How Much Money Is There?

15. February 2005

I have just spent an hour or so attempting to find out how much money there is in the world. I have not been entirely successful although the CIA have been, perhaps surprisingly, the most helpful with their World Factbook which makes for interesting reading.

They give a GWP at:

GWP (gross world product) – purchasing power parity – $51.48 trillion (2003 est.) = $51,489,000,000,000.00

GWP is defined as:

This entry gives the gross domestic product (GDP) or value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. GDP dollar estimates in the Factbook are derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations.

This apparently works out at around $8,300.00 per head which most certainly is not enough for us all to be millionaires. However the implication of the above definition is that GDP is what we produce in a year rather than the value of what has already been produced. Further Googling etc. got me no further than this GDP figure. So be it.

Now if you visit Inequality.org you will find a wealth of statistics about the declining balance in the global distribution of wealth. The home page includes a photo of a “superyacht” similar to the yachts my company fairs and paints. Inequality.org does not make for uplifting reading however.

I wonder though, surely there must be some positive aspects in this? After all a great many people do profit from the construction and management of “superyachts” for instance.

Bill Gates, as the worlds richest man, has a theoretical worth of 46.6 billion dollars. Is not this money in circulation within the economy and effecting us all in some positive ways? I think all it really means is that power is in the hands of the few? And why is that? Because we give our power away perhaps? Act from fear?

Countless people around the world do climb out of poverty and go on to better things by giving their all rather than settling for the norm. Is that not a higher road to fulfillment than treading water complaining about how unfair life is?

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