re: Heinlein on economics
SoCred sounds something like the Federal Reserve System, where the Fed sets the prime rate and therby has at least a partial grip on the throttles of the economy. But I'm skeptical, someone will figure out a way to "game the system". Even Adam Smith and the free market are vulnerable to the clever application of sufficient concentrated economic power.
As a wise man once pointed out...
"Nobody in business wants to submit to a market that, in the classically simple-minded formulation, minimizes profit and in which the consumer always benefits at the expense of the seller. Business is about defeating the laws of the free-market to maximize profit, not playing nice and settling for a statistical average profit and marketshare."