Ice Age trading epic Story

[PTScalper]

"Grug," Thok said slowly. "We have no sticks. We have no berries. We gave them all to you for pelts. Now we have pelts, but no food. You have all sticks and all food."

Grug frowned. "Yes, that is called winning capitalism."

"But if nobody has anything to trade with Grug," Borg pointed out, "then Grug cannot trade. Grug just sitting on big pile of stuff."

Grug stopped. He looked at his massive pile of wealth. Borg was right. The economy had ground to an absolute halt. You couldn't have a market if one guy held 100% of the liquidity. He had effectively vacuumed up all the circulating currency (sticks and berries) and hoarded it.

[PTScalper]

The Chief, sensing the unrest (and also being very hungry), waddled out of his large cave. He looked at the miserable, impoverished tribe, and then at Grug’s grotesque display of wealth.

"This is bad for morale," the Chief grunted. "Tribe needs to trade. But tribe has no money."

"It's a liquidity crisis," Grug explained helpfully. "We need a stimulus package."

The Chief scratched his head. He looked around the valley. His eyes fell on a large, vibrant oak tree near the river. Its leaves were turning a brilliant, shiny golden-yellow as the sudden cold snap tricked the tree into thinking it was autumn.

The Chief walked over to the tree, ripped off a handful of shiny yellow leaves, and walked back to the fire.

[PTScalper]

"Listen to Chief!" he bellowed.

The tribe looked up.

"Sticks are gone. Berries are gone. From now on..." the Chief held up the handful of yellow leaves. "...these shiny leaves are money."

Silence.

"Leaves?" Ugg grunted. "Leaves not money. Leaves are leaves. Cannot eat. Cannot stab with."

"Chief says they are money!" the Chief roared, his face turning purple. "Chief has the biggest cave! Chief has the biggest stick! Chief says leaf is money, so leaf is money!"

Grug’s jaw dropped. The Chief had just unpegged the currency from physical utility. Sticks had value because they could stab things. Berries had value because you could eat them. But these leaves? They had value purely by decree.

[PTScalper]

"This is madness!" Grug yelled. "You can't just declare a leaf is worth a berry! It has no intrinsic value!"

"It has value because I say it does," the Chief retorted. He walked over to Thok and handed him five yellow leaves. "Here, Thok. Stimulus check."

Thok looked at the leaves. He looked at Grug’s pile of berries. Thok walked over to Grug.

"Grug," Thok said holding out the leaves. "I buy berries. Five leaves."

"I am not taking leaves!" Grug shouted. "Leaves are garbage!"

[PTScalper]

The Chief stepped behind Grug and rested his very large, official Chief-club on Grug's shoulder. "Grug will accept the shiny leaf as legal tender for all debts public and private. Or Grug will be exiled to the bad part of the tundra."

Grug looked at the club. He looked at the leaves. He sighed and handed Thok five berries.

The crowd went wild. Free money!

Within an hour, the tribe had stripped the lower branches of the oak tree bare. Everyone was suddenly rich. They rushed to Cave Street, waving fists full of leaves.

"Buy pelt! Ten leaves!"
"Buy fish! Five leaves!"
"Buy Ugg's club! Fifty leaves!" (Ugg declined this offer, but the bid was placed).

[PTScalper]

The economy roared back to life. Grug sat on his boulder, reluctantly accepting leaves for his real, tangible goods. He was terrified, but he couldn't deny that the liquidity had returned. Trading volume was at an all-time high. The Chief had solved the crisis.

"Behold the power of Fiat currency!" Grug muttered to himself, stuffing leaves into his pouch. "Backed by absolutely nothing but the threat of violence."

It seemed perfect. It seemed like endless wealth. Until Grug looked up at the oak tree, and then at the forest behind it, and realized a horrifying meteorological fact.

It was late August. Autumn was coming. And there were a million oak trees in the valley.

[PTScalper]

Part 14: Inflation

Cave Street was experiencing an economic boom unlike anything the Pleistocene had ever seen. The velocity of the shiny yellow leaf was staggering.

Grug, initially skeptical of the Chief's fiat decree, had adapted. He had traded away half his mammoth pelts and berry reserves for an enormous pile of yellow leaves. He was, on paper (or rather, on leaf), the richest man in the valley. He felt a deep, warm sense of financial security.

Then came September.

The brief summer blizzard had triggered an early autumn. One crisp morning, Grug woke up, stretched, and walked out of his cave to survey his domain. A brisk wind blew through the valley.

Grug watched in mounting horror as a massive gust of wind hit the great oak forest on the ridge.

[PTScalper]

Millions. Millions of shiny yellow leaves detached from the branches and fluttered gently down into the valley like a golden snowstorm. It was beautiful. It was majestic.

It was hyperinflation.

Grug sprinted down to the trading floor. It was absolute bedlam.

Traders were running around with armfuls, baskets, and literal pelts stuffed with yellow leaves. They were scooping them off the ground. The money supply hadn't just doubled; it had expanded by ten thousand percent in twenty minutes.

Lom ran up to Ugg, breathless, dropping a massive pile of leaves at the giant's feet. "Ugg! Buy premium mammoth steak! Hundred leaves!"

Ugg looked at the pile of leaves. He looked at the sky, where millions more leaves were currently falling.

[PTScalper]

"Hundred leaves?" Ugg snorted. "Ugg just breathed in and swallowed five leaves. Leaves everywhere. Ugg not give steak for hundred leaves. Steak is rare. Leaves are dirt."

"Two hundred leaves!" Lom countered desperately.

"Ugg want... one thousand leaves," Ugg declared, adjusting his ask to account for the rapidly expanding money supply.

Grug rushed to his boulder. He needed to offload his leaves immediately before they became completely worthless. He grabbed Thok.

[PTScalper]

"Thok! I want to buy my pointy sticks back! Ten leaves for a stick!" Grug yelled.

Thok, who was currently using a pile of leaves as a makeshift mattress, laughed. "Ten leaves? Grug is crazy. Thok used ten leaves to wipe nose this morning. Stick costs five hundred leaves now."

Grug watched his purchasing power evaporate in real-time. Yesterday, his pile of leaves could have bought Ugg's cave. Today, it couldn't buy a slightly bruised fish. The inflation rate was so high you could physically watch the prices change while a leaf fluttered from the branch to the ground.

"This is madness!" Grug screamed, standing on his boulder. "The Central Chief is printing too much money! The monetary policy is literally falling from the sky!"