(Just like no drugs are imported into the US.Right, just like ALL international commerce has to come through U.S. Custom controlled ports. Except it doesn't and won't when there is money to be made.I'm not talking about extremely bad game rules games rules but what would actually happen.
) <----sarcasm... I agree completely with you on this.
I think you are massively inflating the amount of smuggled goods brought into the US, the current penalty for loading a boat and making a dash for it are pretty severe...Right, just like ALL international commerce has to come through U.S. Custom controlled ports. Except it doesn't and won't when there is money to be made.
Nope. I am not. THOUSANDS of TONS of drugs successfully enter the USA annually. A similar amount of normal goods were imported evading US Customs. And millions of people entering NOT through ports of entry. I am UNDERESTIMATING the amount of goods that would illegally flood the 3I by many orders of magnitude.
Compared with the close to billion tons of other imports, your analogy is worthless, the Imperium of the 57th century is not modelled by the US of the 21st.
Wrong again. If the US had similar monopoly creating rules that the 3I does for major goods the illicit imports would be a 1000 times higher than they are now. You just have a very poor understanding of macro econ so your opinion is less than worthless on this matter..
That is very much country specific. The Imperium has very harsh penalties for individuals and worlds that interfere with Imperial trade.
It is a capital crime in the Imperium, enough to get the death penalty or a lifetime on a prison planet. Whole world have been interdicted as a punishment for being complicit in trade irregularity, those interdictions can escalate. Even with no escalation the world will likely see an increase to their death rate.
The Imperium is not a western liberal democracy that grants a right to a fair trial - it carries out instant justice and wields the death penalty.
How can UN figures be wrong? Take it up with them.
That is your opinion, canon says otherwise, I will stick with canon rather than your opinion.
If the 3I went bananas over this on the planetary level, as some here suggest they would, that would cause the disintegration of the 3I. Just like other insane dictatorships on Earth.
So, your viewpoint is that massive smuggling would occur, but only at starports where most to all of the workers are corrupt?
The Mongooseverse Charted Space 1105 setting only has one real TL16 world inside the Imperium: Vincennes. There is another in the Hierate: Teahehwaih, though much of its production goes to placating its rivals. Beyond that, there are three others that don't really make the cut in my opinion. One is Darrian which can't make anything at that tech level, Pashus with 80,000 people and Research Station Zeta, a jump drive research station mentioned in Singularity, and Gannvair with 500 pop and a commune of engineers working on high tech computers and sensors. You'd need to move a decade in the future to find more.
How do they know how much money they are losing? The people who write the reports are the ones accepting the bribes.
And Sabmiqys, at TL-17 in Antares 2117. It is red-zoned, possibly (pure speculation here) because the original native organic populations all died out and left their (still thriving) system in the care of their true-conscious Artificial Intelligences.
I always forget about them, but they don't tend to travel, so they are easy to ignore/forget.
High tariffs will drive people to smuggling. Some on a professional level with a regular list of clients who place orders with them. So will high taxes aimed at discouraging things (smoking being a good example). Make the profit margin high enough and you even find customs agents letting things through for a cut. The U.S. has a big border and history shows you can't guard it all.
