I’m not going to pretend like I understand the realms of finances and interstate trade, but according to my research, and the testimony of experts, Pelda is suffering a massive trade deficit with the upriver territories because we’re buying so much coffee.

A trade deficit means that we are selling high value goods for lower value goods and are getting the worse end of the deal. For my fellow coffee enthusiasts who have experienced the brain-splitting headaches that accompany not having a mug of boiled flavored mud water soon after waking, it’s hard to understand that we’re getting the raw end of the deal. But the data proves it.

Let’s quantify the entire output of Pelda as ‘stuff’. All the work every elf does through the entire cycle amounts to 100 ‘stuff’.

About 75 stuff is used for survival. Weapons, armor, food, medicine, firewood, repairing our homes, garrisons and patrols, things like that.

About 20 stuff is allocated for ‘luxuries’, the kind of things that are nice to have but we could live without. Comfortable beds, clothes without holes in them, ornamental pottery, even daily baths are a luxury. Coffee, and other trade goods, are counted here.

The remaining 5 stuff goes towards city improvements. Expanding farms, raising new livestock, and building new homes. It’s not a lot.

Among the 20 allocated for luxuries, a whopping 12 of that is dedicated just to crafting the goods we trade for coffee. Clothes, books, food, ship repairs for the merchants.

That is an absurd amount of lost potential just for a(n absurdly delicious and good-feeling) drink, but we can’t very well stop trading for coffee. I would certainly perish. So… ultimately there’s nothing we can do about it. Perhaps the future might provide us with an answer, but we have none now.