History Main / RidiculousFutureInflation

* Parodied in ''The Book What I Wrote'' (Eddie Braben's book about Creator/MorecambeAndWise) in which his reminiscing about 1950s Britain is accompanied by helpful footnotes such as "[[OldMoney A shilling]] is worth about a hundred billion pounds in today's money".

* Make your own with ''[[http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ The Inflation Calculator]].'' Simple experiment: what was a thousand dollars worth in 1800? What cost $1,000 in 1800 costs '''$13,708 in 2014.''' Put more simply, a thousand 2013 dollars is equivalent to '''''seventy-four 1800 dollars.'''''

* 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 in 1754, which is considerably more money than most people in that time period would see over the course of their entire ''lives'' (£10-15 per year was a fairly good wage for working class people at the time), and still much more than a comparable sword would cost today.

** A little HilariousInHindsight, since in RealLife, ''Dandy Xtreme'' (yes, that's what it's called now) currently costs £1.99.

* A 1976 ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch titled "{{Jeopardy}} 1999" had dollar values in the Jeopardy! round ranging from $10,000 to $50,000, 100 times what they actually were on {{Jeopardy}} in 1999 ($100 to $500).

* A 1976 ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch titled "{{Jeopardy}} 1999" had dollar values in the Jeopardy! round ranging from $10,000 to $50,000. The clue values on the actual show in 1999 were $100 to $500.

*** The same financial logic was why Canada is pulling it's penny out of circulation on February 4, 2013, with the last penny stamped in May, 2012. (The penny remains legal tender, it's being removed as it gets deposited in banks and other financial institutions).
*** This is also a reason why 1 yen coin is minted in aluminum since 1955: during the WorldWarTwo the Japanese economy suffered huge inflation, and in 1946 the yen was pegged to the US dollar at the rate of ¥360 per $1. At first the yen coins were minted in brass, similar to the modern 5 yen coin, but the rise in copper prices meant that the coin was worth more than its face value as a bullion, resulting in significant losses for the Bank of Japan. This led to the change of its material to the much cheaper aluminum, and it remains the same ever since, even if it appreciated more than 4 times, so now the rate is ~¥120 per $1 as of 17.5.2015 according to google.

** [[HumiliationConga Zimbabwean government banned]] ''its own'' currency in April 2009.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3091 inflation is specifically linked to the Weimar Republic]].

** The economy is right now pretty much running on foreign currency: the Zimbabwean dollar is so worthless that it's actually more cost effective to sell the currency for use as recycled paper (and get paid in real money) then it is to use it for its face value. A Zimbabwean newspaper printed its ads on Zimbabwean money...

* One of ''{{Doraemon}}'s'' Gadgets of the Week was a machine that allowed the user to buy things from different time periods (with that period's respective price), by choosing a date and object and inserting the corresponding amount of cash in the machine. Nobita manages to make a profit by buying things cheaply from the past and selling them in the present at an increased price. Unfortunately he decides to celebrate by ordering a bag of candy from the future...

* Make your own with ''[[http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ The Inflation Calculator]].'' Simple experiment: what was a thousand dollars worth in 1800? What cost $1,000 in 1800 costs '''$13,493 in 2013.''' Put more simply, a thousand 2013 dollars is equivalent to '''''seventy-five 1800 dollars.'''''

* 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. A later book in the same series has them use a hundred-dollar ''coin''.

*** This is also a reason why 1 yen coin is minted in aluminum since 1955: during the WorldWarTwo the Japanese economy suffered huge inflation, and in 1946 the yen was pegged to the US dollar at the rate of ¥360 per $1. At first the yen coins were minted in brass, similar to the modern 5 yen coin, but the rise in copper prices meant that the coin was worth more than its face value as a bullion, resulting in significant losses for the Bank of Japan. This led to the change of its material to the much cheaper aluminum, and it remains the same ever since, even if it appreciated more than 4 times, so now the rate is ~¥88 per $1.

* In an episode of ''SamuraiJack'', a bounty hunter says that Aku has a bounty on Jack's head worth two googolplex. Yes, the hunter is convinced that this is "a ''looooot'' of money" and the person offering the bounty controls the entire world, but [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex that's]] just ''ridiculous''.

* The proposed film remake of TheSixMillionDollanMan, starring MarkWahlberg, will be called ''"The Six '''Billion''' Dollar Man"''.

* In the ''CourageTheCowardlyDog'' episode "One Thousand Years of Courage", Eustace, Muriel and Courage end up in the year 3000. Muriel remarks that something doesn't seem right:

-->-- ''DuckDodgers''

* ''[[Film/BackToTheFuture Back To The Future Part II]]'':

* The ''AustinPowers'' films play this trope every which way:
** 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...
*** Henchman Number Two has to explain to Dr. Evil that their dummy corporation Virtucon generates $24 ''billion'' in annual revenues.
** In the second Austin Powers movie, he demands [[WrongGenreSavvy One Hundred Billion Dollars]] from the government in TheSixties. They tell him that amount of money doesn't even ''exist''.
** And again, in ''Goldmember'', Dr. Evil requests "One billion, gajillion, fafillion... shabadylu...mil...shabady......uh, yen." The U.N. representatives calculate it in their heads and determine that it is a reasonable claim.

* ''TheSimpsons'' had a parody of the (then) modern Russian economy with an instance of Ridiculous ''Present'' Inflation, with a Russian dignitary at the Olympics committee:

* Parodied in ''The Book What I Wrote'' (Eddie Braben's book about MorecambeAndWise) in which his reminiscing about 1950s Britain is accompanied by helpful footnotes such as "[[OldMoney A shilling]] is worth about a hundred billion pounds in today's money".

* ''[[Webcomic/TwentyFirstCenturyFox 21st Century Fox]]'' (takes place in 2066) plays it straight, but the inflation doesn't get much mention, besides a couple of comics near the beginning, where gas is "cheap" for $70 a gallon, and a can of soda is 20 dollars - and the main characters just happen to have a couple of $20 coins on them.
* Used for a throwaway gag in ''FlakyPastry'' after Nitrine gets catapulted into the far future and gets some fast food.

* ''NinePlanetsWithoutIntelligentLife'' has a basic lozenge cost ∞ dollars on Uranus since all the solar system's cash and financial robots were dumped there when they became worthless due to the post-scarcity economy.
* In ''{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3091 inflation is specifically linked to the Weimar Republic]].

* Oh, Franchise/{{Neopets}}. Their inflation has been compared to Germany's after WWI.

* Subverted in a Blinky comic strip in ''ComicBook/TheDandy'' where a front cover of the comic in the future (far enough to the point it's now on sale on Jupiter with the characters living in [[{{Zeerust}} Zeerusted]] homes) and shows it being priced as "still 50p".
** A bit ReverseFunnyAneurysm, since in RealLife, ''Dandy Xtreme'' (yes, that's what it's called now) currently costs £1.99.

* Portrayed the other way round in a ''Tim Traveller'' strip in ''Comicbook/{{The Beano}}''. Tim is concerned that his pocket money doesn't go very far, so travels back to the 19th century and is able to buy a baker's entire day's worth of pies and cakes for £1. The baker is astonished, having never seen such riches before.

* In Creator/WilliamGibson's ''Literature/MonaLisaOverdrive'' a local phone call in Britain costs about twenty pounds. But pretty much everyone else uses [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japan's]] revalued currency, which seems roughly equivalent to modern dollars.

* Might seem to be the case in ''EVEOnline'' as the simplest of commodities cost hundreds of thousands ISK to millions, high-end ships cost hundreds of millions, and capital ships cost billions. However that's most likely a case of [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale sci-fi fans not having a sense]] of how expensive space ships, space travel, and Amarrian wheat by the metric ton, would be. [[AvertedTrope And the creators do]].

** And Website/{{GaiaOnline}} has passed postwar Germany's inflation to be comparable to Zimbabwe's.