rj031086
Rohan Jain
Ever wondered - How much money is "all the money in the world" ?
To make this question answerable in a finite amount of time, let's make a simplification and ask, "How much money is there in the United States?" Since the statistics for the U.S. are easy to come by, we can look at it in a couple of different ways.
The first way to look at it might be, "How much cash is there in U.S. currency?" If you took all the bills and coins floating around today, how much money is that? According to the Federal Reserve, the current number is very close to half a trillion dollars. The Federal Reserve website shows the total amount of currency available by month since 1959. That sounds like an incredible amount, but think about it this way: According to infoplease.com, In 1990, there were about 250,000,000 people in the U.S. If you took all the cash and divided it up equally, each person would only get about $2,000. Obviously there is more money floating around than that.
The rest of the money is held in various types of bank accounts, and the Federal Reserve tracks these funds in three different values: the M1, M2 and M3 money supplies:
- M1 is all of the currency, plus all of the money held in checking accounts and other checkable accounts, as well as all of the money in travelers checks. In September 1999, the M1 money supply was about $1,100 billion.
- M2 is M1 plus all of the money held in money market funds, savings accounts and small CDs. In September 1999, the M2 money supply was about $4,600 billion.
- M3 is M2 plus all of the large CDs. In September 1999, it was about $6,250 billion.
So if you wanted all of the money in the United States, what you would ask for is M3 -- and you would get about 6 trillion dollars! How much money is that? It's a lot... But if you look at the U.S. federal budget for 2000, you will see that it is only enough money to run the U.S. federal government for a few years.
Interesting article (Source : howstuffworks.com)
To make this question answerable in a finite amount of time, let's make a simplification and ask, "How much money is there in the United States?" Since the statistics for the U.S. are easy to come by, we can look at it in a couple of different ways.
The first way to look at it might be, "How much cash is there in U.S. currency?" If you took all the bills and coins floating around today, how much money is that? According to the Federal Reserve, the current number is very close to half a trillion dollars. The Federal Reserve website shows the total amount of currency available by month since 1959. That sounds like an incredible amount, but think about it this way: According to infoplease.com, In 1990, there were about 250,000,000 people in the U.S. If you took all the cash and divided it up equally, each person would only get about $2,000. Obviously there is more money floating around than that.
The rest of the money is held in various types of bank accounts, and the Federal Reserve tracks these funds in three different values: the M1, M2 and M3 money supplies:
- M1 is all of the currency, plus all of the money held in checking accounts and other checkable accounts, as well as all of the money in travelers checks. In September 1999, the M1 money supply was about $1,100 billion.
- M2 is M1 plus all of the money held in money market funds, savings accounts and small CDs. In September 1999, the M2 money supply was about $4,600 billion.
- M3 is M2 plus all of the large CDs. In September 1999, it was about $6,250 billion.
So if you wanted all of the money in the United States, what you would ask for is M3 -- and you would get about 6 trillion dollars! How much money is that? It's a lot... But if you look at the U.S. federal budget for 2000, you will see that it is only enough money to run the U.S. federal government for a few years.
Interesting article (Source : howstuffworks.com)
