Table of Contents
Points of Divergence : Economy and Trade
Points of divergence related to economic and trade developments throughout history.
Industrialization
Plausibility check: Industrialization without liberalism ?
Plausibility check: Non-industrializing Westernization
Mercantilism or Free Trade for Industrialization ?
Alternate Sites of Industry and the Resources Required
Where would the industrial centres of an independant Confederate States of America be located ?
Challenge: Nuclear energy for developing/rural areas
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Measurement Systems and Standards
More countries using Imperial measurements ?
WI the Metric system was duodecimal ?
Challenge/WI: Two separate Prime Meridians
Challenge: Esperanto as Air Traffic and Aviation Language
The British develop the Intermodel Container between the world wars
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Resources and Resource Extraction
Pre-industrial human impact on greenhouse effect and global temperature ?
Spain without an ounce of silver
Ramifications of a sudden decline of the sugar cane industry after the 1740s
The effects of the boll weevil infestation on the agriculture and economy of an independent CSA
WI: Higher oil prices from 1950s
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Infrastructure Projects
Roman Semaphore Lines and Horse Drawn Cars
Earliest possible Suez Canal ?
Challenge: Suez Canal built 200 years earlier than in OTL
How early can you feasibly dig a canal at the site of the OTL Suez Canal ?
Large construction projects wank
Alternatives to Heathrow Airport
WI the Atlantropa dams were built ?
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Banking, Finance and Monetary Units
The late Roman republic founds the first professional banks
WI Britain doesn't return to the Gold Standard in the 1920s
Plausibility check: How early can we get paper money ?
Paper money in the Ancien Regime lasting
Plausibility check: Early French Central bank ?
Effect on US banks if the Central Powers win WWI ?
Accounting PODs and alternate accounting
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Economic Trends
Challenge: Avoid Black slavery
WI No African Slave trade in the New World
Plausibility check: Earlier artic trade between Russia and Europe ?
WI London held firm on the Stamp Act ?
WI: A Canadian car company (with a POD between 1900 and 1960)
Challenge: No Great Depression
Recovery from the Great Depression without WWII ?
More "Economic Tigers" (with a POD between 1945 and 1975)
Challenge: More Economic Miracles in the Third World
WI the British were the world's best project managers ?
Challenge: Prevent the Great Recession
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
New Trade Routes
Challenge: The Chinese Envoy reaches Rome in 97 AD
How hard was trade in the HRE ?
Contact between the Aztecs and the Incas
Challenge: A seafaring culture like the Vikings in southern Chile
WI No African Slave trade in the New World
Plausibility check: Japan and Korea - Attractiveness to Europeans
Plausibility check: Earlier arctic trade between Russia and Europe ?
WI: Earlier Discovery of the North-West Passage
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
International Economic Clubs
Challenge: Maintain the Mediterranean economic core
Why wasn't EFTA that "successful" ?
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Specific Companies
WI the DuMont television network had survived ?
Challenge:Tim Hortons as the no. 1 fast food restaurant in America
Non-American multinational fast-food and similar chains
Challenge: An Asian-themed fast food chain is as big as McDonald's or Burger King
Challenge: Three major present day airliner manufacturers instead of two
Could the jetliner duopoly be avoided ?
More Successful Auto Companies
North American aerospace/defense companies making cars ?
Challenge: Studebaker survives the 1960s
WI: The Delorean Motor Company is successful ?
DeLorean moved to Ford, Chrysler or AMC ?
General Motors alternate history
WI Ford and Chrysler had merged in the 1980s ?
Bain Capital buys Ford in 1987
WI Sony did not buy Columbia Pictures Entertainment ?
WI: Apple goes under in the 1990s
Challenge: Oldsmobile survives
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Other / Miscellaneous / In need of sorting
American cities that could have been more prominent
Challenge: A "Singapore of the Caribbean"
ASBs reverse standards of living in countries
Challenge: Native Americans "pull an Iwakura"
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
See Also
Points of Divergence : Agriculture
Points of Divergence : Alternate Colonization
Points of Divergence : Arts, Architecture and Monuments
Points of Divergence : Industrial Revolution
Points of Divergence : Scientific Discoveries and Inventions