Professional Farmers

[TheWesson]

I don't have time to educate you on the nature of inflation.  Here is a link to an analysis of the state of things in 16th century Spain.
Suffice it to say that inflation is a combination of many factors, supply, demand and money supply.  Spain saw all those factors converge in a short period of time, with fewer producers, more consumers, and huge influxes of gold into the money supply.

Wikipedia - Causes of Inflation

If you extend 16th Century Spain to WoW, as toons cap they enter the luxury class and will not be bothered to farm an item, supply therefore drops and demand remains constant or increases.  Couple that with the steady increase in money supply devaluing gold, and you will see high inflation on all goods and services.  The more gold that drops and is not spent into the game (mounts, training, faction stuff, etc) devalues all the gold on the server. 

Trust me, as someone who plays the AH religiously, I'm watching the prices on most things creep upward every week.  I call that inflation.
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But why do you think there is gold but few or no objects to be purchased with that gold entering the WoW economy?

The toons-capping idea is interesting --- but are you really supposing that capped toons, MC-worthy and beyond, do not purchase anything? and merely accumulate gold from gold drops and selling to vendors?

and therefore have chronically surplus gold?

you lvl-60's out there how about that, do you have "too much gold" and can't even spend it except by throwing it around like water?

i know my sole lvl-60 is chronically poor. i kind of gather a lot of lvl-60's end up farming for gold to be able to continue raiding, given the expense in pot's and repairs ... any other sample-points (lvl 60er's) want to offer their view of the world?

edit:
don't the 'older' lvl-60 toons end up selling BoE blues and purples to the 'younger' lvl-60 toons, just to make money?

don't a lot of lvl-60 toons just retire, when an alt is made?

personally I think that eventually everything on the server will be priced in terms of how much gold a lvl-60 makes per hour - and be stable around that point.

i suspect that a capped toon makes about 2g an hour and so whatever mats take a half hour to gather will converge to be worth about 1g.