Queries Re the Economy of Third Earth
Somebody who pays more attention to economics please explain this to me. Episode 8 lays down the question here–quick recap for those of you who haven’t obsessively watched the series enough times to have every episode memorized:
When Lion-O attempts to pay for supplies with a Thunderian “shilling,” he’s informed that Thunderian coins, once “prized throughout the land,” are now worthless. Briefly observing that Thundera evidently used some variant of the pounds, shilling and pence system (yeah, let’s go ahead and call that ThunderObservation 004), I’m asking myself how… exactly… money works on Third Earth.
The rest of the series shows the cats using “shillicks” across locations, so I’m assuming that is the new most-widely accepted form of currency. I am also assuming the Thunderian empire more or less covered the globe/Thundera was the government minting the coins and backing them as legal tender.
I would’ve thought the absence of any new coins would make the existing coins already in circulation more valuable by default? but since that doesn’t seem to be the case, I assume that Thunderian coins do not contain precious metals (or whatever gave them value), i.e., they contain no value in and of themselves. Sooo anyone whose savings were in the form of those prized, dependable Thunderian coins before Mumm-Ra attacked are now SOL, I guess.
Seriously, if those coins were so widely used, Thundera’s fall should have resulted in widespread economic collapse. Maybe that just wasn’t shown, or not directly. And really, if Thunderian currency completely lost its value when Thundera fell, what on earth made the cats think it would still be accepted as, you know, currency? This should’ve been obvious from the start.
And shillicks. If shillicks aren’t backed by another (stable) government (lizards? Dog city? Some other state that didn’t appear in the first season?), then I assume they maintain value in and of themselves. Or they’re a form of cryptocurrency. Or something. How do shillicks work?? Because it looks like the sudden loss of Thunderian currency concluded with the rest of Third Earth shrugging and switching over to shillicks full time. So Thundera didn’t have such great currency after all?
If the lizards looted the treasury/royal coffers when Thundera was sacked, it would make sense that the thundercats didn’t have anything of value to trade. But that doesn’t explain why they thought worthless coins wouldn’t be perceived as worthless. What the heck?
help I don’t know how money works OTL