How Much Money is in the World?

[analog_kidd]

I recently went on vacation and discovered these things called "Podcasts". Just kidding, I knew about them, but never really had time to check any out. 

 

Anyway, I listened to a PodCast called "Stuff you Should Know" and the topic was "How much money is in the world." They really focused on US dollars for most of the episode. 

 

It turns out that the US Fed keeps track of this, because they like to count money, and has a few technical names for different kinds of money:

 

M0: This is actual money that people have in their wallets, buried in mason jars and stuffed under the mattress. This totals up to $1.2 trillion.

M1:  This is all of M0 plus things like checking accounts, travellers checks. This is about $2.5 trillion

M2:  This is the M1 supply plus accounts such as savings account, money markets, etc. This is about $10.5 trillion

 

For a best guess estimate of all the money in the entire world, here are the figures:

 

M0:  $5.2 trillion

M2:  $55 trillion

 

If you are interested, the Podcast in a readable webpage form can be found here: http://money.howstuffworks.com/how-much-money-is-in-the-world.htm

 

 

After listening to the story, and thinking about it for a while I got to thinking about how much the US debt is. I just checked and the Debt is currently at $16.9 trillion. Think about that for a second. There is not enough US dollars in the whole world to pay off our national debt.

[Lowpower]

Plus......as much as the major countries wanna make?  :D

[bersaguy]

It was a lot easier to keep track of before President Nixon took of off the Gold System and went to the Paper Money system. In the gold system we could not print or have more money in circulation than we could cover in Gold. Now with the paper system there is no real way to control our have any accurate accounts of how much money the U.S. really has and the way Obama is printing it I guess the U.S. is worth as much as Obama can get the printing presses at the Treasury to print....At least that is how he spends it...........jmho

[UncleJak]

Good post! I personally believe that we have closer to $0. Money is fake and built on a system of fake. Goods and services are truly the only real "money". Our currency and debt are very similar to the man who built his house on the sand; it can was away at anytime. And the numbers posted prove that: more debt than dollars.

sent barefoot from the hills of Tennessee

[Guest 6.8 AR]

It was a lot easier to keep track of before President Nixon took of off the Gold System and went to the Paper Money system. In the gold system we could not print or have more money in circulation than we could cover in Gold. Now with the paper system there is no real way to control our have any accurate accounts of how much money the U.S. really has and the way Obama is printing it I guess the U.S. is worth as much as Obama can get the printing presses at the Treasury to print....At least that is how he spends it...........jmho

That's partially true. The value of gold is now variable, rather than artificially fixed at $35 an ounce. It could go back to the

gold standard and we would have a more honest accounting, but the paper dollar could still be adjusted against the current

value of gold, and then be inflated. At least it would have some kind of backing instead of credit, which makes it fiat. Allowing

the Treasury to print money absolutely decreases its value. Nothing to back it except the vapor of the moment.

 

Either way, there is only a perceived value placed on the dollar, but I think the dollar was much better served with gold being

the anchor of the currency. The Fed is the problem. It is only placing a temporary bridge over the river bankrupt. Politicians

know this, but continue to encourage the printing because they perceive power in it, even though it is diminishing every day.

 

When the power diminishes, the guns reinforce the lost power, which is what my quote on every post says.

[Lowpower]

I would suggest that since we forgave all debts of every country in the world after WW2 that we forgive ourselves and tell the world we owe them nothing

starting Jan 01, 2014. Or should they want to pay the USA back with interest, the debt's they made during WW2, I'd call it even.

 

If I remember correctly the only country that actually repaid any debts incurred from the war was Finland.

 

LP 

[Randall53]

Good post! I personally believe that we have closer to $0. Money is fake and built on a system of fake. Goods and services are truly the only real "money". Our currency and debt are very similar to the man who built his house on the sand; it can was away at anytime. And the numbers posted prove that: more debt than dollars.

sent barefoot from the hills of Tennessee

 

You know.....if you think about it this is very true.  I work, provide a service for my company lets say, they pay me in promissory notes (Dollars) in return.  Then I go to the Doctor, lets say, who provides a service to me, then I pay him with the promissory notes (dollars) given to me for my services to my company. So in essence I traded my services to my doctor in an indirect manner for his services to me. Ad infinitem....or ad nauseam.  whichever you prefer.  No...I did not sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I did have some Cabo Wabo... :yum:

[Guest Keal G Seo]

Vsauce is an awesome channel. I sub and watch just about everything they put out. They did one on all the money on earth. They even did some estimates to include non-existent digital currency. IE Credit cards, debt cards etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2tKg3E53DM

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I would suggest that since we forgave all debts of every country in the world after WW2 that we forgive ourselves and tell the world we owe them nothing
starting Jan 01, 2014. Or should they want to pay the USA back with interest, the debt's they made during WW2, I'd call it even.

If I remember correctly the only country that actually repaid any debts incurred from the war was Finland.

LP

Debt cancellation was a feature in some ancient cultures. Notably jewish sabbatical and jubilee years. This page discusses it but can't vouch for the accuracy. Just the first page I found.

http://p2pfoundation.net/Debt_Forgiveness

[Guest TankerHC]

Since Clinton took office the real answer to the question, by the Fed, has changed a bit.

 

The new answer is "As much as you want. We have printers".