how much is 1 credit worth?

Credits were originally about 1:1 with the 1977 US dollar, so that would be $3.80 today according to the US government here:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
 
A good way to do it is to look at the basic buying power of each and compare. A good baseline is Food. You can get a prepared, very basic meal(Fast Food) today for about $5-6. For MgT you can buy the same kind of meal for about $5 according to the section called "Living" at the beginning of the Equipment Chapter. So, it looks like it is ~ 1cr = $1 US.
 
Greylond said:
A good way to do it is to look at the basic buying power of each and compare. A good baseline is Food. You can get a prepared, very basic meal(Fast Food) today for about $5-6. For MgT you can buy the same kind of meal for about $5 according to the section called "Living" at the beginning of the Equipment Chapter. So, it looks like it is ~ 1cr = $1 US.
In Classic Traveller back in the day, I always used the ground car as the basis for comparison.
 
Well, the thing about using Food is that it is the basic staple that everyone is going to need. IMO, it's a good basic economic indicator on the value of the value of a currency. Ground cars aren't really a necessity, no matter what some Teens say... ;)
 
Mithras said:
Greylond said:
A good way to do it is to look at the basic buying power of each and compare. A good baseline is Food. You can get a prepared, very basic meal(Fast Food) today for about $5-6. For MgT you can buy the same kind of meal for about $5 according to the section called "Living" at the beginning of the Equipment Chapter. So, it looks like it is ~ 1cr = $1 US.
In Classic Traveller back in the day, I always used the ground car as the basis for comparison.


It's actually good to use manufactured and staples food. In Trav they don't give specifics on food so, that is hard to use.

In '77 (when the credit was priced) here some prices.

Loaf of Bread 36¢
Gallon of Milk $1.67
One pound of Butter 98¢
New Ford Auto $4,785
Gallon of Gas 65¢
New Home $49,319 (upper income area)
Annual Income $15,070

The ground car in Trav is close to the '77 prices. A similar one today would cost ~$25,000. So, Cr4-5 per current USD.
 
F33D said:
It's actually good to use manufactured and staples food. In Trav they don't give specifics on food so, that is hard to use.

uh... Main Book, Equipment Chapter. Page 86(first page of Equipment), right column, first sentence.

Living
A standard meal costs 5 credits to 50 credits or more per person,
depending on the level of quality and service. A burger of unidentifiable
meat-like substances eaten standing up in a fast-food joint costs
2–3 credits; a fine meal at the Traveller’s Aid Hostel costs 20 credits

Like I said, sounds a lot like 1 Imp Credit = $1 US...
 
Greylond said:
F33D said:
It's actually good to use manufactured and staple food. In Trav they don't give specifics on food so, that is hard to use.

uh... Main Book, Equipment Chapter. Page 86(first page of Equipment), right column, first sentence.



Uh, look up staple food items. There are no specifics to use. Not when trying to determine relative monetary inflation. That's why we fall back on a manufactured good. Ground cars.
 
What is a credit worth?

A cubic meter of gold is worth about $1 billion usd, so a dton would be worth $14 billion usd, and worth 50k credits per dton. Making the exchange rate 1 credit to 280k usd using a gold standard.

hopefully we can find other things to barter for credits.

A barrel of oil is .15 cubic meters making a dton 93 barrels of oil. At current prices a dton cost $6,500 usd. and petrochemicals by dton worth 100k credits . making the exchange rate 15 credits for $1 usd Luckily we are set up to produce oil in large volumes so "black gold" might be the trade standard.

Weapons , especially the slug throwers may trade at a decent rate, most of our "potent potables" might do well but could not decide whether they would be common consumables or luxury goods.
Of course Budweiser as the "king of beers" may only be purchased by people with soc 10+ :)

I wonder what we should buy first with our credits?
hand computers with expert (powerplant) to help us develop fusion tech. or simply buy the fusion plants themselves?
 
One kilogram of gold converted to cubic centimeter equals to 51.86 cc - cm3. How many cubic centimeters of gold are in 1 kilogram? The answer is: The change of 1 kg - kilo ( kilogram ) unit of a gold amount equals = to 51.86 cc - cm3 ( cubic centimeter ) as the equivalent measure for the same gold type.


The physical attributes of gold coins are as follows: Weight: 28.4 grams. Volume: 1.47 cm. Thickness: 3 mm.



14'000'000/51.86=269,957.5780948708

50'000/269,957.5780948708=0.1852142857142857 credits per kilogramme

So a default gold coin is worth about five centime, not accounting for minting costs; maybe a dime.
 
Figure out your approximate SOC level in Traveller terms. Find the appropriate cost of living for that SOC level on p.92.
Look on your bank statement to figure out how much you spend in USD per month.
Divide one into the other.
There you go, decent approximation. For me, it works out to around 1 Cr = $4 USD.
 
"Annual Income $15,070"

Geez, that's a few thousand less than what my job pays now while prices for everything are ten times higher.

Personally, the easiest calculation is a credit is whatever your country's standard value unit is, a dollar, a euro or a yen etc..
 
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.


Why a pound today is worth only 0.7% of a pound in 1850
Updated: June 10, 2021

£100 in 1850 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £13,808.94 today, an increase of £13,708.94 over 171 years. The pound had an average inflation rate of 2.92% per year between 1850 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 13,708.94%.

This means that today's prices are 138.09 times higher than average prices since 1850, according to the Office for National Statistics composite price index. A pound today only buys 0.72% of what it could buy back then.



Nineteen seventy five: times it by five.
 
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