How much is the whole world worth?

What is the price of the whole world?

Five quadrillion dollars. Laughlin's figure. 2024 estimate. Arbitrary.

• Mass.
• Temperature.
• Age.
• Life potential.

Factors considered, meaningless. Money's a joke.

The world's priceless. Existence transcends valuation. My bank account reflects this acutely. Zero dollars in it, actually.

Philosophical aside: We assign worth where there's none. Pathetic. Human nature. My cat, however, is priceless. Unlike Earth.

Worthless metrics. Meaningless numbers. Five quadrillion. Ha. Try buying a decent cup of coffee with that. It won't happen.

How much money is there in the world all together?

Okay, so like, all the money in the world?

It's a crazy number. last November 28, 2022, I saw somethin' online... Visual Capitalist, yeh, that's the one!

They said that if you count up all the cash and like, savings accounts, the "M1" supply whatever, was like, $48.9 trillion. Trillion! Can you imagine?

Then they had another number, "M2" or somethin', which is even more stuff, maybe like investments idk. That was $82.6 trillion. Whoah.

I wish I had a tiny fraction of that! LOL, I could finally get that limited edishun comic book I've been eyein' forever.

Here's what makes up M1 and M2 (if you care lol):

• M1: This is the super liquid stuff. Think:
  • Cash that's actually circulatin'
  • Travelers Checks (do people even use those anymore?)
  • Checking Accounts - like where your paycheck goes
  • Savings Accounts - your rainy day fund!
• M2: M1 + a bunch of other stuff that's less liquid:
  • Savings Deposits (even more savings accounts?)
  • Money Market Accounts
  • Small-Denomination Time Deposits (CDs basically)

So, yeah, that's the money situation in a nutshell. Makes my bank account look really sad, haha.

What is the total cost of the Earth?

Okay, so this whole Earth's worth thing… It's crazy, right? I read this article, maybe last week, on some website. I think it was The Merge or something. Anyway, this guy, Dr. Laughlin – Yale prof, apparently – put a price tag on the planet. Five quadrillion dollars. Five! Quadrillion!

My jaw dropped. Seriously. I mean, I know that's an astronomical figure. Pun intended. But still! It made me think. I spent the next hour just staring out my window in my apartment in Brooklyn. 2024 feels insane sometimes.

He factored in things like:

• Rare earth minerals
• All that water
• Land, obviously
• The entire biosphere!

The sheer audacity of even trying to put a number on it blows my mind. It’s so vast, it’s impossible to comprehend. Five quadrillion...it sounds like nonsense. But it was his serious calculation. He's a professor! They know stuff, right?

I started thinking about my own tiny apartment, rent is 3K a month, and then I'm reminded of this absurdly large number. It is something, man. It's just… overwhelming. What a weird thing to even try to calculate. A whole planet’s value. It just… felt wrong. Like putting a price on life itself. And what about the stuff they can't even assess yet?

I should probably look up more articles about this. But for now, I'm going back to work. That rent isn't going to pay itself.

What is the total value of Earth?

Thirty-eight quadrillion dollars! Wow. That's… a lot. Seriously, a LOT. I mean, my student loan debt feels insignificant compared to that. What even is a quadrillion? Seriously, I need to look that up. I wonder how they even calculated that? Did they factor in, like, every single grain of sand? Probably not. Maybe they just did some complex model thing.

It's crazy to think about the Earth's value without us. Like, it's already worth a fortune, right? All the resources, the minerals… The sheer amount of gold alone… Then the biodiversity. The sheer number of species, from microscopic bacteria to giant whales. All priceless, technically.

This 2023 EBI study though, 38 quadrillion. Mind-blowing. That's a number I can barely even comprehend. I bet it's higher now, too. Inflation, you know? Resources are getting scarcer. The Amazon's shrinking... Ugh. Makes you think. Makes you want to actually do something, instead of just staring at numbers on a screen. I really need to recycle more. My apartment building has one of those fancy new sorting machines.

• $38 quadrillion (2020 estimate, likely higher in 2023). This is insane.
• EBI's calculation: Probably involved some complex models. I should really look into the methodology.
• What's included: Minerals, resources, biodiversity...everything, supposedly. Excluding us humans, obviously.
• My personal reaction: Overwhelmed. Need to do better about recycling. Think about the future. The whole planet's future.

How much money does everyone have in the world combined?

Okay, so like, how much money is even out there? I'm talking all the cash and, ya know, bank accounts and stuff.

Well, last year, 2023, they said it was around... hmmm... a whopping 65 trillion dollars or something? That's, uh, a lot.

So, get this, if you split that up, across the entire planet to everyone, like, everyone. Uh, each person would, like, only end up with about, uh, $8,552. Not even a decent downpayment on a car, LOL!

It kinda makes ya think, y'know? Like, where is all of that money, actually? Someone’s defo hogging it all. I bet it’s Jeff Besos.

Here is what I am thinking about:

• Physical Currency: All the bills and coins. I keep losing change in my sofa. Drives me nuts, it does.
• Demand Deposits: That's your regular checking and savings. I wish my savings account had more demand, ha!
• Earths inhabitants: In 2023, there were 7.6 billion people on earth. Thats A LOT of folks to divide the money.
• Uneven Distribution: That average number? It is totally misleading because the money is not equally distributed. I knew that tho.
• My Opinion: Someone has all the money. Probable the robots TBH.