How much money is in the world?

this crap? Yeah, Chuck, Yes, how much money do you have on you right now? Cash? Zero dollars and zero cents? Well, that's stupid, because you should have thirty eight in cash on you. I never have cash. Well, you should almost never have cash. You should have thirty eight hundred dollars in cash on you right now. So should I? So should Jerry. Um, but we don't. We don't. It's sad I in my pocket. Okay, Well, let's let's explain why I just said that. Huh was I supposed to? That's

all right, I'll do it. Um, I can do it. That's how much if you divide up all the money between all the Americans. That's how much we should all have. Bam, bam. So we're trying to answer a question here, how much money is there in the world. Um, And we'll get to that. There's a there's actually a rough estimate out there that may be right. But instead, first let's talk about how much American money there is in the world. And not just because we're American, but because it is

the standard currency worldwide. It's the closest thing to the universal currency that we have, um, the dollar, the green bag. Yeah, but um, that's not, as I guess, um, widespread as it once was. A lot of people have abandoned the dollar, um and now use a basket of currencies to value their currency against very rebellious Um. But still the dollar is generally what's you to say for oil speculation? And imagine the dollars in that basket too though right, maybe

maybe not, It depends on how much they hate America. So, UM, what you were talking about though, was all the money divided up by all the Americans coming up to thirty eight dollars. That's called the M zero money supply. Of course, you know how I read that m O. The more money supply. I was like, what and then I read I read it again. I said, it can't be called the more money Supply, and then I realized that was a zero and not an O. It uh, it looks

very much like the more money Supply. I wrote this article. I realized it, and I never saw it like that until you just said that. Yeah, I like the more money supply better than the M O. It's good, but it is M O for a reason. There's also the M one, M two, and there wasn't M three, which we'll get to, right. And the people who came up with this was the Federal Reserve Bank, the United States Central Bank, right, And they like to track money. That's

one of the things they do to amuse themselves. Count yeah, count money, um, and go to sleep on piles of gold ingots. But the Fed came up with this M I'm sorry, this MO money supply, also known as the M zero supply, and that is all of the bills and coins, all of the actual hard currency that exists in the world anywhere in US dollars and as of July two thirteen, Hey, that's recent. Yeah, that came to a we should say. Catherine Whitbourne from the Coolest Stuff

on the Planet update. She updated this, so the fact that this is as up today as it is thanks to her um but the the m so the more money supply as of July two Thousteen is one point to trillion dollars. That's all the cash and all the coins all over the world of American dollars, the real dollars that you can collect and put together you can light your cigars with, yeah, or you can throw into a fountain. Yeah. One point to trillion US dollars. So

that's how much money was in the world. But and and we said, also, that's thirty eight hundred for every American man, woman, and child, all three hundred and sixteen million, six hundred and sixty eight thousand, five hundred and sixty seven Americans that were alive in July of two thousand thirteen, each one should have had thirty eight hundred bucks in their pocket. Because we're not talking checking accounts, we're talking in the actual currency that people are walking around with.

Since I don't have thirty eight hundred dollars in my pocket and I didn't in July, you don't, Jerry, No, Jerry's got more. Where is this stuff. That's a good question. I wonder how that clock ticks, by the way, the population clock. I'd like to see a real time like three people died, four people born, people died, eight people born, said its wins. I wonder if it ever does go backwards for a second. It's got too because people are dying, but more people are being born than people are dying. Yeah,

it depends on the country you're talking about. Yeah, that's true. Um. I always drive by the one in Atlanta, you know, on the population clock that's been there forever. When I was a kid, I remember when the top two million it was like whoa, and now it's whatever three points something, is it? Yeah? I mean that's metro Atlanta, right, it's not city of Atlanta. Um, alright, So back to it. Uh,

where were we hard to track the more money? No, we were talking about where the thirty eight hundred bucks that should be in our pockets is. Oh well, um, about a half to two thirds of that is overseas. It's an overseas pockets, that's right, or overseas bank account sir. No, No, we're not talking bank accountants. That's just money, that's right. Yeah, So that means that there are people walking around overseas with cash on them American dollar, American dollars, which makes

a lot of sense. And so when you start to divide the amount of money at one point two trillion buy a lot more than three and sixteen million people. That explains why I have a single dollar bill on my person right now, why I have nothing? Right and Jerry nothing nothing man, We're sad sex Okay, So that's just the MO money supply. Yeah, the M zero. The M one is all of the more money plus checking account money and other kinds of just accounts that you

can you know, track and travelers checks. Yeah, very very liquid types of accounts. Yes, that's the M one. Yeah supply that And it's funny that you were having trouble wrapping your head around the fact that we were talking about cash outside of banks for the M zero supply. I had the same problem too, like it's hard to think of money outside of banks in this day and age. Yeah, you could rarely have cash on hand us like debit cards and credit cards and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,

American Express for everything. That's funny that on this audio podcast you just held it up to your face and you said that, um, so that's the M one. In June of of this year, of the M one supply was about two point five trillion, so the more money supply was one point two. The M one was two point five. That's all the accounts and checking accounts, travelers checks.

Then there's the M two, which is the M one supply plus UH money market fund, money savings accounts, and CDs under a hundred grand, which they call small c d s, right comes from. That's a pretty good CD, well CD over a hundred grants called jumbo Yeah, I was looking up jumbo rates that used to be something like four and a quarter. Some of them would be like for like a ten year yeah, so you get like twenty two grand back over now I'm sorry, five years.

So you go give a bank a hundred grand, say keep this for five years paying me back, and they would give you twenty two interests, So you get a hundred and twenty two cryan not very long ago, a couple of years ago before the crash. You want to know what it's at right now. For a hundred thousand dollar three year I believe c D, a jumbo c D, you get like one point four percent it's only worth your time to give a bank a hundred thousand dollars

to keep for three years. They'll give you fourteen hundred dollars. As nine go to the dog track with a hundred thousand dollars and you leave Heroin Addict crying um. Alright, So the M to supply, which like I said, was it was the M one supply plus money market fund saving counts and those smaller CDs. Ten point five trillion.

That's virtually all of the American money in the world pretty much, because they got rid of M three basically in two thousand six, because they said, it really doesn't tell us much to know what the larger jumbo CDs are adding to this pile. It doesn't change things that much, I guess. I imagine there's just not that many exactly. So about ten point five trillion US dollars in accounts and in cash um in holdings in the world in about July June July two that's a lot of dough

to say. That's a lot of mula, right, and if you want to, yeah, it even says here it did. And that's when I looked up It's like who wrote this? It was like oops. I thought this was well done. Well and I learned how to spell mula. I didn't know. Don't don't pitch now, I'm serious. I literally thought, oh, that's how you spell mula. How do you think you spelled it? I don't know m U l A No, I'm just never thought of I've never seen it spelled out m O O l A. H Uh, that's a

p standard exactly. So um this I think we've kind of pointed out it's tough to track money like this. Well, yeah, it's not the easiest thing. They do a pretty good job of it that the FED does specifically because it's just what they do and they love doing that. Yeah, but it's you know, it's an estimate still, Like, no one knows how much cash I have in my house, no one asked me no. But they know how much was printed, They keep track of that kind of stuff,

how much is destroyed, how much in circulation, um. And you know there's bank reportings. They know how much a bank has at the FED UM, so they have a It's it's pretty close estimate from what I understand. The thing is, not every country has a FED like the FED in the US, and that makes it way harder to say how much money is in the entire world, not just US dollars, but all the money in the

entire world, and more difficult to control your economy. It is if you if you don't know how much money you have, it's very difficult to sway your economy one way or the other. Right exactly. So, Um, Zimbabwe is a really good example, man, of why it's so hard to track a lot of money, and also what happens when you don't track your money, yeah, or what happens when you decide, in order to fix economic woes, let's

just start printing more money, because that's um. If you know nothing about finance and economics, a common thing you might think is, well, they could probably just infuse some some cash flow by printing money occasionally, and they do occasionally. But in Zimbabwe they did it to such an extent with a zim dollar, which I didn't even believe that was right. It's actually called a zim dollar. Sounds like

something from a movie. Um, not a good one exactly. Uh. They printed so much money that they encountered hyper inflation like the world has never seen before. Yeah, So it's ridiculous. Numbers yes, this hyper inflation in two thousand and six, it was. It was really bad, and two thousand Zimbabwe started to enter an inflationary spiral. Um In two thousand and six, it was so bad that a sheet, not a roll, a sheet of toilet paper cost four hundred

and seventeen Zim dollars. Okay, yeah, a roll of toilet paper cost a hundred and forty five thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars. Broke so quick and Zimbabwe, well, that's the thing. Everybody would have gone broke. But it wasn't that the toilet paper was very expensive. It was that

the Zim dollars had very little purchasing power. And that was because dollars, just like any other commodity, are subject to the influences of supply and demand, and when there's a lot of them on the market, their value decreases. That's how the US government has managed to stay afloat so many times they release a bunch of money, They cause inflation so that the debts that they owe are worth less. So when they pay him off, it hurts the government less. It's a really horrible thing to do

to your investors, but it's it's done. But that's the point. When you have a lot of dollars out there, you have less purchasing power per dollar. And that's what was going on in Zimbabwe, and things got really out of hand because they decided to fight this by printing more dollars. Yeah, they really got out of hand. That Some of these stats in here are just staggering. Um, you said that every what you didn't say, You report that it is estimated that it was equivalent to prices doubling in stores

every one point three days. Yeah, the most I saw was every twenty four point seven hours. Prices. Essentially, we're being doubled by the way of the dollar losing value, right. Like the kind of inflation that we're looking at right here in America right now is like in the single digit percentiles, and it's being kept low by the Fed on purpose. But we're talking like doubling increase. Like the toilet papers this much the next day is twice as much the next day, it's three times that. And that's

just not gonna affect economy. That's gonna like, I mean think about it. Its toilet paper costs that much money. People are gonna stop using toilet paper. That leads to poor sanitation, that leads to you know, it's just a domino effect. Well, there was a joke that the toilet paper was so expensive of the dollar, the zim zim dollar bought such a little toilet paper that it was actually more useful as toilet paper than to buy toilet paper with. Yeah, that's not funny, but well yeah, yeah,

appear in Zimbabwe is not. But the annual inflation was um estimated. Like this was watching Zimbabwe if you were a currency or monetary policy economists, it was like a dream come true. Last time something happened this bad it was Hungary in ninety six. I think we talked about that. Yeah, um, I think it was in the super Stuff Guide to Economics or spoken word album. Um. But the the inflation in Zimbabwe was estimated at five hundred and sixteen quintillion percent.

That's by the end of two thousand eight. Okay, that's not even the highest that I've seen. Now, the highest I saw is eighty nine point seven sex tillion percent, which is a eighty nine point seven billion trillion percent or eighty nine point seven ten to the twenty one power percent. That was their annual rate of inflation, and

that was probably early two thousand nine. Yeah, yeah, because in January two thousand nine they basically said you can start using four in currency again, which helps stabilizings a tiny the tiniest bit, but it it didn't obviously work well. It ended inflation abruptly because they abandoned these dollars. The currency lost value so much that everybody stopped using it and they went to the South African rand and the

US dollar. That took four months from January to April for basically to completely abandon their money, right, so four months in the country's money is literally useless. And when they did, when they did abandon it was actually a pretty good move, Like you couldn't carry the economy with this money any longer because it was so value that they're in bad shape no matter what. But at least

they that was a good move, right. And Um, the reason it was a good move because it stopped inflation because there weren't that many dollars and there weren't that many rands around, which means that they were scarce, which means again according to supply and demand, um, they were valuable and that hence they had purchasing power yeah, and um, it's really unbelieved doable. But it got so bad they were printing money in larger and larger denominations because they

had to because people couldn't carry around. You'd have to have a suitcase full of money to buy your toilet paper. So they ended up producing a one hundred trillion Zimbabwean dollar note that you can now buy on eBay for about five bucks. Yeah, that's sad. While when it was released it was worth about thirty Yeah, and that's actual conversion rate, Like now it's only worth something on eBay. What there is? Yeah, there is no conversion rate, right, Um, I think I'm gonna get one, not just to have

it do it? Yeah, okay, so get you one to thanks. What is it? Three hundred trillion dollar notes? Um, But that's the fact that the Zimbabwean government wasn't tracking their money in the first place, and they didn't track it after they kept releasing it again and again. Yeah, and there was no buy back program. They just said, you guys keep that. Um. They have no idea how many Zimbabwean dollars were released just in the century, let alone

how many are out there on the market. So that's why it's virtually impossible to track how much money is out there in the world. But that hasn't stopped at least one guy. Well, actually that's not true. I talked to Catherine Whitbourne today and she was saying that the guy gave up the most recent figures she could find with two dozen ten because he's like, forget this, Yeah,

miquet of dollar days with the z dot com um. Yeah, I guess he gave up on a huh that was his blog, his econ blog, and he was tracking a hundred thirty five currencies, uh in a hundred and sixty seven countries, and I guess December two thousand ten, it's probably one of the last stats he has then if that's when he quit. Um in his MO money equal to five point trillion in US dollars in circulation M

two was fifty five trillion, So fifty five trillion bucks. Yeah, that's the value of all the money in the world occurring to Mike in US dollars, the US dollar value, but not just US dollars. That's everything, right, So there you have it. Okay, So this would be a lot easier to track and things like what happened in Zimbabwe wouldn't happen. You would never have hyper inflation if we all used a universal worldwide currency. Yeah, let's talk about that.

No less than John Maynard Keynes has suggested that, and it's been bandied about for a long time since World War two, well even before then. Yeah, I don't think it's I think it was maybe closest to happening maybe

after World War two, well, which wasn't very close. No, there were instances of what were to the people who were using the currency was effectively a universal currency like um, A lot the early imperial powers of China and Rome used a single currency in all the lands they conquered, which is why hordes of Roman silver coins are found in fields in the UK still today. Um. But it's still not technically a worldwide currency. But world War two we came very close, right. Yeah, let's talk about some

of the pros. I guess, um, because it's I mean, if you look it up on the internet, there's a lot of debate still going on. Um, some of the pros. Speculators can't short a currency. That scenario you were talking about, like the value and currency to pay back debts, right, that'd be gone because it wouldn't be a commodity. There wouldn't any other currency to exchange it against. So therefore it's just a dollar just can be used to buy something you can't buy and sell it itself. It would

be valueless like that. Exporters wouldn't have to worry about price gaps. There would be no conversion fees, which would free up money for like healthcare or whatever, I mean, something good to spend it on. Um. Of course, I'm just this is utopian outlook like, oh yeah, then they could spend it on healthcare ideally, but it would free up money. Um, it would in disputes about a currency manipulation, um, like China. Um. So they're like, there are some pros

for sure. You wouldn't have to stand in line at the cambio centers and exchange your money when you traveled. No, and um convenience you mean and I went to Europe this summer and it was nice to not we just exchanged once. Yeah, that hadn't been since the euro It's like everywhere, um, and even in places in Croatia they still use their currency, but everybody accepts euros. Yeah, I bet they accept American dollars there too. Um, I kind of enjoyed the different currencies. Oh yeah, it's pretty and

it's just neat. I kind of enjoyed the I mean, I guess it was. I didn't see it as a hassle. Maybe I was young, but I always thought it was kind of neat, Like, let me go turn in my francs for uh, for my German dollars. Well, it just sucks to lose money buying another currency, yeah, or to come out ahead though, that's when you're rocking right sometimes. But it's been a while since that happened. Well, this was in the mid ninety nineties, so the American dollar

was we were doing pretty well in Eastern Europe. The dollar was sound as the pound, but we got killed in England of course, as always, because your pound is so awesome. Well, that was the big discrepancy after World War Two, Like when we came close to adopting universal currency, the Americans and the Brits couldn't decide on what to value it against the pound or the dollar, and so

it just fell apart. Well, the Pew Research Center did a poll and apparently forty one of Americans believe that we will have a universal currency by Um, but the article I got that from, the guy speculates that could be because we're sort of programmed to think that the future will be like that, because every entirely, yeah, like every sci fi movie ever, it's like, you know, universal credits. It's not even like cash. So people just kind of

have that in the back of their minds. So there's a lot of like drawbacks to a universal currency as well. There's some clever things you can do if you are in charge of your own currency and it's valued against other currencies. One of them is, if your economy is sluggish, you can release a lot of your currency, create inflation, drive prices down in your country compared to the um the buying power of a foreign currency, and attract that

foreign currency and get your economy kick started again. If you're using the same currency as all these other countries that you're training with, sure there's not that that gap, right, the currency gap, But you also can't do that nice little trick that's probably would have bailed out Spain and Greece on their own had they not been trading the Euro or using the Euro the last couple of years. Yeah,

that's a good point. Um, Some pundits think that the gold standard, if they were going to go to a universal currency, it would should be based on something like the gold Standard again or the gold standard period. But a lot of other people say, no, that's antiquated and just a bad idea. Yeah, potentially dangerous. I wonder how I would be dangerous. I don't know we should do

one on the gold standard. I mean they got rid of it for a reason, so I don't know something about going back to something that but it was Nixon and got rid of it. So it's makes you think it's inherently evil getting rid of the gold standard, you know. Yeah. The other thing too, is who's going to run the show? Is really the big I think that's probably the biggest

stumbling block. It's a huge one. Is it's there's got to be a universal body, an international reserve bank, central bank that has the authority on issuing these things buying them back. And yeah, I mean like every since the Clinton there, everybody has been nervous about that kind of thing. But even if you're not a paranoid type, you may just think that this body by definition would be incompetent just from looking at like the U, n UN has successes.

Piece keeping missions are frequently very helpful and can add stability to a region. And then you have things like the International Panel on Climate Change, which releases its um it's opinions on climate change based on politics and diplomacy rather than science. Yeah, and you can't if you if it's a World Bank, there's too much at stake to make mistakes. And we already have a World Bank. It's

just not in charge of every currency. And if it were, I mean, there could be problematic, It could be helpful, it could be problematic. I don't really fall down on either side of this. Yeah, I don't mean, I don't know. You know how I feel about economics. It's just as long as I can go buy my stuff and pay my mortgage. Yeah, I don't care if it's at the end or the dollar or the or the the community Financier dea freak, Frank, do you care if it's that? No,

I had never heard of that. I didn't know. I thought the euro was sort of the only consolidator. But um, apparently in Africa, eight West African nations do share that West African CFA franc African Financial Community, Another six Central African nations share a Central African CFA franc which is weird because they're interchangeable. Yeah, two currencies that they can either one's fine. Yeah, I guess it's like when you go to Costa Rica or Mexico, you can use your dollars,

you can use your paces. Yeah, I guess so. But apparently from interchangeable, I read that to mean like their valued the exact same, which is like, why I have two different currencies that are so similar that are the same value. Just make one c F a franc. Yeah, that's good. Um. And then there was a lot of talk about hemispheric and regional unified currencies in Central America and South America, and they came very close, but the recent troubles from the Eurozone have made a lot of

people back off about it. And in North America there was going to be the North American Union, which is Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Supposedly we're going to be fused together into one. It was like yes, and Canada was like right. America was like, well, we were going to come up with the amaro a m E r oh was the name of the unified currency that would have been interesting. Well, it's a conspiracy theory. At least, there you go. That's how much money is in the world.

Any kind of weird. That not weird, but that America sandwich between such two different countries. It is like Canada Mexico. That's like, you can't get any more opposite. Yeah, I guess I'm at people, food economy, and then America's right in the middle. It's kind of fitting where the melting pot of Canada in Mexico. We are where it all comes together. America's had in America's pants. I can't remember what you've called Mexico before shoes m I don't think,

so let's just call it Mexico. Uh, okay, So that's how much money there is in the world. If you want to read this article, you can type that into the search bar at how stuff Works dot com. And since I said search part, it's time for message brick uh and Chuck, what time is it now? It's time for it again, folks. This is when we thank people for sweet gifts that they send us in the mail. And I have a list of books starting with how Why How We Do Anything Means Everything? How Colin Why

How We Do Anything Means Everything? By dove seedman as or do d o v yeah do do yeah. I appreciate that very nice a dovester. Do you want to say one more time? Okay, let's see. We got a postcard from Madagascar from Cara Levitt. Thank you very much for that. Nice. Another book by Alan Gerstel swing at Colin, The Search for My Father Louis Prima. Nobody read this one, but it deserves a double Um. We got a letter with further insight into the hip hop episode from b

Boy Anti virus. Nice. How's he doing these doing? Great? Uh? Science nearly explained by Dick Maxwell, and that is available on Amazon or Kindle nice. Um. We have a postcard with a picture of the pair which you'll remember from the torture episode from the Museo de Torture from Anna Oh nice, thank you very much. Our buddy Roger Ma sent us to the Vampire Combat Manual and he's previously sinis the Zombie Combat Manual and Roger's good dude. We actually finally met him, didn't we. I don't know did

we meet him. I think we met Roger at one of the comic cons. Okay, second, yeah, okay, I think you're right, hey Ron. Uh. We got a postcard from China from Carry Nice. We got another book called Trunkless. It's a children's book and I don't have the author here, but it's called Trunkless. I think we did that one before, did we? Alright? Double plug? Uh. We got another postcard

from Bogram Airfield from Amy Lynn, thanks for that. We get a book called Verbifor's Feast for a Horse Feast by Christie the Word Smith and that was sent in by Hillary Nice. Uh. We got a postcard of a bear pooping in the woods from Van Nostrin. Thanks Van Nostran. Yeah, and we should mention to Van Nostron also sent us his CD from his awesome band, The Bangalore's Sasquatch with a mullet. Yes, thank you, buddy. Um. We got a comic zine called Happy Trails Cowboy Poetry by horse t

Rushy Beard stash Um. We got a really cool cityscape watercolor card that was designed and sent by Alex, Thanks Alex. John Lennemeyer wrote a book called How an Average Man Lived an Adventurous Life and I haven't read that yet, but I'm going to good going, Chuck. Yeah. Um, We've got some CDs from Rich Bosick that may or may not have been all of them, but thank you very much for those. Yeah, and I believe he also sent us a DVD called Forgotten Detroit and a nice handwritten

I'm sorry, inc rendering of ourselves? Right? Did you see that? Yeah? Is it the same guy? I think it's the same guy. Well, thank you very much big time. Rich. A book called Roman Disasters by Jerry Turner, and a book called the Life and Times of Swirly Van Coco stuff you should know edition. It's a comic actually from Aaron Dunbar. Yes, I remember what else we have, chuck uh. And then we have a bunch of music you want to go

through these? Uh? Column blow double in disguise. That's right, Ben from self evidence in his c d s and vinyl of the record we built a fortress on short notice. We definitely plugged that one before the La La band sent us their CD Moonshine Still yep. The group called Forging Reverie cent U s a CD called Motion Canvas, and that was from Derek. Eric Davis and Sam Gray sent us a c D Table People and some authentic

Korean junk food burke Uh. In graphia and Graphia send us download codes for his c D Jazz Animals, Right, Katie Center, send us a nice handwritten letter. She's doing something called the Letter Project, where she sends a letter to somebody who inspires her to ask what are you pursuing in your life? And do you know? How do you know when you've gotten there? Yeah? And we answered, did we? Yeah? I did for both of us. Oh nice, thanks man, I know what you I know what you're pursuing.

I don't even have to do anythinking. Uh. And then we have one more vinyl and c D the shape of Beach to come from Ben Dick box Us band. Yes, that is b N D I K B A K S A A S. And she takes these finals. There's a couple over there on my desk. And thanks man. You got a record player? I do, and mine is busted. What happened to your record player? Oh? It's up in the attic endword per year or so until I get to go in. You should just take the vital I will. Yeah,

And we appreciate the vinyl. By the way, it's very cool. I believe Benedict backs us um. Did we read his name for volunteering, no donating to co ED I believe. So yeah, well that's the same person then, thanks for that doubly. So that is administrative details for now. Thanks for the stuff. Yeah, we're all caught up. Very nice. I know it feels good. It didn't take like eight

episodes to cover at all. Uh. If you want to send us something, you can get in touch with us by tweeting to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our home on the web, the awesome website Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how Stuff Works dot com