/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4432126]

let's suppose that everyone on earth is awarded $10million(US) tomorrow. what would be the consequences of this, in both economical and behavioral ways?

[Anonymous No.4432136]

The U.S. dollar would become worthless, and the U.S. economy would collapse. After that I expect behavior would be about the same as in any economic collapse.

[Anonymous No.4432142]

Inflation.

[Anonymous No.4432148]

>>4432126
hideous poverty. Wheelbarrows of cash

[Anonymous No.4432179]

ok op here. how about this? everyone gets awarded $10million worth of gold tomorrow. would this still somehow cause inflation of any currency?

[pascal !n5Z3VuZapw No.4432184]

the gold would be worth much less than 10 million very shortly.

There would most likely be some localized market craziness. And anyone invested in gold, would start having issues. The chinese have heavy gold reserves, could axe their economy, which in turn would hurt the USA economy.

[Anonymous No.4432185]

>>4432179
You should just kill yourself and do the genepool a favor.

[Anonymous No.4432197]

>>4432179

Gold would suddenly be worth very little. I don't think it would inflate any currency, because no country uses a gold standard, but it would ruin everyone heavily invested in gold. It would probably be a net economic benefit, if only because gold does have some applications that would suddenly be very cheap and easy to produce.

[Anonymous No.4432200]

>>4432179
Gold becomes worthless compared to what it is now. everyone that relies on gold is now fucked, but that's almost every big institution so people would probably come to some sort of new compromise

[Anonymous No.4432205]

>>4432200
>>4432197
so the physical property of gold isn't worth much? i've always thought this played a big part on how the initial value of gold was determined, until the stock market came along and how its value exponentially increased.

[Anonymous No.4432206]

>>4432200
what if it was 10 milllion in platingum?

[Anonymous No.4432216]

>>4432205

Gold (or anything) is worth whatever someone is willing to trade for it. If everyone on Earth has a huge pile of it, then nobody is going to trade you much for a small amount of it.

[4tran No.4432222]

>>4432205
Its physical properties would make it worth a fair amount, but not nearly as absurdly as it is currently worth. Most of its current value derives from jewelry/vanity - ooh it's shiny! It's retarded that an otherwise useful material is reduced to glitter.

[Anonymous No.4432230]

>>4432222
most of the current value comes from the fact that it's rare, and people like shit that is rare.

have you ever stripped the insulation from a copper wire? copper is shiny as fuck and looks pretty cool, but is nowhere near as rare as gold.

[Anonymous No.4432235]

Nothing would change. Prices would increase accordingly.

[Anonymous No.4432236]

>>4432216
>>4432222
so the value of anything is purely driven by supply and demand? it seems pretty unnatural to me. i'm not a cosmologist, but i'd love to know if there's an example of supply and demand elsewhere in the universe.

[Anonymous No.4432237]

>>4432205
what is wrong with you? are you trying to be a sophist?

[Anonymous No.4432238]

>>4432230
because it tarnishes too

[Anonymous No.4432239]

>>4432236
price is driven by supply and demand, not value

[Anonymous No.4432240]

>>4432235
and wages?

>implying companies won't use inflation to cut their wage costs like they always do

[Anonymous No.4432244]

>>4432236
how do you have such a limited understanding of supply and demand? what is your problem

[Anonymous No.4432250]

>>4432126
The US economy would collapse, because 95% of the money would go to people outside the country (effectively, even with the wealth that they had been given, all american citizens would only have a fraction of their former buying power). The currency wouldn't inflate, but would nonetheless be worthless because of this. The US mint would start a new system of money, and the US would recover slowly while the rest of the planet surged ahead. Damage to other countries economies would be significant, as the forex markets and internatonal businesses round the planet took a massive hit.

tl;dr a fuckton of bad things

[Anonymous No.4432252]

Everyone would retire and entire industries would collapse with nobody willing to work anymore. Product and food shortages would starve people and force them to go back to work. Along with fucking up inflation.

[Anonymous No.4432255]

>>4432179
Technology markets would probably do well as gold's pretty useful for catalysts. Otherwise, gold would lose a lot of value- people would only have about $200 worth when markets stabilised.

[Anonymous No.4432257]

>>4432206
That would be immensely useful for the human race. Platinum is one of the few valuable metals that can be used in technology properly.

[Anonymous No.4432258]

>>4432252
>Everyone would retire

lol no they wouldn't.

[Anonymous No.4432260]

people would probably use gold to pave streets with

[Anonymous No.4432261]

>>4432236
>so the value of anything is purely driven by supply and demand?

Yes, of course. How could it not be?

[Anonymous No.4432264]

>big bang
>galaxies everywhere
>they are now worthless

[Anonymous No.4432266]

>>4432264
>implying our galaxy isn't already worthless

[Anonymous No.4432274]

Everyone would be rich and the world would enter a new age of prosperity.

[Anonymous No.4432289]

>>4432261
counterexample. i value dirt, because i have a strange love of dirt

don't confuse price with value

[Anonymous No.4432291]

What if we were somehow able to fix everythings price before everyone was given 10 million dollars?

[Anonymous No.4432293]

>>4432289

That may be the most retarded thing anyone's ever said on this board.

And I've been on this board for more than six years.

[Anonymous No.4432294]

The world just got fatter. :(

[Anonymous No.4432296]

>>4432293

That may be the most retarded thing anyone's ever said on this board.

And I've been here for less than six years because /sci/ is less than 6 years old.

[Anonymous No.4432299]

>>4432289
>counterexample. i value dirt, because i have a strange love of dirt

You could buy a lot of dirt very cheaply if you wanted. So why don't you?

[Anonymous No.4432300]

>>4432293
if you don't know the difference between price and value then you're aspie

value is subjective, price is market driven

[Anonymous No.4432302]

>>4432299
i do, i do

i value every sackful in my cellar

[Anonymous No.4432308]

>>4432302
You are a beautiful snowflake.

Which dirts do you prefer? I've always liked peat based soil and soil substitutes, but removing them from their natural habitat pains my heart so

[Anonymous No.4432318]

>>4432308
i like loam best

[Anonymous No.4432322]

>>4432318
Oh dear.

[Anonymous No.4432330]

let's suppose that everyone on earth is awarded $10million worth of loamy soil tomorrow. what would be the consequences of this, in both economical and behavioral ways?

[Anonymous No.4432333]

nobody would work but those that did would probably get paid better.

the economy would go to sht but spending would be at an all time high... imagine that, it beats the economy going to sht and spending being at an all time low.

the health service would become good again, no excuses for inadequate and underpar services.

africa would become good.

i would buy a really flash car or two. put my kids through schooling.

[Anonymous No.4432346]

>>4432330
Every human would die, trapped under dozens of metres of dirt.

[Anonymous No.4432355]

>>4432330
Earth would collapse into a wonderful neutron star and spray its special substance across the galaxy, to fertilise and support all of the universe's lovely wildlife.

[Anonymous No.4432359]

>>4432346
they could be awarded it in situ

i see a return to an agrarian economy

[Anonymous No.4432367]

>>4432333
why work when you have more than enough money to last your lifetime?

[Anonymous No.4432386]

>>4432179

The gold would lose value and be sold at first for $0-$1000 but gold is still very useful and the price would rise steadily over a couple years. It'd be really really good for all the computers that could use gold. It would inflate a bit less than paper currency, but it would still assrape the economy. It's a good question though since one day gold may able to be produced cheaply. Platinum and silver would rise in value.

[Anonymous No.4432387]

>>4432136
>>4432142

I direct you to the example of the Weimar Republic, when the German government ordered workers in the Rheinland to stop working for the French - they would pay their wages by printing Marks. This rapidly caused Marks to become individually worthless and paved the way for Hitler.

tl;dr - Hitler happens.

[Anonymous No.4432404]

>>4432387
If the government injects massive amounts of money into the economy (run-on printing) without 'telling' anyone, would it still cause inflation?

[Anonymous No.4432417]

>>4432367

lol
because you would not be stupid.

..see this is why we cant have ten million each.

[Anonymous No.4432457]

>>4432404
>If the government injects massive amounts of money into the economy (run-on printing) without 'telling' anyone, would it still cause inflation?

Yes.

[Anonymous No.4432469]

immediate collapse of the US dollar making it little more useful than paper to start a fire with...

[Anonymous No.4432482]

>>4432457
How does the population 'know' if the money is becoming worth exponentially less if the government doesn't announce such policy?

[Anonymous No.4432508]

>>4432482
invisible inflation, which is happening right now.
the signs are everywhere.

[Anonymous No.4432527]

>>4432508

lol, libertarian detected

[Anonymous No.4432529]

>>4432482
>How does the population 'know' if the money is becoming worth exponentially less if the government doesn't announce such policy?

They don't have to know anything. Whatever the government is buying is sold for more, its producers have more money which they spend, increasing demand for whatever they buy, and the effect ripples outwards.

[Anonymous No.4432538]

Everyone would be equally richer, hence there would be no change.

BUT IN REALITY

A bunch of nigs would think they were now rich and spend a shit ton, losing it, thus becoming poorer than they were in the first place.

So the poor would become poorer and the rich would become richer.

[Anonymous No.4432539]

>>4432236
Oxygen is far more important to us than gold, but you can't really sell oxygen since it's so easy to get.

[Anonymous No.4432553]

>>4432539

So uh, what if everyone was awarded with $10million worth of oxygen tomorrow?

[Anonymous No.4432557]

the money would devalue faster than Chris Chan blowing a load and be worth shit, and we'd all be back to where we started.

[Anonymous No.4432564]

>>4432553
what if everyone was awarded $10 million of high class poon tomorrow?

how would that affect the economy, would anyone go to work?

[Anonymous No.4432565]

This thread (particularly OP's posts) is an example of why people should have a well-rounded understanding of the world.

[Anonymous No.4432567]

>>4432553

canned air. 700000 cans

or you could trade it in for hairspray

[Anonymous No.4432586]

>>4432564

i dont even know how that would work,

its not viable currency. maybe payment but thats some muddy territory

[Anonymous No.4432637]

>>4432386
>The gold would lose value and be sold at first for $0-$1000 but gold is still very useful and the price would rise steadily over a couple years.
70 Quadrillion dollars worth of gold is ~1.3 billion tonnes, or roughly 9500x all the gold that's ever been mined. Gold would fall to base metal prices.

>It'd be really really good for all the computers that could use gold.
Gold is both less electrically and thermally conductive than silver and copper, it's used for contacts because it doesn't corrode.

[Anonymous No.4432711]

Absolutly nothing will change. Its like multiplying both sides of the equation by 10 but they're still equal.

[Anonymous No.4432713]

Hyperinflation, then a pair of shoes cost $100,000.

[Anonymous No.4432715]

>>4432711
it would even out wealth to many

[Anonymous No.4432720]

>>4432637
> implying people would start wearing tin earrings because there's gold abundantly available.

[Anonymous No.4432865]

Guise, guise... If everyone would be given 1mill worth of gold, the inflation would instantly rise. This would mean that more gold had to be given, the value of gold would instantly fall as more and more gold would be launched at "poor" people.

At the end
>implying there is an end to endless goldgiving.
there would be no money, cause everyone would be deaf by gold.

Hurr durr, I'm 12 and what is this?

>OP's last words before someone, anyone got rid of him.

[Anonymous No.4433106]

Bump

[Anonymous No.4433111]

Lindsay-bumping

[Anonymous No.4433152]

>>4432720
1.3 billion tonnes is a couple of times more than all the copper that's ever been mined. Why wear earnings made from an abundant, cheap, metal? Gold would probably find use where lead is used now, or was used historically. Gold bullets, gold weights, gold ballast, gold cladding & flashing, gold pipe.

[Anonymous No.4433169]

>>4433152
Gold is still useless in a lot of ways because of it's softness. Combine gold with other metals to make it usable would also be less reliable. Fuck gold! Useless shit, I never use gold!
>Inb4 I use it to wright this post

Op is either braindead or somewhat of a fucktard that has no value to this society. And no, I am not referring to 4chan. He is clearly too fucking stupid to be a valuable resource on this planet! Rage all over the place!!!

[Anonymous No.4433174]

>>4433152
Probably not gold bullets, pipe or cladding. It's too soft a metal to really be effective.

Then again, the soft nature of gold may mean that it mushrooms out more as a bullet, so it might be more effective? I don't know.

[Anonymous No.4433179]

>>4433174
I think it will be turned into powder before reaching the end of the barrel. Although it might have some force, you'd have to stand closer than 3ft for it to be harmful I'd believe. The power of gunpowder would be too strong. Gold is useless in alot of ways, but without it, we couldn't be discussing it's uselesslesslessless here today.

And the bitches would not be that easily manipulated by the useless jewelry!

[4tran No.4433184]

>>4433174
Yeah, it'd probably make great hollow point/antipersonnel rounds. However, it would probably fail against kevlar or armor of any sort.

[Anonymous No.4433185]

Now what if there are fixed prices for all goods and services? Of course this is an unrealistic scenario, but if there are fixed prices for goods and services then if you give everyone more money, they can buy more goods and services.

Downside I suppose would be that there would probably be shortages of goods and services as the demant would skyrocket but the supply might not.

Example, best car ever costs $1 million dollars. This is a fixed price for whetever reason. Everyone gets $1 billion dollars. Super expensive car store will be out of stock as lots of people want the best car and can now afford it.

As it seems to me, if every good and every service and everything else had a fixed price, introducing more currency into circulation just gives everyone an opportunity to aquire goods and services preciously unaffordable.

[Anonymous No.4433195]

Like everyone else said, it would just cause inflation.
BUT, if we play pretend and imagine that for some reason there was no inflation, and the value of the cash stayed the same, then really it would probably be just like if everyone won the lottery. You'd get the smart people, who save most/all of it and just get a few nice things, or pay off the mortgage on their house, but who understand that if they keep a nice sum it'll be easy sailing for the rest of their life, and the rest of their childrens life, and their grandkids, etc.
Then the people who are'nt so far sighted, who'd maybe save a few million, quit their jobs, buy a giant house and blow all their cash in the first few years, who then mostly just go back to normal life, albeit a bit better off.

And then you'd have the people who would be $10 million in drugs and either die or end up even worse off than before.

I can imagine that it would be a godsend to poor people in countries like Africa and India who are suddenly able to move from slums into nice houses and get a good education.

[Anonymous No.4433197]

>>4433169
>>4433174

Lead is softer than gold.

[Anonymous No.4433201]

>>4433195
>I can imagine that it would be a godsend to poor people in countries like Africa and India who are suddenly able to move from slums into nice houses and get a good education.
you are assuming that these places have 'smarter' poor than others when it comes to such a windfall it seems.

why?

[Anonymous No.4433207]

>>4433201

Obviously, a lot would probably just spend it on drugs or shit.
but I'm more talking about the people who are there because they moved to the city for work, you know, the ones that aren't in slums because they wasted their life on coke.

And I only said africa or india because they are countries with huge amounts of poverty, is all. I can imagine that there would be huge amounts of poor in first world countries who would happily use their money to get out and get a nice house, too.

[Anonymous No.4433214]

Economic crash. People panic, lots of people starve to death and freeze in the winter. Minor stuff like that.

[Anonymous No.4433238]

>>4433207
there are plenty of exceptions all over the world, sure. most people who are poor relative to those around them are that way because they cannot understand how to manage money, defer gratification, or learn any economically useful skills. as such, giving everyone free money (in a hypothetical inflation free world) would be a windfall for the producers of the type of shit the poor would buy more than anything.

also, even if the producers of goods weren't allowed to inflate their prices, temporary shortages would create secondary barter markets that would be subject to massive inflation- again those who can defer gratification or produce goods win out.

a long round about way of saying that free money won't actually help any of the people who aren't doing well in the current environment long term, and likely make them worse off.

[Anonymous No.4433259]

>>4433238
why would they raise prices if everyone already has money that can last them in their lifetime? supply and demand doesn't make sense when you have unlimited source of cash.

[Anonymous No.4433274]

Why would raising prices not be a valid option? You take the average income of a person per day based on their country, let's call it N. N/10,000,000 = G, all prices * G.

[Anonymous No.4433280]

>>4432236
Dude. The economy is literally a game mankind chooses to play. Stocks, money, debt, none of these things are real or have any value anywhere but our minds.

[Anonymous No.4433289]

>>4433195
How about skip the middleman (in this case, people who build you the nice house) and teach everyone how to build their own nice house, and how to create the materials needed?

[Anonymous No.4433290]

Inflation. Basically the market will balance itself out to make it so every 10 mil that was given to people is negligible. A snickers will cost 10 million and 2 dollars now.

[Anonymous No.4433297]

I'm gonna have to stick with Conan the Cimmarian.

Good Steel is worth more its weight in gold

[Anonymous No.4433301]

>>4433290

How would that work? I had $4 yesterday, a snickers costs $2 - I could have bought 2 snickers if I wanted too.

I gain $10,000,000 and therefore have $10,000,004, and snickers prices rise to $10,000,002. I can buy one snickers.

Inflation doesn't work with flat figures.

[Anonymous No.4433339]

>>4433259
>why would they raise prices if everyone already has money that can last them in their lifetime? supply and demand doesn't make sense when you have unlimited source of cash.
what? if everyone had unlimited cash things would cost unlimited amounts of money.

my point was that in a situation where producers are prevented from raising their prices to meet the new market conditions, secondary markets will spring up in response to short term shortages that will be subject to that inflation. if those are clamped down on, black markets will spring up.

what is revealed by this hypothetical is that fiat currencies have zero inherent value, all of the value it does have stems from the nominal amount of money circulating that is following a fixed amount of goods. raising that nominal amount circulating does nothing to change the amount of goods available to purchase in the short term, and if done in the manner of the OP likely not much in the long term either.

>>4433289
>implying most people are capable of learning how to do that.

[Anonymous No.4433342]

>>4433339
So could one argue that if everyone had unlimited money and everything cost unlimited amounts of money - than everyone has nothing and everything cost's nothing?

[Anonymous No.4433350]

>>4433339
Pffft, dude, construction is menial labor that anyone can learn. It's a trade. I think most people could build a simple home if given some brief lessons (and materials).

[Anonymous No.4433362]

>>4433339
>tfw 25, 142IQ, and still living with parents with a minimum wage job

[Anonymous No.4433377]

>>4433342
well, no. that money is worthless and alternate currencies or a barter economy would spring up.

>>4433350
you really don't see the difference between constructing a complex structure given blueprints and following orders to do menial tasks? in your mind, is there any reason why engineers are smarter and go through way more training than the people doing the grunt work?

>>4433362
yes, some people not living up to their potential totally disproves the gigantic data sets showing the correlation between IQ and success.

[Anonymous No.4433389]

>>4433377
Engineers can do a lot more than build 4 walls, a roof, and a floor though. Most simple structures like that are made by tradesmen.

[Anonymous No.4433407]

>>4433377
engineers don't build houses. trade workers do.

[Anonymous No.4433420]

>>4432711
>>4432711
This is why pure sci and math doesnt get you too far. Its great to know, but you need common sense, as well....this is also why actuaries dont make millions on the stocj market, despitr their risk calculating skills

[Anonymous No.4433440]

Answer: inflation.