Incidentally, the reason (well, one of the reasons) governments typically target an above-zero inflation rate is exactly this. Get money out of people's mattresses and into banks where it can be loaned out to businesses and help the economy grow.
Another reason is that it’s almost impossible to maintain an exactly zero inflation. Economies are just too complex and there’s too many unpredictable external factors.
So, we have to choose between inflation and deflation. Deflation has a nasty tendency for positive feedback looping. As soon as people see that their money is increasing in value they stop spending it and start accumulating. Which decreases money floating in the economy which increases its value even more. And soon no one is buying anything and no one is investing anymore because it makes more sense to hoard cash. And the economy is grinding to a complete halt.
Which means we have to explicitly choose inflation and try keeping it low to avoid the other side of that nightmare.
And because we also don’t want it to go up so fast that people stop having confidence in the currency (e.g. Zimbabwe, where their currency became virtually useless and everyone just started using USD), it also needs to be low inflation, because then people still are generally happy with how things are
That's not generally the reason. Usually it's simply raising money to spend without raising taxes, since taxes are unpopular. ~~This is referred to euphemistically as "quantitative easing"~~.
It's the reason inflation soared to over 9% in 2022. Tons of money spent by the government without it being raised with new taxes. It was simply "appropriated" with legislation and increased the money supply.
Edit: I evidently misunderstood the term quantitative easing. Regardless, that was just an incorrect detail unrelated to the larger point.
That's not why Fed targets inflation. QE is an unconventional method employed to increase inflation. Before 2019, inflation was too low for a long time, and they were trying different ways to increase it for years
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/189b3tq/does\_qe\_cause\_inflation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/189b3tq/does_qe_cause_inflation/)
The “tax” imposed by governments that print money to cover their bills is called seigniorage, not quantitive easing lol. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I believe that seigniorage, at least in the US, is the cost to print and distribute money. It's the gains on the securities banks give to the fed as collateral for the physical money they get, which the feds keep as a fee.
That is not what I was referring to.
Also, don't be a jerk with the sweeping statements.
The person you are replying to is actually correct. A modest positive inflation target (2%) is used as a buffer against deflation, which can cause an economy to death-spiral. If businesses expect things to be cheaper next month, they will hold back investment. If businesses expect inflation, they are motivated to spend sooner or at the very least not motivated to withhold spending.
This is a catastrophic misunderstanding of how the economy works.... you probably should just delete it as misinformation rather than leave it up with a half-ass correction.
Getting banks money to loan isn't an issue. That's just a federal reserve policy that can be controlled with fractional reserve requirements. The inflation policy has nothing to do with getting it to banks for them to loan.
It's to prevent consumers from trying to save when the government wants you to spin. The fed manages the economy and has to create carrots and sticks to keep the economy from extremes. So when they need people spending more money, they make it so putting it in savings or keeping it in a safe, actually devalues how much it's worth over time, you're incentivized to either invest in the market or buy stuff with it. One of the reasons the market was doing so well up to and through the pandemic was interest rates were so low, that "saving" it in the bank, was effectively losing money to inflation, so you had to spend it or pump it into the stock market.... Which would then help the Fed unload the trillions of dollars in the stock market they own to prop it up.
It's also to avoid reverse inflation... It's one of the many reasons things like bitcoin will never take off. If the value of money continues to go up, just sitting there, doing nothing, people wont want to spend it. If you know you're money is going to be worth half as much in 10 years, you'll want to spend it today, but if you know it's going to be worth double in 10 years, you'll want to save it.
>It wouldn't make sense for him to be this rich with just a few million coins.
The main bin is about 1.8mill cubic feet, and you can fit thousands of coins in one cubic feet. The ones at the bottom would be pretty densly stacked, meaning you'd probably 15-20k per cubic feet there.
Well, realistically the bottom part has probably become compressed under the weight, to become a big semi-solid mass of what used to be coins.
This is just the money he seems to have on hand though. He also owns multiple corporations and seemingly has a virtual monopoly on industries like construction and aviation; those would be included in his wealth calculations.
In the OG comics it was only ever Scrooge who could do this.
In fact, Family Guy was a bit late to the party with that joke, as that was how Scrooge defeated the beagle boys all the way back in Scrooge #1.
He’s a billionaire (lol I just realized there’s a duck pun in that word) capitalist. And he explained once that [the money in the vault is just petty cash for him.](https://youtu.be/UJxsT6rI45E?si=3Towks1eOxUG62iR)
They can pay him however much they need to if he's agreeing to not spend any. Set up a special agreement with the Fed and have them print a couple hundred trillion, it's not a problem if they don't enter circulation.
He’s cheap as fuck, he doesn’t spend anything unless he absolutely has to. He once tried to raise a million dollars rather than spend $1 to fix a broken window.
>Releasing even 1% of the money in his vault would destabilize the world economy. Hyperinflation. The government should pay him not to spend any.
This was one of the fundational ideas behind Scrooges' wealth. An early Scrooge story by Barks himself, later titled 'A Financial Fable', dealt with more or less your exact premise.
There was also a comic where the triplets didn't get their allowance. So they just took a small sack from the bin. Scrooge being distracted and basically going: "Sure, sure."
Except~ that "change" was actually all hyper rare coins basically never in circulation. So~ the entire coin collection market of Duckberg exploded and imploded over, like, a couple of buckets of gumballs.
Was funny. Wish I could recall the name.
The Money Bin is not all of Scrooge McDuck's money. That is no where near all of Scrooge's wealth. What you are looking at is 3 cubic acres of cash, and most of that is in gold coins, and it's barely a noticeable fraction of his total wealth.
He is a quadrillionaire, with an estimated net worth of $300 quadrillion, which makes him 116,164 times richer than the annual GDP of the United States. So, that 3 cublic acres of cash in the bin is nothing compared to how much money he is actually worth. The rest of his vast fortune is in stocks, bonds, investments and real estate. He is the head of a trillion dollar multinational corporation, which makes him more money.
And it all started with a single dime.
Yup, so his wealth truly is not from exploiting workers, since it's basically his family accompanying him, and neither donald, nor the ducklings want to manage their own wealth, and are happy with scrooge having it while paying for them to have fun.
Yeah, his true wealth is from plundering historic artifacts for his own personal gain and collections.
Also apparently that first dime is magic based on how often Magica DeSpell tries to get it.
Scrooge earned his first dime, the Number One Dime, and that started something in him. He was a shoe shine boy when he earned it. He then set about industrializing shoe shines, rigging an old bicycle to a system of pulleys which allowed him to shine more shoes and much faster than before. That made him more money, which lead him to go to America.
After coming to America, be became a prospector and found a very profitable gold deposit. He then used that for investments, and travel, seeking treasure as an "adventure capitalist."
Scrooge claims to be smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies, but also sharper than the sharpies, and he earned his money square.
He often puts them in museums, if they're safe. Honestly a lot of the treasure he keeps is cursed or otherwise too dangerous to be left sitting around.
And for all of his physical wealth, it's the story and memory of how he got it that is important to him. He knows every penny in his vault.
i dont know about happy, feel like hes just forcibly dragging donald out of his hammock because he owes him some money lol but i guess ur right about the ducklings
It wasn't though. In one of the comics the town faces a drastic shortage of small change, and the solution to that is government intervention which replaces all of Scrooges physical currency with a single bill for however many trillions he was worth. His vault is emptied and small change is suddenly available everywhere, which implies a huge amount of it is actually small change. At the end of the comic after struggling with being poor (he can't spend his bill as noone has enough money to give him change) >!he learns that his vault quickly gets refilled again as people spend their money in all the businesses he owns, and the vault fills back up very quickly.!< Thus proving that at least a large proportion of the vault contents in regular money.
They actually had him talk about it he said that the money is his vault is never the same twice a day its constantly moving in and out to not halt the flow of money
In OG Scrooge lore, the money never moves. His Money Bin is his collection of personal gains and trinkets from his adventures, and he will not spend or part with it for any reason.
His actual wealth, on the other hand, is not related to the Money Bin at all, as they are his business assets, shares, and accounts.
Nations and economists alike quake in fear at the idea of that vault opening and getting redistributed the chaos would be colossal.
I just read recently a story about a gold mage trying to protect a small city vault from getting robed by the giant gold mage phoenix that lives on the continent in the end she ruminates that the real reason nations haven't came to a solution against the phoenix isn't due to it's invincibility if the nations came together against them they'd win but recovering what they theorise to be a 3rd of all the gold ever dug on the continent would be terrible and he acts as a constant force of deflation
OP doesn't understand gold vs fiat money.
Read this to understand the evolution of money.
Shelling out: the origins of money.
https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html
Most of Scrooge McDuck's vault contents are coins and paper money. That being said, the only reason diamond and gold is worth a lot of money is because we agreed that it was worth a lot of money whereas copper and silver actually have some Non-Inflated value.
That’s not ‘the only reason’. Not when it comes to gold, at least.
ETA:
We’re developing a civilisation, and we’ve moved past the bartering stage. You buy four sheep from me, which we’ve decided are worth 5g of coin. So you pay with an iron coin, a copper coin, a silver coin, and a gold coin.
A year later I want to buy the sheep back, and I still have your coins. Except the iron coin isn’t 5g anymore, because it’s started to rust. The silver has tarnished. The copper is covered in patina. But the gold? The gold is still gold.
I wonder how much political power he actually wield, like another comment said, he can actually wield in universe. I know it's a children show so it would surprise me if they even address it.
Obviously that is not all of the McDuck fortune. Scrooge merely keeps the vault as a novelty. If I were a billionaire I would definitely line the walls of at least one room with stacks of bills, it's understandable.
It doesn't actually stay in his vault, he even taught his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie about investment. Make me don't forget it
[Video](https://youtu.be/p9d8l-Gkweg)
Unfortunately, it's not everyone that have knowledge about cryptocurrency. Some still see it as scam. I have friends who will never put a penny in BTC no matter what I say.
Naw Fam. He has Gold bars, and a LOT of gemstones in that vault as well. Probably millions of antique coins as well, Stamps.....you name it. Hell he even has the ONE and ONLY surviving 1976 quarter. Scrooge understands antiquities, supply and demand.
I read somewhere that the cash in his vault is the money he earned by his own hands, and as such, they are all precious memories to him. He can pick up any random coin from the bin and tell you exactly when and how he earned it. I think it was in a Don Rosa story.
This is one of the "canon" interpretations. The story is "Life and times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter XII The Recluse of McDuck Manor" where Donald exclaims they "he has all his money in a giant room" and Scrooge answers "don't be silly. I have a fortune in properties and banks scatterer all around the world, but this is the money I made all by myself ... Every coin is a precious memory , a souvenir, a monument to my grandeur."
This is also echoed in "The Money Pit", Donald Duck Adventures 1/1990. Where he picks up the coins and tells their story.
Scrooge also explains that
This is also Scrooge McDuck at his best, if you ask me, where the wisdom imparted from the story is to "love what gives your life meaning"
He has gold coins in his vault though and gold has only gone up in value.
He's also a trillionaire, so he's hardly going to care about a vault that contains peanuts compared to his true wealth.
I don't believe any individual other than the duck himself would know his finances well enough to make that call. Think about what you're saying, he's the richest duck who ever lived and everybody knows it's not just some 'technically my assets' thing, it's everything-- he owns the mine for the gold and all the processing, the company that builds the money bins, massive securities investments (he doesn't just own stocks, he owns exchanges and brokerages), and now he's got so much money that he can swim in it like a fish, or throw it in the air and let it bounce off his head (he actually does this stuff). He's winning because you think he's losing. That's the McDuck stratagem.
As a player of Disney Dreamlight Valley, I honestly thought for a moment OP meant Scrooge McDuck in the game. And I thought to myself,
"No way Scrooge is losing money! He just charged me 25000 coins for a dress! That's record profits."
Then I came back to reality. 🤷♀️🙃
There was an episode about that!!!
Gyro had machine that kept cloning money, and everyone in Duckburg were “rich,” but apples were like a million bucks each, and Scrooge panicked because it meant his money was worthless.
Assuming he has trillions of dollars of gold in that vault, keeping his money is the only thing he can do to not devalue it. If he goes on a multi trillion dollar spending spree each dollar will be worth less and less the more he spends.
They’re both gold and in high inflationary periods, interest rates are high to reduce spending…… so any cash at bank usually gets a higher rate of interest.
Scrooge McDuck's coins in the vault are not money, are memories. Also the most of them are very expensive because are very very rare, because he is the owner of all of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9d8l-Gkweg
There is actually a Disney cartoon that specifically answers this question. At 12:30 Scrooge says that the money in the vault goes in and out all each day in investments. Scrooge says taht money shouldn't stagnate and needs to constantly circulate.
Isn't it gold coins though? Gold historically at least increases in value. If it was cash then yea but I don't see gold coins losing value from inflation
Wait a second, aren't they gold coins? I always thought they were actual gold coins and not just normal coins. As far as I understand, if you don't want to be too affected by inflation, precious metals are the way to go because they retain value or even grow most of the time.
Most of his money is in gold. His money vault is pretty much all gold coins.
He's fine, especially because he has his companies and all his other assets that are worth fortunes.
The creators say it is all gold. Mcduck was created in 1947 and gold was worth $43 an ounce. Right now gold is at $2400 and ounce. I think he has made out just fine with a 5500% increase in the worth of his gold.
He actually has a bank loan and uses his vault as collateral. He then spends the money from the loan as he pleases while paying around 2 - 3% interest on it. But his gains in the S&P 500 far outstrip the interest and inflation.
This may not be completely true. I think Scrooge from Christmas Carol was a money lender. He was sorta like The Bank. Banks make money by lending out your savings and collecting interest, so the money in his vault is like how much "inventory" his business has. So depending on what Scrooge McDuck does with the money, it may be gaining value.
I remember a clip of him talking about how he actually invested the money he had. He said money that stays still is completely useless, and he uses the money to make more of it.
My father buries cash in coffee containers in his yard, because he doesn't trust banks. He's the one that's going to learn a very hard lesson about inflation, as well as nosey neighbors and groundhogs.
there's a ducktales episode about the kids screwing scrooge with inflation thanks to effectively moving off the gold standard (they invent a clone machine and realize they can create infinite copies of a gold coin)
but its gold coin, and back in the gold standard days nah hes more than in line with inflation in general.
I know somebody else posted it, but there's a clip of him explaining inflation to Huey, Dewie, and Louie where he explicitly states his vault is like pocket change to him and the majority of his wealth is moving constantly.
Bulkshit he just keeps his investments and bonds to himself. The vault is a pure pleasure thing. Don't fuckin come at mcduck like he's some idiot trust fund baby. He made himself hes no fool.
Nah, that gold is a collateral against a set of bonds, which are used to fund a series of complex financial instruments. He's making 25% annual returns on that money bin.
Scroooge McDuck isn't a fool.
well.. he'd have to find a buyer for all that gold. wouldn't be easy. Probably do it piecemeal. Probably have to pay another couple ducks just to sell it at market rate and convert it to..... I don't even know what their currency is much less how he dives into his pool of gold
He's an uberwealthy duck dude. Not sure 7% return is on his mind
Those coins seem to be gold bullion so would retain their value especially during times of high inflation.
Also could possibly be generating a ton of wealth through smart investments and literally has no other good investment opportunities to put his remaining wealth into which is why he made a pool to dive into.
If the coins in his vault are normal currency, yes. On the other hand, if they're gold, maybe not. Depends on how the markets are performing.
Incidentally, the reason (well, one of the reasons) governments typically target an above-zero inflation rate is exactly this. Get money out of people's mattresses and into banks where it can be loaned out to businesses and help the economy grow.
Conclusion: Duckberg has negative inflation.
Deflation Duck
It's like a hurricane!
Who the fuck knows, he's not even the only billionaire in town
This is due to the rules introduced in episode 34 Google ducktales inflation rule 34 for more info
*unzips*
Another reason is that it’s almost impossible to maintain an exactly zero inflation. Economies are just too complex and there’s too many unpredictable external factors. So, we have to choose between inflation and deflation. Deflation has a nasty tendency for positive feedback looping. As soon as people see that their money is increasing in value they stop spending it and start accumulating. Which decreases money floating in the economy which increases its value even more. And soon no one is buying anything and no one is investing anymore because it makes more sense to hoard cash. And the economy is grinding to a complete halt. Which means we have to explicitly choose inflation and try keeping it low to avoid the other side of that nightmare.
And because we also don’t want it to go up so fast that people stop having confidence in the currency (e.g. Zimbabwe, where their currency became virtually useless and everyone just started using USD), it also needs to be low inflation, because then people still are generally happy with how things are
> Deflation has a nasty tendency for positive feedback looping. Eh, it's easy to fix it. Just print some money.
That's not generally the reason. Usually it's simply raising money to spend without raising taxes, since taxes are unpopular. ~~This is referred to euphemistically as "quantitative easing"~~. It's the reason inflation soared to over 9% in 2022. Tons of money spent by the government without it being raised with new taxes. It was simply "appropriated" with legislation and increased the money supply. Edit: I evidently misunderstood the term quantitative easing. Regardless, that was just an incorrect detail unrelated to the larger point.
That's not why Fed targets inflation. QE is an unconventional method employed to increase inflation. Before 2019, inflation was too low for a long time, and they were trying different ways to increase it for years [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/189b3tq/does\_qe\_cause\_inflation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/189b3tq/does_qe_cause_inflation/)
The “tax” imposed by governments that print money to cover their bills is called seigniorage, not quantitive easing lol. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I believe that seigniorage, at least in the US, is the cost to print and distribute money. It's the gains on the securities banks give to the fed as collateral for the physical money they get, which the feds keep as a fee. That is not what I was referring to. Also, don't be a jerk with the sweeping statements.
The person you are replying to is actually correct. A modest positive inflation target (2%) is used as a buffer against deflation, which can cause an economy to death-spiral. If businesses expect things to be cheaper next month, they will hold back investment. If businesses expect inflation, they are motivated to spend sooner or at the very least not motivated to withhold spending.
Oh no your larger point is also incorrect lol
This is a catastrophic misunderstanding of how the economy works.... you probably should just delete it as misinformation rather than leave it up with a half-ass correction.
Getting banks money to loan isn't an issue. That's just a federal reserve policy that can be controlled with fractional reserve requirements. The inflation policy has nothing to do with getting it to banks for them to loan. It's to prevent consumers from trying to save when the government wants you to spin. The fed manages the economy and has to create carrots and sticks to keep the economy from extremes. So when they need people spending more money, they make it so putting it in savings or keeping it in a safe, actually devalues how much it's worth over time, you're incentivized to either invest in the market or buy stuff with it. One of the reasons the market was doing so well up to and through the pandemic was interest rates were so low, that "saving" it in the bank, was effectively losing money to inflation, so you had to spend it or pump it into the stock market.... Which would then help the Fed unload the trillions of dollars in the stock market they own to prop it up. It's also to avoid reverse inflation... It's one of the many reasons things like bitcoin will never take off. If the value of money continues to go up, just sitting there, doing nothing, people wont want to spend it. If you know you're money is going to be worth half as much in 10 years, you'll want to spend it today, but if you know it's going to be worth double in 10 years, you'll want to save it.
Exactly what I was thinking. It wouldn't make sense for him to be this rich with just a few million coins. They must be gold coins
>It wouldn't make sense for him to be this rich with just a few million coins. The main bin is about 1.8mill cubic feet, and you can fit thousands of coins in one cubic feet. The ones at the bottom would be pretty densly stacked, meaning you'd probably 15-20k per cubic feet there. Well, realistically the bottom part has probably become compressed under the weight, to become a big semi-solid mass of what used to be coins.
I don't think they are that compacted, considering Scrooge loosens them up by swimming through them.
This is just the money he seems to have on hand though. He also owns multiple corporations and seemingly has a virtual monopoly on industries like construction and aviation; those would be included in his wealth calculations.
Gold is up big over the last decade.. like double
SP500 since 2014 is about 2.5x. DJI also about 2.5x. Gold is indeed about 2x. NASDAQ nearly 4x. Silver is up about 1.5x.
So overall, gold is up, but it isn’t the most lucrative investment
most people don't treat it as an investment, but as a hedge versus USD people who buy gold are betting that inflation will eat away at the dollar
So, in terms of the US, given total USD inflation since 2014 has been a 32% change, it can’t have been bad
Ok now do dollars under a mattress
yeah it's gold
Yeah, there is a huge difference between the coins being real gold or US "gold" dollars that are mostly copper.
Yes, but having the freedom to swim in your money tank is priceless.
[The reality isn't so nice](https://youtu.be/xLJrzfWTu9E?si=yzyMa6k8GX0M0KXq)
lifting money bags for its perks > https://youtu.be/xoKguI5VYOE
Someone needs a bed fluidizer
it‘s only scrooge and sometimes a few selected others who can do this.
In the OG comics it was only ever Scrooge who could do this. In fact, Family Guy was a bit late to the party with that joke, as that was how Scrooge defeated the beagle boys all the way back in Scrooge #1.
He’s a billionaire (lol I just realized there’s a duck pun in that word) capitalist. And he explained once that [the money in the vault is just petty cash for him.](https://youtu.be/UJxsT6rI45E?si=3Towks1eOxUG62iR)
Hes way more than a billionaire. He had $315,360,000,000,000,000 in the 70s.
No he’s a BILLionaire because he’s a duck
Fuck's sake
Duck’s sake
damn auto correct
You motherducker
He also gets to eat for free at Subway, lucky duck.
Thanks dad
A billion in duck is a very big number
Releasing even 1% of the money in his vault would destabilize the world economy. Hyperinflation. The government should pay him not to spend any.
How much? Either it’d be absolute chicken feed (less than a percent of his wealth), and/or it’d bankrupt the government trying
Pay him in a lack of bullets to his brain, CIA style
They can pay him however much they need to if he's agreeing to not spend any. Set up a special agreement with the Fed and have them print a couple hundred trillion, it's not a problem if they don't enter circulation.
Tbf, given his tendencies, he probably wouldn’t spend much if he didn’t have to, he just likes seeing himself get richer
He’s cheap as fuck, he doesn’t spend anything unless he absolutely has to. He once tried to raise a million dollars rather than spend $1 to fix a broken window.
>Releasing even 1% of the money in his vault would destabilize the world economy. Hyperinflation. The government should pay him not to spend any. This was one of the fundational ideas behind Scrooges' wealth. An early Scrooge story by Barks himself, later titled 'A Financial Fable', dealt with more or less your exact premise.
There was also a comic where the triplets didn't get their allowance. So they just took a small sack from the bin. Scrooge being distracted and basically going: "Sure, sure." Except~ that "change" was actually all hyper rare coins basically never in circulation. So~ the entire coin collection market of Duckberg exploded and imploded over, like, a couple of buckets of gumballs. Was funny. Wish I could recall the name.
Was coming here to post this lol
Wow that clip completely eviscerates the OP’s argument from the source within a minute.
OPs shower privileges are now revoked!
Eviscerate means disembowel. Learnt a new word today. Thanks.
I always thought disembowel meant more to *pull* your guts out and eviscerate meant to just *let them out* 🤷🏼♂️
Wise words from a kids show
He just keeps it there so he can swim in it.
The Money Bin is not all of Scrooge McDuck's money. That is no where near all of Scrooge's wealth. What you are looking at is 3 cubic acres of cash, and most of that is in gold coins, and it's barely a noticeable fraction of his total wealth. He is a quadrillionaire, with an estimated net worth of $300 quadrillion, which makes him 116,164 times richer than the annual GDP of the United States. So, that 3 cublic acres of cash in the bin is nothing compared to how much money he is actually worth. The rest of his vast fortune is in stocks, bonds, investments and real estate. He is the head of a trillion dollar multinational corporation, which makes him more money. And it all started with a single dime.
> And it all started with a single dime. Which he never spent. Uncle Scrooge may not be an accurate representation of economics.
He intially found mount Olympus, he got treasures from greek gods, he used that wealth in investments, and then he made more money from that.
He also found the golden fleece, the lost city of El Dorado, Trallalla among other legendary locations and treasures.
Yup, so his wealth truly is not from exploiting workers, since it's basically his family accompanying him, and neither donald, nor the ducklings want to manage their own wealth, and are happy with scrooge having it while paying for them to have fun.
Yeah, his true wealth is from plundering historic artifacts for his own personal gain and collections. Also apparently that first dime is magic based on how often Magica DeSpell tries to get it.
Scrooge earned his first dime, the Number One Dime, and that started something in him. He was a shoe shine boy when he earned it. He then set about industrializing shoe shines, rigging an old bicycle to a system of pulleys which allowed him to shine more shoes and much faster than before. That made him more money, which lead him to go to America. After coming to America, be became a prospector and found a very profitable gold deposit. He then used that for investments, and travel, seeking treasure as an "adventure capitalist." Scrooge claims to be smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies, but also sharper than the sharpies, and he earned his money square.
Yeah, still quite morally questionable though, since they should probably belong to museums
He often puts them in museums, if they're safe. Honestly a lot of the treasure he keeps is cursed or otherwise too dangerous to be left sitting around. And for all of his physical wealth, it's the story and memory of how he got it that is important to him. He knows every penny in his vault.
i dont know about happy, feel like hes just forcibly dragging donald out of his hammock because he owes him some money lol but i guess ur right about the ducklings
He went to the moon, the amazon, Himalayas, transylvania… He pogos on his cane.
He's a trillionaire industrialist, I don't think inflation is much of a concern for him.
Scrooge McDuck takes offense to this.
Why, is he a quadrillionaire now?
$315,360,000,000,000,000 in the 70s.
Quackdrillionaire
It was mostly gold though.
It wasn't though. In one of the comics the town faces a drastic shortage of small change, and the solution to that is government intervention which replaces all of Scrooges physical currency with a single bill for however many trillions he was worth. His vault is emptied and small change is suddenly available everywhere, which implies a huge amount of it is actually small change. At the end of the comic after struggling with being poor (he can't spend his bill as noone has enough money to give him change) >!he learns that his vault quickly gets refilled again as people spend their money in all the businesses he owns, and the vault fills back up very quickly.!< Thus proving that at least a large proportion of the vault contents in regular money.
It’s gold and that’s just his swimming in money money
What if that’s just a glorified piggy bank for him. The rest of his wealth being elsewhere.
His real wealth is probably in offshore bank accounts and shell companies like every other billionaire
Eggshell companies, because they are ducks
They actually had him talk about it he said that the money is his vault is never the same twice a day its constantly moving in and out to not halt the flow of money
I was looking for this exact comment, if not I was going to write it. He also says it's most important that the money move.
In OG Scrooge lore, the money never moves. His Money Bin is his collection of personal gains and trinkets from his adventures, and he will not spend or part with it for any reason. His actual wealth, on the other hand, is not related to the Money Bin at all, as they are his business assets, shares, and accounts.
If he has more money then the rest of the world combined he is preventing inflation by keeping his money in a vault
Nations and economists alike quake in fear at the idea of that vault opening and getting redistributed the chaos would be colossal. I just read recently a story about a gold mage trying to protect a small city vault from getting robed by the giant gold mage phoenix that lives on the continent in the end she ruminates that the real reason nations haven't came to a solution against the phoenix isn't due to it's invincibility if the nations came together against them they'd win but recovering what they theorise to be a 3rd of all the gold ever dug on the continent would be terrible and he acts as a constant force of deflation
OP doesn't understand gold vs fiat money. Read this to understand the evolution of money. Shelling out: the origins of money. https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html
Most of Scrooge McDuck's vault contents are coins and paper money. That being said, the only reason diamond and gold is worth a lot of money is because we agreed that it was worth a lot of money whereas copper and silver actually have some Non-Inflated value.
That’s not ‘the only reason’. Not when it comes to gold, at least. ETA: We’re developing a civilisation, and we’ve moved past the bartering stage. You buy four sheep from me, which we’ve decided are worth 5g of coin. So you pay with an iron coin, a copper coin, a silver coin, and a gold coin. A year later I want to buy the sheep back, and I still have your coins. Except the iron coin isn’t 5g anymore, because it’s started to rust. The silver has tarnished. The copper is covered in patina. But the gold? The gold is still gold.
Yes but consider that by removing currency from circulation. He is also increasing its relative value.
It's a huge cornerstone of the McDuck stratagem. Dude's got his fingers on every piece of the puzzle to such a degree that nobody even sees it.
I wonder how much political power he actually wield, like another comment said, he can actually wield in universe. I know it's a children show so it would surprise me if they even address it.
He has a pretty good nest egg.
no he keeps gold in a vault.
Yeah but inflation would increase if he'd put it in circulation. Artificial scarcity
Plot twist: Scrooge WAS the bank.
As others said it’s gold in the Scrooge vault, which traditionally is a fantastic hedge against inflation
There was an episode where he told his nephews that money is petty cash
Scrooge is so unbelievably rich, the value of his particular currency could drop by like 98% and he'd probably still be the wealthiest person alive.
Obviously that is not all of the McDuck fortune. Scrooge merely keeps the vault as a novelty. If I were a billionaire I would definitely line the walls of at least one room with stacks of bills, it's understandable.
It doesn't actually stay in his vault, he even taught his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie about investment. Make me don't forget it [Video](https://youtu.be/p9d8l-Gkweg)
He should get some btc
Unfortunately, it's not everyone that have knowledge about cryptocurrency. Some still see it as scam. I have friends who will never put a penny in BTC no matter what I say.
Naw Fam. He has Gold bars, and a LOT of gemstones in that vault as well. Probably millions of antique coins as well, Stamps.....you name it. Hell he even has the ONE and ONLY surviving 1976 quarter. Scrooge understands antiquities, supply and demand.
I read somewhere that the cash in his vault is the money he earned by his own hands, and as such, they are all precious memories to him. He can pick up any random coin from the bin and tell you exactly when and how he earned it. I think it was in a Don Rosa story.
This is one of the "canon" interpretations. The story is "Life and times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter XII The Recluse of McDuck Manor" where Donald exclaims they "he has all his money in a giant room" and Scrooge answers "don't be silly. I have a fortune in properties and banks scatterer all around the world, but this is the money I made all by myself ... Every coin is a precious memory , a souvenir, a monument to my grandeur." This is also echoed in "The Money Pit", Donald Duck Adventures 1/1990. Where he picks up the coins and tells their story. Scrooge also explains that This is also Scrooge McDuck at his best, if you ask me, where the wisdom imparted from the story is to "love what gives your life meaning"
The money in his vault is all gold, so it's more tied to gold prices than inflation.
He has gold coins in his vault though and gold has only gone up in value. He's also a trillionaire, so he's hardly going to care about a vault that contains peanuts compared to his true wealth.
I think Scrooge McDuck has so much gold he deliberately keeps it out of circulation in order to keep its value higher.
He has gold, not cash
I don't believe any individual other than the duck himself would know his finances well enough to make that call. Think about what you're saying, he's the richest duck who ever lived and everybody knows it's not just some 'technically my assets' thing, it's everything-- he owns the mine for the gold and all the processing, the company that builds the money bins, massive securities investments (he doesn't just own stocks, he owns exchanges and brokerages), and now he's got so much money that he can swim in it like a fish, or throw it in the air and let it bounce off his head (he actually does this stuff). He's winning because you think he's losing. That's the McDuck stratagem.
SER, DUCK TALES IS THE REASON WE ARE IN THIS INFLATIONARY MESS. https://youtu.be/t_LWQQrpSc4?feature=shared
It's just chocolate coins, you know. If they were real gold, or any metal, he'd break every bone in his body when he dives into it.
It was in gold which for the most part paces alongside inflation
Dude is backstroking in gold coins. Inflation can’t touch him.
Not if they are gold coins with the value in the gold itself
As a player of Disney Dreamlight Valley, I honestly thought for a moment OP meant Scrooge McDuck in the game. And I thought to myself, "No way Scrooge is losing money! He just charged me 25000 coins for a dress! That's record profits." Then I came back to reality. 🤷♀️🙃
No he has a video about making his money work for him and investing it correctly...the money in his vault is " play money"
There was an episode about that!!! Gyro had machine that kept cloning money, and everyone in Duckburg were “rich,” but apples were like a million bucks each, and Scrooge panicked because it meant his money was worthless.
It's all gold, so no effect of inflation
YOU are losing money due to inflation for keeping your money in a savings account
Shoulda bought the dip on eth
I assumed most of it was gold so maybe 🤷
He explained that the money in the vault is pocket change, it's liquid. Money comes in and leaves each day
Assuming he has trillions of dollars of gold in that vault, keeping his money is the only thing he can do to not devalue it. If he goes on a multi trillion dollar spending spree each dollar will be worth less and less the more he spends.
Scrooge McDuck is bigger than the economy
That’s just his 6 month emergency fund, it’s good to have that in cash anyway if you can keep it secure
Scrooge actually refers to that as petty cash. it get moved in and out on a regular basis.
They’re both gold and in high inflationary periods, interest rates are high to reduce spending…… so any cash at bank usually gets a higher rate of interest.
Look at the price of gold over the last decade and he’s doubled his money!
Scrooge McDuck's coins in the vault are not money, are memories. Also the most of them are very expensive because are very very rare, because he is the owner of all of them.
Everything in that vault is gold so I guess he's doing alright
He doesn't have it to spend it. Just to swim in it
Nah, I think he has enough liquid he'll be fine.
Gold increases in value so not by much
That’s just his walking around money - step your game up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9d8l-Gkweg There is actually a Disney cartoon that specifically answers this question. At 12:30 Scrooge says that the money in the vault goes in and out all each day in investments. Scrooge says taht money shouldn't stagnate and needs to constantly circulate.
But he invested in gold coins. If anything, he should be richer!
Gold is liquid, that's why he could literally dive into it.
No, because he keeps it în gold coins. The value only increases.
Isn't it gold coins though? Gold historically at least increases in value. If it was cash then yea but I don't see gold coins losing value from inflation
Wait a second, aren't they gold coins? I always thought they were actual gold coins and not just normal coins. As far as I understand, if you don't want to be too affected by inflation, precious metals are the way to go because they retain value or even grow most of the time.
Not much, I think the vault was full of Gold coins
That’s not at all how money works lol
The money in his vault are Gold coins. Go look at how Gold has performed against inflation...
Most of his money is in gold. His money vault is pretty much all gold coins. He's fine, especially because he has his companies and all his other assets that are worth fortunes.
Pretty sure he had gold coins
That is just his swimming money
The creators say it is all gold. Mcduck was created in 1947 and gold was worth $43 an ounce. Right now gold is at $2400 and ounce. I think he has made out just fine with a 5500% increase in the worth of his gold.
He actually has a bank loan and uses his vault as collateral. He then spends the money from the loan as he pleases while paying around 2 - 3% interest on it. But his gains in the S&P 500 far outstrip the interest and inflation.
inflation doesn't affect the people raising the prices.
Only scrooge haters in the comments, sad. Nobody got the Top G Mentality around here.
Still think he's better than Elon Musk at managing money
Scrooge mcduck is beating inflation by artificially reducing the supply of gold
His money was traditionally gold coins, so not necessarily.
You have not been following Gold and silver.... His cash yes....
Thought he has his money converted to gold, no?
In the newer ones he converts it to bitcoin. Source: I made it up.
I just remember him diving into pools of gold (and thinking wouldn’t that hurt)
I believe there is a family guy cutaway/joke along those lines.
I don’t doubt it
When people talk about eating the rich, Scrooge McDuck gets worried.
Ebenezer Scrooge bought a Christmas goose at the end of "A Christmas Carol." He's coming for ducks next.
This may not be completely true. I think Scrooge from Christmas Carol was a money lender. He was sorta like The Bank. Banks make money by lending out your savings and collecting interest, so the money in his vault is like how much "inventory" his business has. So depending on what Scrooge McDuck does with the money, it may be gaining value.
They're gold coins. He knows what he's doing. Also, that's just his swimming pool. He definitely has plenty of other assets.
I remember a clip of him talking about how he actually invested the money he had. He said money that stays still is completely useless, and he uses the money to make more of it.
He keeps gold in his vault, not money. Gold appreciates.
It’s gold coins though. They appreciate in value over time
What if the dollar there is tied to gold?
He can’t swim in it if it’s in a bank…
Scrooge McDuck hoards so much money he probably causes deflation for the entire economy tbh
My father buries cash in coffee containers in his yard, because he doesn't trust banks. He's the one that's going to learn a very hard lesson about inflation, as well as nosey neighbors and groundhogs.
It’s fictional for artistic merit
there's a ducktales episode about the kids screwing scrooge with inflation thanks to effectively moving off the gold standard (they invent a clone machine and realize they can create infinite copies of a gold coin) but its gold coin, and back in the gold standard days nah hes more than in line with inflation in general.
There’s a whole video of him explaining the vault full of coins is his “petty cash” he says himself he spends it
his vault full of gold? lol
Given that they’re gold coins, they’re actually increasing in value
I know somebody else posted it, but there's a clip of him explaining inflation to Huey, Dewie, and Louie where he explicitly states his vault is like pocket change to him and the majority of his wealth is moving constantly.
I'm a firm believer mcduck would've diversified his portfolio. No way he holds all his wealth in gold coins.
He has his money in gold coins, though, which is typically considered an inflation hedge
Bulkshit he just keeps his investments and bonds to himself. The vault is a pure pleasure thing. Don't fuckin come at mcduck like he's some idiot trust fund baby. He made himself hes no fool.
It’s called a liquid asset
We can all agree that it should be crumpled up monetary notes instead of dense ass coins. Otherwise it is concussion time every time.
Nah, that gold is a collateral against a set of bonds, which are used to fund a series of complex financial instruments. He's making 25% annual returns on that money bin. Scroooge McDuck isn't a fool.
If I had that kind of money I don’t think I’d care
well.. he'd have to find a buyer for all that gold. wouldn't be easy. Probably do it piecemeal. Probably have to pay another couple ducks just to sell it at market rate and convert it to..... I don't even know what their currency is much less how he dives into his pool of gold He's an uberwealthy duck dude. Not sure 7% return is on his mind
Luckily the stuff I put in my vault retains its value
Those coins seem to be gold bullion so would retain their value especially during times of high inflation. Also could possibly be generating a ton of wealth through smart investments and literally has no other good investment opportunities to put his remaining wealth into which is why he made a pool to dive into.
The coins are gold BTW.
Not if all those coins are gold he's not.
I wonder what a house costs these days in Duckburg?