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Hello and welcome to another episode of Kaizen, your jump point to financial solvency. My name’s Aaron Schere. I will be guiding you through the latest economic and business developments throughout the Empire and beyond.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. Neither Schere, Kaizen nor Farnes Media Partners guarantees any specific outcome or profit. Before acting on information in this program, you should strongly consider seeking advice from your own financial or investment adviser.

Later on, we’re going to have another installment of the Breakdown where we collate all the latest data from the systems and examine with our team of expert analysts and consultants to help you interpret what’s the best course of action with your money.

Before we do, it’s time for Capitalize, where we assess the news coming in from the Spectrum to find a business opportunity in disguise.

Here’s a situation that’s been slowly working its way through the NewsOrgs. Much to the surprise of our team of economic analysts, this hasn’t exploded into a major news item, but they suspect that it soon might.

I’m talking of the delays reported by the manufacturing departments of both RSI and Anvil Aerospace. Early last week, RSI issued a statement to its dealerships reporting that they would be unable to fulfill delivery requirements for the next two cycles, without citing a reason or an exact date. Anvil released a similar statement a few days later. This one was followed by a series of organized strikes from the production unions who claimed that Anvil had frozen their production facilities and was denying their obligation to pay their employees.

How could two separate companies face crippling production downturns at the same time? Are other ship manufacturers at risk? What was responsible?

One answer:

Alcohol.

No. This isn’t a cautionary tale about sin and vice. This is how a simple policy decision can reverberate through a galactic economy. It’s these kinds of details that the major NewsOrgs will miss, but our financial investigators live for.

On the desolate surface of Lorona in the Banshee system, nestled away from the massive mining consortiums, FoveaInc operates a small facility that produces short carbon. FoveaInc uses the isolation to require their employees to live in on-site housing and shop at company stores in an effort to recirculate their money.

The factory’s management team thought that they could increase their factory’s output by deeming the possession and consumption of alcohol to be in violation of company policy.

Unfortunately, it seemed to have the opposite effect. After multiple appeals to overturn management’s decision failed, the employees stopped fighting. Management believed they had quelled their employees. They were wrong. Output of the factory actually began to diminish.

So how does this affect megacorps like RSI and Anvil? Let’s walk through it.

FoveaInc has contracts to act as the exclusive provider of short carbon for both Jahr FabriCorp and Vance Super Industrial. These two corporations use the short carbon to create diamond laminate which they use in the construction of cockpit glass. Each of those corporations have signed exclusive contracts to provide cockpit glass to …

Correct. RSI and Anvil Aerospace.

So, to recap, a management team’s decision to ban alcohol on Lorona led to a diminished output which prevented Jahr and Vance from creating the laminate that RSI and Anvil use in the construction of their ships, which has now prevented the dealerships from replenishing their inventory.

What does this mean for you? Well, hopefully you’re not in the market for a new RSI or Anvil ship. But it does mean that Jahr FabriCorp and Vance Super Industrial are desperate for short carbon. If you can deliver in the quantities they’re looking for, you could probably name your price. And if you could get them in a bidding war? Well … there’s no end to space.

If you happen to be one of those people who isn’t bothered by the itch of the unethical, you could always try to sell some alcohol to the employees on Lorona. I would never suggest such a course of action, but business is about looking at all the angles.

Schere, Kaizen nor Farnes Media Partners would never advocate any act that is a willful and direct violation of UEE law.

We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back we’ll hit you with the Breakdown.

More Kaizen after the jump.