The wizarding economy is a mystery to me. If you can Transfigure things into gold and you have a gold-based economy... ?
Personally, this seems like a big gap area in the books so hand-waving/exploration is certainly warranted by fic-writers.
The wealthy wizards would have many options in the Muggle world. To a certain sort protection rackets would certainly appeal ("Nice ship you've got there, squire. Pity if something happened to it.") That sort of thing could have even given rise to the Ministry's regulations.
Then there's "semi-public" magic ("Better hire that Weasley bloke, lucky bastard, never got hit by a storm with him aboard even if he is right useless at gutting fish.") Where everyone knows something is happening but no one says anything explicit.
And then, for the modern Malfoys, my favorite, "cheating" at stocks. Divination in the form of arithmancy is popualar enough to be taught regularly: why not apply that information to Muggle markets? Add in the ability to manipulate gold/silver/whatever markets through transfiguration and you have an excellent, presumably mostly legal, racket.
It's not like travel between worlds is restricted for wizards: with enough money, I'm sure they could get their fingers most anywhere.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-03-13 03:21 am (UTC)Personally, this seems like a big gap area in the books so hand-waving/exploration is certainly warranted by fic-writers.
The wealthy wizards would have many options in the Muggle world. To a certain sort protection rackets would certainly appeal ("Nice ship you've got there, squire. Pity if something happened to it.") That sort of thing could have even given rise to the Ministry's regulations.
Then there's "semi-public" magic ("Better hire that Weasley bloke, lucky bastard, never got hit by a storm with him aboard even if he is right useless at gutting fish.") Where everyone knows something is happening but no one says anything explicit.
And then, for the modern Malfoys, my favorite, "cheating" at stocks. Divination in the form of arithmancy is popualar enough to be taught regularly: why not apply that information to Muggle markets? Add in the ability to manipulate gold/silver/whatever markets through transfiguration and you have an excellent, presumably mostly legal, racket.
It's not like travel between worlds is restricted for wizards: with enough money, I'm sure they could get their fingers most anywhere.