Scene 7: The Missing Piece: How inflation erodes the value of money
Thomas bent down, picking up a small stick from the side of the trail.
He scratched a small circle in the dirt.
“This circle is your money.”
Then he drew a larger circle around it.
“And this is the total money supply. Your money is one small part of the whole.”
Lucas smirked. “Yeah, a very small part.”
Thomas tapped the stick lightly against the ground.
“Now imagine someone adds more money. A few digital keystrokes—poof.”
He scratched out the first outer circle and drew a much bigger one.
“Your piece didn’t change," Thomas said, tracing the inner circle again. "But compared to the whole, it's worth less. You hold the same handful—but it buys you a lot less.”
Lucas stared at the simple drawing, feeling the weight of it settle in.
It was like the value was leaking through his fingers—quietly, invisibly, but real.
“That’s why scarcity matters," Thomas said. "Without it, the other traits—durability, transferability, divisibility, recognizability—mean nothing. Without scarcity, value slips away—the money doesn’t move value through time.”
Lucas shifted his weight. “So that’s what the Mises quote meant? From the Meetup?”
Thomas nodded, his voice steady.
“Yeah. ‘When a government increases the quantity of paper money, the purchasing power of the monetary unit drops, and prices rise. That’s inflation.’”
He stood, brushing his hands off.
“So when we think about good money,” Thomas continued, “we want something that’s: durable, easily transferable, divisible, recognizable—and scarce.”
Lucas stared down at the circles again—the small piece he thought he held, and the larger world that could shift around him without warning.
He tapped his coffee lid absently, thinking.
“Okay, I get it," he said slowly. "I definitely understand money better now. Why we use something like the dollar instead of... three-eyed fish."
He hesitated, the old logic clashing with something he couldn’t yet name.
“But still... what’s the point of all this? I mean, I came to you because things feel off. Like what used to work doesn’t work anymore. And you take me on this detour into money theory…”
Thomas didn’t interrupt, letting the question hang in the air.
Thomas smiled—not dismissive, but knowing.
“Truth is," he said, "you can't fix a leaking boat until you see where the cracks are."
Lucas said nothing.
He looked again at the simple dirt circles, feeling something tighten inside him—a pressure, a weight he hadn’t noticed until now.
As they walked on, the trees around them thinned, and the river widened ahead.
But the ground beneath Lucas’s feet suddenly felt less certain.