Thank you, Deathblob. You basically seem to suggest I go off and do the math myself
However, since I'm lazy, and enjoy the interaction with other people asking questions here, I'm hoping someone might be able to give me a summary.
Q1 tells me approximately how many basic gems are available. Q2 (sort of) tells me what is actually "needed": for example, perhaps water gems are equally available, but people don't bother so much to gather/spend them. Or, perhaps peeps convert all their gems into pearls and do astral stuff.
It's just convo