How much money is there on Earth?

[Kaneki Kun]

[video=youtube;w2tKg3E53DM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2tKg3E53DM[/video]

 

[RoguePatriot]

I watched it as soon as he uploaded it XD
<3 Vsauce

 

[Kaneki Kun]

NB Vsauce NATION!

 

[Holy Cross]

I have 300 bucks in my wallet =D

 

[hixa kuogame]

I have 300 bucks in my wallet =D

i have 354
jk im broke

 

[Darthlawsuit]

Are we talking about objects of value or pretty pieces of paper that are printed by the billion every day?

 

[Shinobi Train]

Money, and what it's worth, are two different things. The global economy is set by the US dollar for the most part, but the dollar itself is supposed to be backed by gold. There should only be as much money as there is gold because that's what the bill is purchasing, a portion of the gold. Instead of trading gold back and forth, it's easier to have a certificate, such as the dollar bill, which states said person owns such amount of gold.

It's not backed by the gold anymore though, so realistically this piece of paper is worthless. However, people have decided to use imaginary gold or something, I'm not sure what's going on, but that's not valid currency except in the minds of people.

This is what drags the value of the dollar down, along with many other things of course, but it's kinda' hard to say something is worth something when it's not worth anything. lol I'm not sure why the gov. cares whether people forge money...that's all the federal reserve is doing, printing worthless bills, so what's the problem? (I'm joking at this point of course, but you get my drift, it's stupid on a certain level.)

 

[Aim64C]

This should serve as an illustration of the difference between "Money/Currency," "Capital," and "Wealth."

Any form of currency is inherently worthless. Even gold. The only things with intrinsic value to the individual are those that he/she can use directly. In most cases - you cannot use gold; it serves no functional purpose in your life. The same goes with a dollar bill or its corresponding digits in a bank account.

There are a few exceptions to this - but currency only gets its value from the perceived ability to barter it for things that a person does need or things that do have intrinsic value. That's it.

Capital is a reserved amount of barterable item. This can be a currency. This can be simply a stock of grain (granted, such is not a very liquid capital asset - it's much more difficult to handle and use for transactions). Capital is an estimate of your contribution to society that you have yet to collect an equivalent exchange for. In essence - capital holdings are a way of saying: "This is how much productivity I speak for, but I have not equally traded all of my time/work/etc."

Which is when we get to wealth. Wealth is generated by productivity - something others are willing to trade their endeavors for. Wealth is not given, such is impossible.

Capital in the form of currency can be given, but not wealth.

To illustrate even more:

How many remember minimum wage at $5.25? When it was raised - it was supposed to hearald a new era of prosperity for the common man. The same when, a few years later, it was rased to $7.50. Now... this is looking at only one segment of the economy, but I remember when a value meal used to be about $3.75 going up to about $4.25. Working at minimum wage for the time, a value meal was roughly one hour of your time on the clock. Now a value meal is close to $6.75 or even higher. You still work roughly an hour for the same product.

You have more money. You may even have more capital. But your wealth is the same.

 

[Shinobi Train]

This should serve as an illustration of the difference between "Money/Currency," "Capital," and "Wealth."

Any form of currency is inherently worthless. Even gold. The only things with intrinsic value to the individual are those that he/she can use directly. In most cases - you cannot use gold; it serves no functional purpose in your life. The same goes with a dollar bill or its corresponding digits in a bank account.

There are a few exceptions to this - but currency only gets its value from the perceived ability to barter it for things that a person does need or things that do have intrinsic value. That's it.

Capital is a reserved amount of barterable item. This can be a currency. This can be simply a stock of grain (granted, such is not a very liquid capital asset - it's much more difficult to handle and use for transactions). Capital is an estimate of your contribution to society that you have yet to collect an equivalent exchange for. In essence - capital holdings are a way of saying: "This is how much productivity I speak for, but I have not equally traded all of my time/work/etc."

Which is when we get to wealth. Wealth is generated by productivity - something others are willing to trade their endeavors for. Wealth is not given, such is impossible.

Capital in the form of currency can be given, but not wealth.

To illustrate even more:

How many remember minimum wage at $5.25? When it was raised - it was supposed to hearald a new era of prosperity for the common man. The same when, a few years later, it was rased to $7.50. Now... this is looking at only one segment of the economy, but I remember when a value meal used to be about $3.75 going up to about $4.25. Working at minimum wage for the time, a value meal was roughly one hour of your time on the clock. Now a value meal is close to $6.75 or even higher. You still work roughly an hour for the same product.

You have more money. You may even have more capital. But your wealth is the same.

Well said. Gold itself is worthless as well, its value is merely perceived. However, the problem now is that we're dealing with a fake value tied to a perceived thing that isn't even there to begin with. I don't know about the rest of you, but to me, that's really f'ed up.

Nice example with the wages vs food cost, food is a massive part of living expenses, so that really shows things well (like putting an object in a picture to show scale).

Everyone should be informed of one thing in particular, though; especially people that complain about taxes and inflation or whatever. You can decide, at any time, to go off in the wilderness where there's nobody, build yourself a structure or find a cave to fix up, and live for free off the land. It's not impossible, difficult maybe, but hey, it's free of all the things people complain about. It comes with a new set of problems, and most aren't willing to go there, however, the cost of living in society means you must put up with the other stuff. It's not good either way, so I say people should stop complaining. ^_^

 

[Naruto D Luffy]

i have 354
jk im broke

I have 400

 

[Aim64C]

Well said. Gold itself is worthless as well, its value is merely perceived. However, the problem now is that we're dealing with a fake value tied to a perceived thing that isn't even there to begin with. I don't know about the rest of you, but to me, that's really f'ed up.

It's nothing really all that new.

And at least in theory - a properly controlled fiat currency is just as (if not more) effective than gold.

Of course, we took the concept of a controlled currency and threw it out the window long, long ago. Then made it even worse by telling banks that they did not need to have money in their vaults to cover their liabilities (for a bank, any positive bank account is a liability to pay that amount to an individual). By giving them a free ride to exploit fractional reserve banking to completely insane extremes - the banks were ingeneously set up to fail.

Banks that did stick to common sense lost value and investors (also because they couldn't compete with the interest rates of other banks). Banks that didn't were destined to fail in the long run. Die in the short term or play hot potato with the long term.

In the end - "banksters" were effectively created by the government and perfectly positioned to take all the blame while making the case for increased government authority and regulation over the economy.

I'd say it was a brilliant strategy if it wasn't a complete and total accident fueled by treasonous incompetence.

Nice example with the wages vs food cost, food is a massive part of living expenses, so that really shows things well (like putting an object in a picture to show scale).

That's how I tend to look at my life: "How many hours/days/weeks worth of work is this?"

Because in the end - that's the bottom line, how much time do you have to spend on stuff?

Everyone should be informed of one thing in particular, though; especially people that complain about taxes and inflation or whatever. You can decide, at any time, to go off in the wilderness where there's nobody, build yourself a structure or find a cave to fix up, and live for free off the land. It's not impossible, difficult maybe, but hey, it's free of all the things people complain about. It comes with a new set of problems, and most aren't willing to go there, however, the cost of living in society means you must put up with the other stuff. It's not good either way, so I say people should stop complaining. ^_^

Actually, I think there are some strange laws regarding this. I'm not sure anyone has really researched the legality... but you're either going to end up settling on someone's owned land or on some state/federal reservation/preserve... and that could get very iffy with the laws. Though there are places in the U.S. that are still pretty much like this. Plywood and dirt floors, cooking over a fireplace... like Little House on the Prarie except it's a pinewood forest and modern stuff is available for the occasional trade. ... I'm not talking about Amish, either. Amish are more high-society, bluntly.

Anyway - there is an interesting 'new thing' coming up.

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It's really quite an interesting concept. There are only 21 million bitcoins that will ever be produced within the system. There is no central regulating authority spare for a network of clients and 'workers' that develop the cryptography chain. The more computing power put into the chain, the stronger the encryption and the more secure the system becomes. Those who help build the cryptography chain are rewarded with transaction fees that the network applies to transactions (a sort of tax, if you will).

Bitcoins are not replacable. Bitcoins can be transfered in divisible pieces as small as eight decimal places.

No government or authority has the authority (much less the capability) to issue new bitcoins.

Even if it never establishes itself as a currency - it's still very interesting in how it develops a -deflationary- currency model. It's quite interesting, and the way in which the system works allows for some interesting possibilities when it comes to researching how people behave with their money (although banking institutions would treat bitcoin completely differently than fiat currency... you -can't- get carried away with fractional reserve banking when no one has the capability to bail you out, even if they were to write it as a law... because the bitcoin program doesn't give a shit).

 

[YowYan]

I have 400

I have 400 and 1 u_u