How much is everything in the world worth? How about just the US? And how much was it worth 20 years ago, 100 years ago, a 1000 years ago, etc.?
Now, I know that valuing some things, such as a government and it’s possessions(Yosemite Park, a legal system, etc.), charities, and others is tough, so if the above question is not answerable, an acceptable alternative is: How much is the combined net worth of all living humans? (And what was it in past times?)
I think it’s reasonable that the value of items is their current or last measured value, not their potential value. So, an oil field with unknown deposits is valued at it’s last sale price (it’s future value is unknown).
In the same vein, the GDP tracks how much value is created each year. Is there a similar thing for how much existing wealth has appreciated or depreciated? I know this would be impossible to actually measure, but certainly an educated guess could be made.
“Rabbits are perfectly harmless creatures. The bounty stands at $.02!” (M. Blanc & WB)
As for the value of the rest of the world, do you plan to barter with Marvin the Martian? Just remember, it blocks his view of Venus!
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV
Isn’t there some formula for valuing a business based on its turnover (value = 3 x annual turnover, or something like that)?
If there is, you could take the sum of every country’s GDP and multiply by whatever figure it is to get a rough idea. I don’t know where you’d get the GDP figures, though. UN? OECD?
frolix8, thanks for the Cecil column. Interestingly, it was the same question I asked, and C completely sliddled around the question! Instead he answered “How much does the average person make each year?”
Everyone in this thread’s been helpful so far, but I’m afraid most comments have been either a) jokes or b) pointers to GDP or GDP-like info. GDP is really a measure of income, not wealth. (Although, I like TomH’s train of thought.) So far, there’s not even an educated guess-timate of the answer.
Somewhere in the bowels of the economic world, the economic education world, and the government world, there must be people guessing at this.
Maybe, but I bet more people are guessing when the stock market are going to crash…
Let’s face it; a particular thing is only worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it, presuming the owner is willing to sell it. If an alien civilization offered any price to buy the Earth, would you be able to get everyone to agree? I say no, there would be those who would cling this particular chunk of rock until you laser-blasted them off it. Therefore the answer is “priceless”.
Hmmm, don’t really want to get into a debate about whether this is a stupid question or not. Here’s some thought behind why I asked it:
Why is the government interested in tracking the GDP? Why does a corporation track it’s revenues and expenses? Why do individuals track their incomes and expenses? Because we are interested in seeing whether we’re going forward or backward. And the rate. We’re interested in progress.
Why do corporations track their assets and liabilities? Why do individuals track their net worth? Same reason.
And for the same reason that people track incomes and expenses on all levels, I imagine there must be people out there that are interested in tracking assets and liabilities on a national or global scale.