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David_Gerard comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong
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Early '90s. That'd be a JANET connection, which was an academic network. I expect AOL or Compuserve might be possible. We're talking about the mists of prehistory here, i.e. before 1995. Heck, it was even before the National Lottery was operating in the UK (that started 1994). The stock market would be playable, if he had a suitable adult to front for him.
No, how he makes serious money in the muggle world in 1991 Britain may require actual research.
There was virtually no online trading for individual investors until about 1994. You had to phone your full-service or discount broker and talk to him (or very rarely her) to make a trade.
Eh no... Harry has Mining++ also known as partial transfiguration. Now EY didn't believe that to be enough so he also equipped Harry with an invisibility cloak a bag AND a suitcase of holding.
If Harry is really pressed for cash and some rules against arbitrage, stock market manipulation, insurance fraud (which he should be able to do to an amount that's not even funny to think about) exist, he still has one glaringly easy way of earning shit tons. He should be able to, as soon as he is allowed to use magic outside school (which IIRC is at 17 which is before his last year at Hogwarts' starts; the 31st of July to be exact) of doing the following:
a) Robin Hood his way through pretty much anything (Invis+teleport is an old classic) b) mine diamonds/gold/other valuable resources by using partial transfiguration, invisibility and if need be Apparation.Some mines in Somalia are just waiting for a wizard to abuse them... c) and of course just straight up gambling.
Sincerely: this stuff doesn't even require a lot of thinking. He could also just do some honest transport business of high quality wares... Teleportation is a whole lot faster than anything else I can think of.
"Hi. See this gold bar I have in this box? See this silver bar I have in this box? Buy gold if the exchange rate falls below X, and deliver it to Y address. Buy silver if the gold exchange rate goes ABOVE this rate, and then start selling the gold. These bars? Oh, yeah. They're seed money for the operation. We'll talk once you've depleted the funds for this operation."