I got the idea watching Vikings which IK not the most historically accurate but some of it I believe gives a decent look at events and culture after looking into it.

Anyways in the beginning they discover a land west (England) after poor raiding to the East for a while due to their neighbors being pretty poor. However England is a much richer land and they come back very successful with lots of gold. It got me to thinking how does a small poor village handle an increase in wealth like that? The raid has not really created much of any positive economic activity (no goods or services produced) but has brought a lot of currency. Did this result in inflation? Were the raids beneficial to Vikings?

Also feel free to answer with the affect on any people that raided and brought back gold to their area as IK Vikings written history is very scarce. Mostly want to know how stealing things like gold or silver on a large scale would help/affect an economy when nothing with real value (practical use) came out of raiding other people.