This is kind of funny, all this talk of the Economy being bad and all. Because although I never trade and although I don't really care, I do remember one thing clearly.
When I was in the D: faction, you know the Daumann Heavy Construction gang leaded by Dusty Lens. Yeah well we had a closed economy, meaning first of all, we didn't take any cash from characters outside affiliated characters from the faction itself. So through an economical perspective, we "handicapped ourselves" and yet I joined this group after it had been running for what, two weeks? The group had a bunch of transports ready alongside a line of fighter/bomber escort vessels.
There I was mining and acting as an escort while a pal would pick up the ore and sell it. We went in convoys and yes, in a week we had probably collected over 300 million credits worth of purchased vessels and stored money.
And if I recall it, we didn't really grind anything, we flied for an hour or two for perhaps three/four times a week. Not hard work at all...