User blog comment:JoshofBlades/Why the Empire Should Prevail Over the Stormcloaks! Part 3 (Economics)/@comment-4098609-20111123001855

Yeah, because the Empire has such a *great* economy at the minute. What with being the Dominion's bitch and all, and still recovering from two hilariously disastrous wars.

You also seem to have missed that Skyrim doesn't *have* to use Septims as their currency. They could make their own currency (Skyrim has plenty of gold deposits to back it up), or (more likely) use whatever currency the Thalmor have when they inevitably get invaded three seconds after declaring independance.