One of everyone's favorite subject in the U.S. nowadays is the economy. It seems the same sentiment is mirrored in Final Fantasy 11 as well.

Everyone loves to complain about how the economy in the game is in a depression. SquareEnix has been banning RMT (real money trade) accounts left and right, and billions of gil leave the servers every month. Unfortunately, this is gil that would have recirculated back into the economy in one way, shape or form. With that gone, everyone has become a lot more stingy with their spending, and conversely items that formerly commanded millions of gil now sell for several hundred thousand. There's also a huge gil sink known as Dynamis, which costs 1 million gil each time a linkshell attempts it. Most linkshells will run twice a week, and on an average day, probably about 5-6 linkshells will enter Dynamis. So, 35 million gil a week dissapears into oblivion. Same goes for events such as Limbus and Einherjar, however the costs are a bit lower. Even with 10 people entering a Limbus area however means 300K gil dissapears from the economy.

As for gil generators, pretty much the same ones exist now as they existed 3-4 years ago, when the economy was healthy. So it seems gil making hasn't kept up with the bannings, and everyone is slowly bleeding their gil away...

At least it seems that way. In reality, the markets are alive and well. The trailing zeroes aren't as long when you look at the AH history, but everything else has decreased in tune with each other. Shrewd buyers who watch the weekly cycle of buying and selling can make a decent living just watching the auction houses. High level crafters can reliably synth items that sell for a profit.. to NPCs. Farming basic consumables for said crafters can turn a tidy profit as well.