Economy: a system of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth. And your arguement: Rares are not the economy Verdict: true there are many other factors affecting the economy of runescape apart from rare items. Producers: mainly primary skillers: miners, fishers, woodcutters, farmers.(drops from monsters too) Distributers: Merchants, also secondary skillers: smithers, cookers, alchemists. Consumers: before construction the major consumer of wealth was the party hat. along with magic combat and some quest and shop items. this is why rares are so expensive as the "system" is out of balance, many producers, people turning this into cash, lots of cash = inflated prices... without the rares (phats especially) there would be masses of spare coin and items in the game, therefore paul hartman's utility items would increase in value. = not good, lots more work for producers. Party hats = good for "utility" economy. Construction: where does this fit in? well because of the system inbalance jagex decided to "consume" some of the additional cash, makes perfect sense, however there is so much value held in phats that even construction hasnt had the desired effect, at least not yet, of curbing phat inflation. yes paulhartman has sound ideas some can be argued against, this is all theory and no right or wrong (within reason), however he took a long time to say not a lot... flame me away! 8-)