09/02/24
Economics in Money Heist
Author: Dhruv Kumar
Editor: David Sun
Scarcity—the idea that individuals have unlimited wants and limited resources—couldn’t have been shown better in the show Money Heist. Money Heist is a show where a group—each member having names of capitals of different countries—prints money continuously inside banks.
In economics, opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative lost when a choice is made. In the movie, instead of robbing banks with the neverending risk of getting caught, they could have lived a peaceful life without fear every time they woke up.
In times of need, governments play a crucial role in the economy. They often intervene in the economy to stabilize and regulate markets. This often happens in recessionary or inflationary gaps. Recessionary gaps are when the economy's current equilibrium is less than the long-run equilibrium (an economy’s full potential), while an inflationary gap is the exact opposite.
In response to the heist, the government called upon its police force, attempted to negotiate with the robbers, and managed the public perception.
As the robbers controlled the money supply, if they gave all the money they printed to the public, it would have completely disrupted the economy. In economics, demand refers to the public's desires for certain resources, while supply is the amount of resources available in an economy. The law of supply and demand states that when supply exceeds demand, prices will fall; conversely, when demand exceeds supply, prices will rise. In this scenario, the general public will have more to be able to spend on goods and resources, increasing demand. However, since the supply remains unchanged, inflation (a general rise in the price of goods) would begin to occur.