History Main / ArtisticLicenseEconomics

* ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' runs into this ''hard'' with the plot point of Watto refusing to accept Qui-gon Jinn's offered payment in Republic credits for repair parts. Aside from the obvious solution of Qui-gon just hiring another ship captain who flies routes into the Republic and would therefore need Republic currency, the currencies of large, stable economies tend to be ''more'' valuable than local currencies in developing and fringe economies (c.f. the dominance of the US dollar in black markets). Though given the demonstrable corruption of the Republic in the film, it's possible that the Republic credit has become [[RidiculousExchangeRates severely devalued]] compared to the currencies favored by Tatooine's Hutt rulers. It's also possible that Republic credits are too ''traceable'' for Watto, a shady character, to wish to do business in them.

* [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] and [[WebVideo/LeeAndDena Lee from Still Gaming]] love pointing out the illogic of "collector's editions" of both comics and collectible cards, respectively. In short, people have a tendency to collect "first edition" or "collector's/limited edition" versions of certain items, believing that the label would automatically translate to "rare" and, thus, appreciate in value over time. This is also known as "Baseball Card Tuition Syndrome", as an infamous example (described by Lee) involved people gathering up baseball cards in the 70's and 80's, believing that they'd be able to pay for their kids' tuition in 20 years with them. The problem is a lack of understanding of supply and demand; most of the more expensive comics and cards out there were made in a day where it wasn't common to print them in the quantities they print them out, nowadays (hundreds of copies instead of hundred thousands), would not have very many copies in good condition still in existence, and are usually the first ever issues of world-famous characters (like Franchise/SpiderMan or Franchise/{{Batman}}). Sadly, the companies also know this and deliberately hype up the label of "collector's edition" to get more buyers. This kind of market eventually backfired with serious consequences. Once people realized they were buying worthless piles of paper, they stopped buying comics and comic companies suddenly had stockpiles of hundreds of thousands of comics they couldn't sell. This led to a huge comic book crash which the industry never fully recovered from. Another notable thing about why first editions of Action Comics #1 (the first appearance of Franchise/{{Superman}} ever) comic sell for millions is that many of them were destroyed in paper drives in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, which meant only a handful survived in any readable condition at all.

* The obscure Creator/{{Tokyopop}} book ''Karma Club'' features an economic system where you get money every time you perform a good deed and lose money every time you do something bad. There appears to be no limit on how much a person can accrue. As such, everyone basically can print money. Yet, there doesn't seem to be a system in place to remove money from the economy (aside from penalizing for bad deeds), thus meaning the money supply is ever increasing, which should make it worthless.

* Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'' uses a bizarre form of competing currencies in the form of "marks", disks made of wood, which are supplied as blanks by one Hold (the territory equivalent of a country) and stamped with both denominations -ranging from 1/32 of a mark to 100 mark pieces- on one side and source -where the stamped mark hails from. However, each Hall (a type of Crafting guild, 10 in all) and each Hold (over 20 worldwide) has their own special and specific source stamp. The value of these marks has been shown, in canon, to vary on the cultural popularity of the Hall or Hold they hail from. In the first novel of the series [=HarperCraft=] marks were worthless, as Harpers were seen as trifling entertainers instead of educators. So in a way, it's not so different from global currencies today, but it's very badly defined, as any individual can refuse coinage from a source they just don't happen to like at the time, and completely up in the air as to what values can be ascribed to anything (when 1 mark can buy 1/8th of a cow, 192 hand-sized pies, or 1 whetstone, whereas musical instruments and riding horses start at 2 and 9 (and custom tack is 12) marks respectively, something is off).

* In ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'''s "Children of the Bottle", Elmer cites his reason for getting into alchemy was to learn how to turn metals into gold and distribute it so he could end poverty... and the reason he ''gave up'' alchemy being that he realized that the economy simply does not work that way.

* ''LightNovel/{{Maoyu}}'' is similar, though based in national macroeconomics. The [[EstablishingSeriesMoment opening scenes]] consist of the demon lord Maou patiently explaining to the Hero sent to assassinate her exactly why a sudden end to the total war between monsters and humans, no matter who "wins", would leave everyone worse off - the losers enslaved, the victors tearing themselves apart fighting over the spoils, and the sudden loss of a large consumption market destroying the economy. What follows is an elaborate long con attempting to slow the war economy of both sides enough that it can be stopped without wrecking both civilizations.

* The money bin itself has issues. It's said to be 3 "[[UnitConfusion cubic acres]]" in size, and seems to be largely filled with gold coins. Assuming a "cubic acre" is a volume equal to a cube where each face is an acre, that makes each side 208.7ft [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21969100 It is estimated]] that ''all the gold in the world'' would fit in a cube 67ft on a side. Scrooge's money bin should have a ''lot'' of empty space, and probably be far too shallow to [[PooledFunds dive in]].

* Discussed by [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} James]] in ''Fanfic/CommonSense'' when the [[SnakeOilSalesman Magikarp salesman]] gives his pitch about how Magikarp lays one thousand eggs at a time. He instantly sees through the ruse, because if it's really such a fast multiplier, basic laws of supply and demand state that its real value would be nowhere near what the salesman claims.

* While FridgeLogic dictates that the economy of the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' universe should have collapsed a long time ago, they did avert this on one occasion. The Magikarp salesman sells the useless Pokemon at high prices. He does this by convincing customers that the Magikarp will make them rich by having the Magikarp have children, and then the next generation will have more children, and soon one will have an infinite amount of Magikarp and an infinite amount of money. However, it is made very clear that the only one making any money off this scheme is the Magikarp salesman. Granted it's more of a con than economics (he sells one fish that mates and tells you it'll just multiply).

* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': Fairies cannot grant wishes for money because it would necessitate either stealing or counterfeiting, and they are not allowed to grant wishes that break the law.

-->'''Broker:''' This is a stock exchange, not a bank. There's no money for you to steal!
-->'''Bane:''' Really? Then why are you people here?

** The film states that unemployment is nearly nonexistent at one percent. This actually would mean the economy is in a poor state. You still have demand for workers, from things such as someone trying to start their own business or an existing business taking on a big project which requires more manpower. However, the supply of workers is low, which drives wages up as employers are competing for them, which in turn means they have to raise the prices of their products.

* In a ''[[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness World of Darkness]]'' manual, the author describes in great length how the extremely long-term strategic planning of centuries-old vampiric masterminds make US and European companies competitive against Japanese ones. Whether it's an economic Fail or not is dependent on how ''rigid'' that long-term plan is, and a key thing to remember is that a business run by immortals is likely to be more patient about returns than one held by mortals. In theory, there should be less emphasis on small short-term gains at the expense of larger long-term ones.

* In ''Film/TheFifthElement'', Zorg espouses the "Destruction Equals Employment" mentality, and demonstrates it by destroying a glass and explaining how the machines that clean the glass shards away employ so many people manufacturing them. However, Zorg doesn't mention that only companies like his, which profits off of war, stand to benefit, rather than society as a whole. It's a version of the Parable of the Broken Window, which is explained in more detail at Website/TheOtherWiki[[labelnote:short version]]Destroying something only benefits those companies that can replace that destruction and nothing else. The theory that a windowmaker hiring someone to go around breaking windows may benefit the windowmaker (in the short term), but does nothing for society as a whole, as money spent replacing windows is money that cannot be spent elsewhere, and is spent simply restoring the status quo. Likewise, disasters are not profitable, as money is spent restoring a status quo that could have been spent on improvements elsewhere absent the disaster in question. War is also a useless expense, as money is spent on bullets that fire and bombs that explode that destroy buildings and machines that money has been spent to create. Money spent on war and the military and the industries that support them are by definition a necessary sunk cost, as a state-sponsored military cannot generate profit or become self-sustaining (relying on continuous infusions of taxpayer money to function) and, at its most basic level, their function is to blow shit up and kill people, neither of which have an inherit economic benefit. This is not to say that war cannot in the long term create conditions where future economic expansion can flourish, but that is outside the scope of this theory.[[/labelnote]].

* One ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' episode has an in-universe example/parody, which also counts for [[LogicalFallacies You Fail Logic Forever]]. First, the Prime Minister is inspired to give everyone one of Komori's blankets, so they feel optimistic and will spend stimulus money, and this is shown as working well and helping Japan's economy. However, someone points out that Nozomu has no financial worries because he's a civil servant, and so the P.M. gets the idea that since civil servants are economically secure, it would be great to make ''everyone'' a civil servant. This completely crashes the economy.

* The Russian fantasy film ''Film/{{Sadko}}'' (known to ''[=MST3K=]'' fans as ''The Magic Voyage of Sinbad'',) has the main hero try to help out his home town by forcing its merchants to redistribute their wealth among the poor. It doesn't work so well since there doesn't seem to be enough to go around. (That, and the hero ends up giving away all the money he was going to use for his quest.) The original story had him trying to buy all the goods in the city and monopolize the trade. Turned out the external trade scale was quite out of his league.

* Gordon Gekko in ''Film/WallStreet'': A {{justified|Trope}} use of the trope, as the way Gekko makes money is indeed a zero sum game. While absolute wealth and value can be increased, ''relative'' wealth is pretty much constant. If you embrace the concept of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good the positional good]] (as Gekko seems to), then you only advance by getting ahead of others. Only so many people can be in the 1%, only one guy can be the richest. If wealth is a measuring stick for status and control, you don't want "enough", you want more than everyone else. Whether the economics are flawed or not depends on whether you accept that concept or not.

* ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'' not only averts this trope, but it's based entirely on Economics, so it would be a disaster if this trope was played straight.

** Played straight in "Catch 'Em if You Can", in which Homer and Bart steals the credits cards of [[https://frinkiac.com/img/S15E18/745286.jpg Ned]] and [[https://frinkiac.com/img/S15E18/767392.jpg Rod]] Flanders, respectively. Not only are their credit card numbers the exact same, they're shown to have "Valid From 1/1" and "Good Thru 12/31" dates, which are the first and last days of the year. Credits cards only have a single expiration date, which indicates the month and year it expires at the end of (such as "06/30" meaning that your card expires in June 2030).

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':

* The Eldar in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' used to have an economy like this. Their technology had advanced to the point where all work could be done by machines and everything necessary could be easily produced, eliminating scarcity and the need for labor. It didn't end well, as their society eventually slipped into decadence and resulted in the creation of the Chaos God of {{Squick}}, annihilating the majority of the Eldar in the process.

* Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/TroyRising'' The Glatun the friendly galactic race has 30% of their population permanently unemployed. Nearly everything they use is created by fabbers which are run by AIs and use only raw materials (or can be supplied with old scrap) and He3 to run. The only scarcity in their economy is helium3 yet the high unemployment is repeatedly cited as evidence that the Glatun are headed towards disaster. To add to the oddness humanity eventually builds a He3 mine that is said to produce so much it could power the entire galactic arm. One imagines that the 70% of Glatun who are employed are only keeping what's built running in the field.

*** There are hints in the third book that the debt of the Kingdom is actually more due to Littlefinger's embezzlement than Robert's spending, but this just raises an additional question of "Where *is* the money?" if this theory is true (for Littlefinger to be the main culprit instead of Robert, by definition over half of the crown's debt would have to be in his possession)? Littlefinger spends most of his time traveling between regions in the middle books, we've seen his very modest and tiny home, and it's reasonable to say that he doesn't have the full amount in actual coin. It's not impossible to pull off, but the answer would have to be something like "Littlefinger has deposited the money into HUGE financial institutions that can afford to store it(probably the Iron Bank) so he isn't carting around half a room's worth of Promissory Notes from thousands of borrowers that all point to his name personally as the recipient". Not to mention the fact that in a Feudal society like Westeros, most wealth would be tied up in physical assets like land as opposed to more liquid items.

* The Literature/{{Discworld}} has given some thought to the economic structure of a fantasy world, later a {{Steampunk}} world with fantasy overtones. Even the very first book ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'', has a sequence where a savvy ruler patiently asks a rather dim Wizzard what he thinks will happen if vast amounts of gold are released into the economy of Ankh-Morpork ''all at once''. The idea of ''reflected-noise-as-of-goblins-in-cavern''[[note]]'echo gnomics'[[/note] is introduced into the fantasy world, and is discussed with accuracy and clarity.

* The Literature/{{Discworld}} has given some thought to the economic structure of a fantasy world, later a {{Steampunk}} world with fantasy overtones. Even the very first book ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'', has a sequence where a savvy ruler patiently asks a rather dim Wizzard what he thinks will happen if vast amounts of gold are released into the economy of Ankh-Morpork ''all at once''. The idea of ''reflected-noise-as-of-goblins-in-cavern''[[note]'echo gnomics'[[/note] is introduced into the fantasy world, and is discussed with accuracy and clarity.

* The Literature/{{Discworld}} has given some thought to the economic structure of a fantasy world, later a {{Steampunk}} world with fantasy overtones. Even the very first book ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'', has a sequence where a savvy ruler patiently asks a rather dim Wizzard what he thinks will happen if vast amounts of gold are released into the economy of Ankh-Morpork ''all at once''. The idea of''{reflected-noise-as-of-goblins-in-cavern}}'' is introduced into the fantasy world, and is discussed with accuracy and clarity.

* Creator/MarvelComics used this and "damn the expenses" as a plot point in's ''ComicBook/SecretWar2004'': after a rash of super-suit robberies, SHIELD noticed that criminals with multi-million dollar suits were cashing in tens of thousands, and immediately deduced somebody was funding them.

** In one comic, Scrooge attempts to make a common quarter worth billions by making it rare. He does this by buying up all the coins from the same year, then dumping them into the ocean. This would amount to illegal destruction of money, since the coins are effectively taken out of circulation. Further, the coin is valued at some fantastical amount, which is the price Scrooge expects to get for it only to be told Scrooge himself is the only person in the world capable of paying it. This is not how such valuation works. Basically, like with every collectible, it is only worth as much as anyone is willing to pay for it, which would be higher than the original 25 cents, but far short of the millions that it is stated as being worth. If no one wants to buy it, it is effectively only worth it's normal valuation (which seems likely after the annoying ad campaign Scrooge ran for his scheme).

* In ''Anime/PumpkinScissors'', we see the sad state of TheEmpire after the war they've had, in which there was barely any post-war relief efforts done until the formation of Section 3, and their jobs are difficult (one of the characters even find that his superiors were intentionally keeping the cost of commodities up by purchasing them from a province where it is more expensive, and the main character suffers something of a HeroicBSOD when the difference between her own lifestyle and those of the people she helps is brought to her attention). Let's not even get to all the effort and resources they've put into the Invisible 9, and you could infer them to having a "Destruction Equals Employment" policy going on by the amount of resources the military gets.

* The steel-based currency in D&D ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' doesn't really make sense - you can end up with situations where a steel sword, if melted and forged into coins, would be worth more than its original cost (i.e. say the sword cost 10 coins. By melting it down you could get enough steel to forge 15 coins). Beyond that, currency typically uses items that ''don't'' have practical value. A world where steel is more valuable would be ''less'' likely to use steel for coins, not more, especially a pre-industrial setting where manufacturing steel is a long, difficult process. Steel currency would be more appropriate in a setting where war ended and a plethora of existing weapons and armor meant that the best purpose for steel would be to melt it down and make money out of it. And on top of everything else, steel rusts, which means that if you want to keep a large collection of currency stored away for a long period of time it will start to diminish, which gold and silver aren't subject to.

* Zig-zagged in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''; they still use money, but the resources with the biggest retrictions are PTU's (post-transuranic elements) to make ship hulls, and Annie plants (made of neutronium) to power them (and even then, the size is the limiting factor). The cast meets a race that had the capacity to ''easily'' produce PTU's, and unintentionally ended up with a "planet sized debt" from selling off some of their ships. In a more humorous note, Schlock gets transferred from one ship to another, and complains... because the previous ship could make cookies any time he wanted.