How much would it cost to buy everything?

OK, assuming you could auto-magically buy everything that can be bought in the world at current market prices, ie. the act of buying doesn’t drive the price up to ridiculous heights, how much money would you need to buy everything in the world that has a price tag affixed to it?

What would be the main thing bought? land? stocks? food?

Logically it is impossible to buy “everything” because “everything” would include the currency used to purchase “everything” which by definition you would no longer own.

It would cost all the money to buy everything.

For a very rough approximation, you could add up the real GDP of every country in the world.

The Gross World Product is about 47 trillion USD.

I’m sorry, everything in the word is not for sale. It’s just on display :slight_smile:

But USD 47 trillion would only allow you to buy all the goods and services produced in the world in the space of one year. The value of the land, plant and other capital stock used to produce those goods and services are not included in the figure.

Are you including intangibles like intellectual property, gas and oil leases, contract options, etc.?

IMO, it can’t be done.

[Steven Wright]
You can’t have everything.

Where would you keep it?
[/Steven Wright]

If you were the last human alive, wouldn’t you have everything?

Just remembered this peculiarly relevant short story:

John Jones’s Dollar