History Main / RidiculousFutureInflation

** In 1951, as Johnny Cash song lyrics would have it, a coke and a burger cost 30 cents. Of course, people made a lot less money then, too...

** A popular german urban legend had a man going to the bank with a wheelbarrow full of marks go to a bank and leave it outside for a minute while talking to the tellers. Upon returning outside to wheel the money in, he finds the wheelbarrow gone... and all of the money cleanly dumped on the sidewalk.

* The ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' games tend to transpose centuries worth of inflation into the prices you have to pay in the Animus. For example, the first sword you can get in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' costs 700 pounds in 1754, which is considerably more money than most people in that time period would see over the course of their entire ''lives''.

** Inverted and parodied in the first Austin Powers movie, wherein Dr. Evil, who is from The Sixties, attempts to ransom the Earth for one million dollars. Cue the ChirpingCrickets...
** In the second Austin Powers movie, he demands One Hundred Billion Dollars from the government in The Sixties. They tell him that amount of money doesn't even ''exist''.

As everyone knows and grandparents are fond of reminding us, the value of money tends to decrease over time. It would be logical to assume that it will continue to do so, right? Well, Hollywood has caught on to this and, if TheFuture is depicted, goods will likely be (by the standards of ThePresentDay) highly overpriced. At this rate, a ZillionDollarBill will just get you a cup of coffee and a newspaper.

In real life, it is a possible, but not very likely scenario. First, in modern economic science inflation isn't even seen as something inherently bad — in fact, some pretty respectable theories interpret moderate inflation as a kind of indirect tax that is essentially finances economic growth — deflationary periods are usually tied with ''recessions'' rather than booms. Second, in most cases governments sometimes simply revalue their currency when the numbers get too unwieldy, by creating "new" dollars or whatever, worth 1,000 or whatever of the old dollars.

This revaluing is usually only for hyperinflation - they don't do much about "normal" inflation - for example, they aren't going to change things so that that newspaper in the 1980s that cost 40 cents and now costs $1.50 costs 40 cents again - ditto that 20-cent bag of candy that now costs about $2. Although, likely when numbers become ridiculously high for a chocolate bar, then new currencies will arise and gradually shift to their use for sake of convenience, with the older currencies likely kept in record (so that they're still valuable).

The portrayal of runaway cumulative inflation in fiction probably peaked in the 1980s. From 1973 through 1982, the annual inflation rate in the U.S. never fell below 6% and often reached double-digit percentages. To this day, there's been no consensus as to what caused this period of "stagflation." For all we knew at the time, this high inflation rate might continue indefinitely. Thus, many fiction writers painted a picture of the future with $15 cups of coffee by the year 2000. (Insert joke about Starbucks' prices here.)

* In Venezuela it reached the point where one American dollar was Bs.5,000, they fixed it though; now with the "Strong" bolivars, the conversion rate is 5 Bolivars to the dollar.

* In the 1989 ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "Battlefield", set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, the Doctor buys a round of drinks. A lemonade, a vodka and Coke and a water come to five pounds. The Doctor pays with a £5 coin. In 1989 the drinks would not have cost more than two pounds and both the amount and the fact that a five pound coin existed were mildly startling.

* In 1978, in the original version of ''Literature/TheHitchHikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'', part of the indication that Ford Prefect really did believe the world was about to end was that he bought six pints, paid with a five-pound note, and told the barman to keep the change. In [[Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy the 2005 film]], this became a fifty - £5 wouldn't even ''pay'' for six pints nowadays, let alone leave you with a notable amount of change.

In real life, it is a possible, but not very likely scenario. First, in modern economic science inflation isn't ever seen as something inherently bad — in fact, some pretty respectable theories interpret moderate inflation as a kind of indirect tax that is essentially finances economic growth — deflationary periods are usually tied with ''recessions'' rather than booms. Second, in most cases governments sometimes simply revalue their currency when the numbers get too unwieldy, by creating "new" dollars or whatever, worth 1,000 or whatever of the old dollars.

In real life, governments sometimes simply revalue their currency, by creating "new" dollars or whatever, worth 1,000 or whatever of the old dollars. This revaluing is usually only for hyperinflation - they don't do much about "normal" inflation - for example, they aren't going to change things so that that newspaper in the 1980s that cost 40 cents and now costs $1.50 costs 40 cents again - ditto that 20-cent bag of candy that now costs about $2. Although, likely when numbers become ridiculously high for a chocolate bar, then new currencies will arise and gradually shift to their use for sake of convenience, with the older currencies likely kept in record (so that they're still valuable).

** They did play it straight once though... Strangley the joke takes place in the 21st century.
--> '''Al Gore:''' Dang. That hundred dollars could have bought me (dramatic zoom) one gallon of gas (dramatic music).

* According to ''VideoGame/SaintsRow 2'', gas is about $8.40 per gallon. This is lampshading the minor gas crisis that was occurring during the game's development, when gas was raising about 40 cents per month (coming to a head of about $4.50 a gallon in some states.)

** In his {{Timeline-191}} -- stories in the CSA that just lost WorldWarOne -- he shows one character complaining about the ridiculous inflation that just started. A beer is now a dime rather than a nickel. Of course showing the economic spiral, the beer prices do go up and up - things start getting really bad when beer gets to a dollar... then ten, then a hundred...

** Doc Brown gives Marty $50 to buy a Pepsi with in the year 2015. Similarly, Marty is asked by a charity collector to contribute $100 for the town hall clock, presumably out of pocket change. Contrast this with the '80s version of the scene, in which Marty gave a solicitor a quarter - probably less than a Pepsi would cost in a restaurant.

* Early on in the history of the ComicBook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}}, 30th-century teenager Chuck Taine pays fifty cents for a bottle of soda pop. A reader asked about such a high price in the letter column, and the editor explained about Ridiculous Future Inflation. (Chuck didn't even get to enjoy his insanely expensive soft drink, as he [[TheFool accidentally]] swallows a SuperSerum, that turns him into Bouncing Boy.)

* An in-universe example happens in ''VideoGame/GalaxyOnFire2''. At the start of the game PlayerCharacter Keith T. Maxwell [[FishOutOfTemporalWater got kicked about thirty years into the future]] due to a hyperdrive malfunction. At one point an NPC gives him 20,000 credits to outfit his ship with a tractor beam and scanner.

* In the Crosstime Traffic series by HarryTurtledove, a future society makes common use of "benjamins" -- ie, hundred-dollar bills -- in contexts where we moderns use dollars. A dollar is a fairly worthless coin, analogous to a penny.

** To give you an idea of just ''how'' ridiculous this number is: if you could buy ''one atom'' of hydrogen for one pengő -- just one atom -- you could fill the {{Hindenburg}} for twenty-five forints. (And, at 2010 exchange rates, that would run you a little over 12¢ US, less than a tenth of a euro.)

* In ''Film/TheRunningMan'', a cost of a single can of pop from a pop machine is $5. Which you had to pay for in quarters, because [[ScienceMarchesOn they didn't have automatic dollar-bill reading machines]]. [[FridgeLogic Or dollar coins, apparently.]]

** Doc Brown gives Marty $50 to buy a Pepsi with in the year 2015. Similarly, Marty is asked by a charity collector to contribute $100 for the town hall clock. Contrast this with the '80s version of the scene, in which Marty gave a solicitor a quarter - probably less than a Pepsi would cost in a restaurant.