Well why would Griphook tell an 11 year old kid this?

Your right, what I said isn't a proof. But from the facts that we know, it is likely that Gringotts invests. I'm not a 100% certain but I am close.

 

So Sesc, ever buy college textbooks? I've had a couple reach $250.

I don't particularly care to get into a discussion about it, because arguing about it is an exercise in futility. My brain thinks 50 when yours thinks 15, and they both work. Just sayin'.

 

Holy crap. :/

That is sorta improbable, huh?

 

I think the real question is: why do wizards even want gold?

Does the wizarding world even use gold for anything practical?

 

Above post wasn't snark. No body language/tone of voice may have caused confusion.

They gave it some value - so surely they must want it. But why? In canon, we barely see gold anywhere at all. So is it devalued in the magical world? Would that explain the discrepancy?

 

I assumed they used their money to buy stuff...

 

A material they can't reproduce magically (without being a 600+ year old alchemist) has to at least hold some fascination for them, if nothing else.

I mean, we use slips of paper...

If you absolutely have to abandon the barter system in favor of some arbitrary material acting as currency, you'd want to pick something that is impossible, or at least insanely hard, to magically reproduce/fake.

Silver probably comes close to being as hard to synthesize magically, so it makes sense that it is the next most valuable coin. It obviously has some special properties, considering what it can do to a werewolf and certain other beings.

Knuts...

Knuts exist so poor mother fuckers like the Weasleys have a prayer in hell of counterfeiting some modicum of wealth, if they can only muster some initiative.

Ron is doomed.

 

Because the wizarding populace is so sparse, and able to use magic, their economy is going to be all sorts of crazy anyway. There's no real stable indication of how much money is worth, after all - food? The laws of transfiguration may not let you conjure it, according to Hermione, but you can come so damn close that it's almost the same thing, as Mrs Weasley shows. Buildings? A bit of wandwork, and you can put up a new house in days, with enough skill and assistance.

Wizards don't want gold. They need a measure of value, though, and since gold is the only thing which supposedly can't be conjured, Flamel aside, it's the only thing that can't be made with magic - the only reliable measure of how much a wizard is worth based on his bank account rather than how big his wand is.

Shopkeepers could charge pretty much what they please; there's not enough magical competition for the customers to argue, unless they actually can't afford to live. As for the book-price argument, in the magical world, knowledge is power, lilterally. Books aren't being sold. Magic is.

How much would you pay for magic?

In the end, because there are so few things an adult witch or wizard needs to buy, they can afford to pay much more for the things that they do buy from time to time. As far as potions ingredients being cheap goes, that could simply be as a result of being items with such a high turnover that the shopkeepers can't afford to charge for them as they would do for more infrequently purchased items, such as schoolbooks.

The Daily Prophet, which I think was two knuts, is a bit harder to explain away, but can be almost-done if you assume it's a non-profit publication; something which does make a limited amount of sense, if you look at the OotP use of it to push government ideals upon the wizarding community. Perhaps the two knuts cover the cost of printing and delivering a single paper - it can't be that hard, given the fact that it's a magical paper.

Most of what I said is bullshit excuses, though. There's no denying that Rowling buggered up the economy, but trying to explain away all the plotholes can be an amusing waste of time. Then again, so is pointing a finger and shouting FAIL!

 

J.K actually gave an exchange rate between pounds and galleons, and it's nowhere near that.

Also, as I can assume most people don't want to read through that whole god forsaken interview,

 

So wait... by that figure, the winnings of the Triwizard Tournament is only $7887. That seems like an insanely small amount for entering a tournament that was originally cancelled because of deaths (or is that fanon?).

 

That's why Sesc and I didn't get into an actual argument - it's a completely arbitrary number (as has been said many times so far). Trying to come up with an exchange rate that fits perfectly isn't possible.

 

Rowling gets asked lots of questions to which she doesn't have an answer - but "dunno" doesn't make for good publicity, so she probably bullshits her way past them with a vague idea she hasn't really given much thought to.

This is how you can tell it's magical money - no amount of rational thought can fully explain it away!

 

That's the thing, though. She's actually remained fairly consistent with that number. In one of those quidditch through the ages or fantastical beasts books, she mentions 250 million USD being equal to 34 million galleons, or 7.35 USD to every Galleon. At the time, the exchange rate between pounds and USD made $7.35 equal to 5 pounds.

 

The thing I don't understand is why you people are still trying to rectify canon with any sort of sanity.

Shit don't make sense yo.

 

Orrrr, the Galleons equate to what JKR said, despite being solid gold - and then you fuckers can come up with reasons why muggle-borns can't abuse that fact to their advantage, for a change. Maybe muggles can't touch wizard money; maybe they can't see it; maybe it'll disappear, Leperchaun-style, if in the presence of muggles/muggle institutions for so long.

And maybe, just maybe, shit is priced the way it is in the wizarding world because that 7 Galleon wand and some talent can get you damn-near anything you want, for free.

 

Can we agree that JKR (and half the people in this thread) fails economics forever and just move on?