I completely agree. Recall also Draco’s speech about muggles scratching in the dirt, and his reaction to Harry’s estimate of the lunar program budget. It’s not just wizards not paying attention to relative values of gold and silver in the muggle world—for the most part, the possibility that there could be a substantial amount of either in the muggle world doesn’t occur to them. Now you might expect muggleborns to know better, even after making allowances for the fact that they enter the wizarding world at age 11. On the other hand, if a muggleborn is clever enough to see the potential for profit, they might also be clever enough to see what Harry apparently does not—that calling attention to the fact that the muggles are ripe for exploitation is a Bad Idea.
I would actually suspect parents of a half blood (is there a name for this?) would be the weak link, rather than muggle-born children.
You’ve got people who have lived their whole lives as muggles, then suddenly they fall in love and get married and find out their spouse is a wizard. They’ve spent ~20 years in the muggle world and probably have a career of their own. No way they don’t ask their spouse to spend a couple hours and let them both live like kings for the rest of their lives. And if they don’t even get that much information about their other’s life, that’s some seriously messed up power dynamics in that household.
I’m thinking more “Go magic that banker and we’ll be rich.”
Or “Hey can you use that wicker spinmaster thingy to get us the lotto numbers?” I presume if the witch/wizard owned one they’d figure out what it does eventually. They’d have to after a long enough time living together.
Also, as Harry himself speculates, muggleborns, like his mother, probably tend to fall into the habit of not thinking of muggles as Real People anymore, because it’s too emotionally taxing, and they’re living in a different world. They may stop concerning themselves with the muggle world much by the time they’re grown up. The muggle raised wizards in the original canon certainly seemed to.
All good points, but I don’t think Harry is planning on “calling atttention to the fact that the muggles are ripe for exploitation”. He’s presumably planning to make the money without anyone except one or two adults he needs for transportation/permission/whatever knowing how he did it.
I completely agree. Recall also Draco’s speech about muggles scratching in the dirt, and his reaction to Harry’s estimate of the lunar program budget. It’s not just wizards not paying attention to relative values of gold and silver in the muggle world—for the most part, the possibility that there could be a substantial amount of either in the muggle world doesn’t occur to them. Now you might expect muggleborns to know better, even after making allowances for the fact that they enter the wizarding world at age 11. On the other hand, if a muggleborn is clever enough to see the potential for profit, they might also be clever enough to see what Harry apparently does not—that calling attention to the fact that the muggles are ripe for exploitation is a Bad Idea.
I would actually suspect parents of a half blood (is there a name for this?) would be the weak link, rather than muggle-born children.
You’ve got people who have lived their whole lives as muggles, then suddenly they fall in love and get married and find out their spouse is a wizard. They’ve spent ~20 years in the muggle world and probably have a career of their own. No way they don’t ask their spouse to spend a couple hours and let them both live like kings for the rest of their lives. And if they don’t even get that much information about their other’s life, that’s some seriously messed up power dynamics in that household.
Pop quiz: What percentage of Muggles have ever heard the word “arbitrage”?
(Retracted because reply makes sense)
I’m thinking more “Go magic that banker and we’ll be rich.”
Or “Hey can you use that wicker spinmaster thingy to get us the lotto numbers?” I presume if the witch/wizard owned one they’d figure out what it does eventually. They’d have to after a long enough time living together.
Also, as Harry himself speculates, muggleborns, like his mother, probably tend to fall into the habit of not thinking of muggles as Real People anymore, because it’s too emotionally taxing, and they’re living in a different world. They may stop concerning themselves with the muggle world much by the time they’re grown up. The muggle raised wizards in the original canon certainly seemed to.
All good points, but I don’t think Harry is planning on “calling atttention to the fact that the muggles are ripe for exploitation”. He’s presumably planning to make the money without anyone except one or two adults he needs for transportation/permission/whatever knowing how he did it.