Game of Thrones: Shame Cersei, you lost your food supply

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the eagerly-awaited season 7 premiere of HBO's hit TV series, "Game of Thrones," Jon Snow and Cersei Lannister each learned some tough lessons about having scarce resources.

At least, that is what intrigued us as economics writers for The Associated Press. We're watching how economic issues affect the characters' schemes for power, and finding parallels with our own world. The latest episode of our audio show, the "Wealth of Westeros," can be found here .

Snow, the brooding "King of the North" who faces an impending invasion by ice zombies, needs more dragonglass, which we call obsidian. It can kill the zombies, but he doesn't know where one of the biggest stockpiles is.

No one in Westeros, where "Game of Thrones" takes place, has needed massive stockpiles of dragonglass for thousands of years. So maybe that's why they lost track of one of the biggest veins, which lies under a castle named "Dragonstone."

Only in the season 7 premiere did Snow's sidekick, Samwell Tarly, figure this out. Now Snow may have to travel more than a thousand miles to find his precious glass.

Husbanding resources to bolster national security is an important consideration in the modern-day United States as well. Just as dragonglass is crucial to Westerosi security, the Trump administration has been considering whether national security is a sufficient reason to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The metals are used in tanks, armored vehicles, and fighter jets, so some officials argue that restricting imports is critical to U.S. security.

But the Trump administration is doing so out of concerns that excess production by China hurts U.S. steel companies — that is, there's too much steel, not too little.