Think about what else those resources could have been used for. The Spanish Empire's silver trade was the first truly global market. Even India was involved, but we're really out of time. And its consequences were dire, even if it did make some people rich. Both Spain and China experienced inflation that weakened their governments. The environment suffered. The search for precious metals led the Spanish to find and eventually destroy two of the world's great empires, the Aztecs and the Inca.