Wizard/Muggle Money and Business.

[Steve <bboy_mn@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 49569

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr <annemehr at y...>"
<annemehr at y...> wrote:

annemehr wrote:
> ...edited...
> Can you imagine being a fully qualified wizard and spending your 
> life growing plain, ordinary vegetables for other wizards to eat?
> -end this part-

boy_mn thinks:
Yes, I can. Think of Tom at the Leaky Cauldron. How magical is running
a pub? While it isn't a magical business, and while it is a relatively
simple business, I think Tom uses a lot of magic. Instead of breaking
his back and possibly his neck lugging heavy barrels and cases of ale
down to the cellar. He waves his wand and the job is done. His ale tap
is an enchanted tap that isn't physically connected to the barrels of
ale in the cellar, but as Tom taps off pints of ale, the barrels in
the cellar magically go dry. When it comes to food, maybe someone
orders a plate of chips (french fries to us Americans). Tom waves his
wand and potatoes peal themselves, the oil boils itself,  and the
potatoes jump in, when they are done, they jump out on the plate, and
Tom levitates them out to the customer.

As far as growing vegetables, think of Hagrid. He grows pumpkins the
side of car garages. In a month he grows hedges 20 feet tall. Even in
something as simpe as farming, there is a lot of room for magic. A
wave of the wand and the fields are plowed. A few month later, a wave
of the wand and the crops are harvested.

So yes, I believe that there are wizard and witches who have very
ordinary job that they do in a very  magical way.
- bboy_mn -end this part-

> 
> ...edited...
> I am proposing a Wizarding import business. Part of the profit then 
> goes back to Gringott's for more Muggle money.
> 
> Can't you just see it?  ...  "Creevey Bros. Trading Co., Ltd."  
> ... Muggle trucks (okay, lorries) arrive all day long and unload 
> their goods, but no trucks ever take anything out again.  Do you 
> suppose they could be making their deliveries by Floo Powder?  
> With a really large fireplace?
> 
> Annemehr

bboy_mn still thinking: (oowwww... it's making my head hurt)
I love this idea that the wizards would treat the muggle world as a
foriegn country that they are importing from. I think that's exactly
how they do it. 

I think to some extent the wizard world tries to be a self-sustaining
ecomony. They try as much as possible to create all things in the
wizard world, but that is nearly impossible, so bright entrepreneurs
fill the void with imports from the wizard world.

Back in Nov., I made some statement indicating that the wizard economy
indicated a pretty substantial wizard world. Although, on the surface
that may not seem so. If you simply look at Diagon Alley and say there
is nothing here but a few shops, how much could it take to support
them. But think of everything that goes into making Fortesque's ice
cream; milk, fruit, sugar, cold storage, containers, bowls, spoons,
glasses, chairs, tables, etc... Then think of Tom's pub. Where does
all that ale come from? Most typical English pubs have a dozen
different ales on tap and other ales in bottles. The Leaky cauldron
may not have that many, but they must have a few choices, so, several
wizard ales, and several wizard liguors. That means farms, grain,
yeast, transportation, bottles and barrels, breweries, brewery
workers, distilleries, etc.... Think of all the hardware it take to
run a brewery or distillery. When you only look at the shop, you don't
see much, but when you consider all the hidden industry that's
necessary for that shop to be in business, your view of the wizard
business world becomes very complex.
-bboy_mn-end this part-


>Alexander said in another post:
>
>I completely agree with the theory, but we still must find
>some proofs that Wizards are selling something on Muggle
>market.
>
>Alexander Lomski,

bboy_mn adds:
Just my opinion. I think there are wizard goods that enter the muggle
market but I don't see that as a huge industry. Although, it would be
pretty hard for a good wizard business man to ignore a market that
big. But I think it is limited to a small quantity of finely crafted
items like fine custom hand-made furniture and a few special items. It
could be common items or product, but very specialized versions of them. 

For example, in one of my fics, Harry developes a taste for ginger
ale/beer. So as a gift, Ron has a muggle bottler bottle some high
quality all natural potent tasting ginger ale/beer with Harry Potter's
Wizard's Brew labels. Initially, it just something on a small scale as
a treat for Harry. But other people like it, so they get Dobby to come
up with his own recipe, and turn it into a business. This is an
example of a common product, but also a specialty product. There isn't
a huge market for potent ginger beer in the muggle world. House-elves
make and bottle it using magic, but the ginger beer itself has no
magic in it; ginger, hint of lemon, hint of lime, dash of vanilla,
that's all. So there is no restriction on selling it to muggles. 

However, I think when you get into mass production, high volume
products, you become a little too noticable to the muggles, especially
the tax man who wants to know where your factories are, how much you
pay your employees, are you paying you income, Social Security, and
business taxes. Nope, once you get beyond a small specialized
business, things start to get sticky. Also, since a furniture cabinet
can be created with a few waves of a wand, the labor is very low, and
it would give you an unfair advantage in the market.

The import of muggle goods into the wizard world is much less complicated.
- bboy_mn -end this part-


> Alexander in another post:
> 
> In modern Muggle world movement of precious metals and gems is 
> strictly controlled and monitored by governments, and any "source" 
> of such wealth would immediately attract Muggle attention.
> 
>Alexander Lomski,

bboy_mn with some additional thoughts:
The value of things seems to be a little different in the wizard
world. I'm reminded of the first time Harry enters Gringotts. He sees
goblins examining Rubies the size of bowling balls (OK, maybe I
exaggerated, it was the size of an egg). In the muggle world, the
existance of an uncut clear well-formed ruby crystal the size of an
egg would be international news. Yet in the wizard world, it seems to
be relatively common. The Grydffindor sword had a cut ruby the size of
an egg. I don't think that diminishes the actual dollar or galleon
value of rubies, but it does make there existance much more common
than in the muggle world, so you couldn't bring one into or out of the
muggle world without someone noticing.

So this is the dreaded 'me to'/'I agree' post. I believe that there is
commerical interaction between the muggle world and the wizard world,
but it has to have some controls and limitation to prevent problems
with the muggle authorities. While we haven't seen it in canon, I have
to believe there is a branch of the wizarding government that controls
commerce between the two worlds. Definitely something that needs to be
regulated.
-bboy_mn-end this part-

bboy_mn with a last note:
Some people find references to fan fiction annoying, pointless and off
topic, but fan fiction is someone's expression of their view of the
wizard world. It describes a way in which one person has resolved
unknowns in the wizard world, a way in which someone has come up with
practical solutions to problems that aren't dealt with in canon. In
expanding the HP world through fiction, you run into a lot of problems
that need solutions, and no solution equals no or a bad story. 

But we do that here all the time; we 'fill in the blanks'. Valid
relevant references to fan fic are just descriptions of how one person
filled in those blanks. But I will also say the invalid irrelevant
references have no place in the discussion.

Just a few thoughts.

bboy_mn