-value, and the new corporate space economy was established.   Just like traditional currencies, the value of a particular corporate credit/share rises and falls with the value of a company. The digitization of stock trading lead to advancements in speed and accuracy, and most corporations allow instant conversion of credits from other companies.   The primary flaw of this system is that when a company loses it's demand, regardless of the companies actual value, all of it's credits and shares become effectively worthless. Forcing their employees to accept offers from other employers, or otherwise be forced to rely on that company. This has been used by certain other corporations in order to acquire a monopoly over extra-planetary trade. This volatility has forced spenders to exchange other company's credits for the monopolizing companies credits at a huge penalty, causing the real-value of the monopolizing company to skyrocket. These undervalued corporate credits can then be used by monopolizing companies to outsource the work at a substantial profit.

The current monopoly company in 2519 is Nanotrasen, with a currently undisclosed stock value that is increasing exponentially. Their exchange rates effectively dictate the value of other companies, and they can use this to effectively bankrupt other companies or corner them into unfair trades with no legal repercussions. They and their employees are often seen as fascist dictators, slaves, and sellouts, and are often attacked by other forces.   Outside of Nanotrasen, certain corporations have chosen to renounce Nanotrasen and devalue it's shares, instead only trading with other companies who have done the same. This unofficiated faction is known as "The Syndicate", boasting free-trade and freedom from the economical tyranny that is Nanotrasen. It is suspected that the most effective attacks against Nanotrasen have been organized by this faction. It is clear that there are a number of key members within the Syndicate with executive decision, but they have not been identified. This conglomerate often works outside of the law, and can be everything from completely unorganized to incredibly meticulous and prepared. Most information about the Syndicate, its members, and its actions, is unreliable.