How many US$ are there?

[Ririon]

I apologize in advance for the clumsiness of this question. Feel free to modify it if that makes it easier to answer. The question is not limited to USD, but this is a primarily American forum. Feel free to use Norwegian kroner or whatever currency you want in your answer.

Obviously you can not have total control over the amount of currency that is available as cash, since I can set fire to a $100 bill or melt a penny anytime I want to. So keeping cash out of the question: How many USD are there in electronic form being moved around in the computers of the banks of the world?

At a specific moment in time, this is a defined number. Is this number known exactly by anybody? If Obama wanted to know this number, could he just ask the Federal ... Something? Or would they in turn have to get a number from every single bank that handles USD?

Am I being mindboggingly naive? :o (The last part was rhetorical.)

[DC]

I apologize in advance for the clumsiness of this question. Feel free to modify it if that makes it easier to answer. The question is not limited to USD, but this is a primarily American forum. Feel free to use Norwegian kroner or whatever currency you want in your answer.

Obviously you can not have total control over the amount of currency that is available as cash, since I can set fire to a $100 bill or melt a penny anytime I want to. So keeping cash out of the question: How many USD are there in electronic form being moved around in the computers of the banks of the world?

At a specific moment in time, this is a defined number. Is this number known exactly by anybody? If Obama wanted to know this number, could he just ask the Federal ... Something? Or would they in turn have to get a number from every single bank that handles USD?

Am I being mindboggingly naive? :o (The last part was rhetorical.)

According to the CIA its $70.17 trillion in purchasing power worldwide.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

[lomiller]

The answer depends to some extent on how you define money supply. The most commonly used measure is M2 money because it’s the one most closely related to a number of economic phenomenon like inflation.

Different countries use different definitions for money supply, but they all have something like the US M2 definition that includes all items that typically get used interchangeably with cash. Measures like the US M3 money supply include a lot of items like longer term deposits that are not instantly available the way demand despots are but are still “money” in some sense.
According to this graph on Wikipedia current US M2 money supply is ~$9 trillion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_US_Money_supply.svg

The main wiki page on money supply has information from quite a few countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply

[lomiller]

At a specific moment in time, this is a defined number. Is this number known exactly by anybody? If Obama wanted to know this number, could he just ask the Federal ... Something? Or would they in turn have to get a number from every single bank that handles USD?

Am I being mindboggingly naive? :o (The last part was rhetorical.)

Report on money supply are not done in real time nor is there an absolute answer for how large the money supply should be. More often than not money supply is evaluated by the inflation rate, if inflation is too low or and is in danger of going negative the money supply is generally too small, if inflation starts to get too high that typically means the money supply is too large.

[Thunder]

I'd like to know how we just created currency out of thin air after we declared independence.

[drkitten]

I'd like to know how we just created currency out of thin air after we declared independence.

Basically, by printing it. Normally, the government having an official currency means two things -- first, that it pays its employees and contractors in that currency, and second, that it accepts that currency for tax payments. This means that businesses need to have a way of getting that currency to pay their taxes, and that government employees need to have a way of spending that currency to get their necessities. This, in turn, means that most businesses will accept that currency in exchange for goods, and voila, a currency is born and in use....

[Soapy Sam]

Did you know the Secret Service was originally created as an anti-counterfeiting agency?

[Tippit]

Did you know the Secret Service was originally created as an anti-counterfeiting agency?

Or, more accurately, they are the Federal Reserve's cartel enforcers. They are there to ensure that it is only institutional counterfeiting that takes place. I wonder why the Secret Service is tasked specifically with counterfeiting? Shouldn't this be under the jurisdiction of the FBI?

[drkitten]

Or, more accurately,

.. in Tippit's traditional sense of "less accurately"

they are the Federal Reserve's cartel enforcers.

Obviously false. This can be confirmed by the date of foundation of the Secret Service (1865) vs. the foundation of the Federal Reserve.

hy the Secret Service is tasked specifically with counterfeiting? Shouldn't this be under the jurisdiction of the FBI?

No, because the USSS was tasked with detecting counterfeiting more than forty years before the FBI even existed, and there was no particular reason then or now to alter the USSS's remit.

[Sceptic-PK]

Tippit getting things completely wrong AGAIN? No way!

[Puppycow]

The most recent estimate of M2 is $8,772,800,000,000.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/current/

If you only count cash (M0), it appears to be something less than $1 trillion from lomiller's graph.

[psionl0]

Obviously false. This can be confirmed by the date of foundation of the Secret Service (1865) vs. the foundation of the Federal Reserve.
That cheap shot proves nothing whatsoever and makes you appear ignorant.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Do you know the factual rebuttal to Tippit's claim?
Creating money and counterfeiting are two different things entirely. The Fed creates money out of bonds issued by the government. The printing of notes and coins is a responsibility of the treasury.

[Tippit]

Creating money and counterfeiting are two different things entirely. The Fed creates money out of bonds issued by the government. The printing of notes and coins is a responsibility of the treasury



My definition of counterfeiting is the stealing of my hard earned purchasing power. From that standpoint, it matters little whether it is done to purchase bonds, the proceeds of which may buy bombs and bullets, or whether it's to buy someone else's groceries.

We can of course agree to disagree about which definition is more relevant.

[Sceptic-PK]

Well, in a world where you can just make up the meaning of words as you go along I suppose any and all words are up for debate!

[psionl0]

My definition of counterfeiting is the stealing of my hard earned purchasing power.
I understood the meaning of your post Tippit and I share a similar sentiment. I was just surprised that anybody would think that the foundation dates would be anything but an irrelevant objection.

On the other hand, even if we emasculate the banks and set up a full reserve/social credit/LETS system, there will always be a need for notes and coins and it will always be bad if individuals can manufacture these for themselves at no cost.

[Puppycow]

My definition of counterfeiting is the stealing of my hard earned purchasing power.

And my definition of counterfeiting is the stealing of crunchy goodness power!1!!

[drkitten]

My definition of counterfeiting is
... wrong. This has been well-established.

[drkitten]

That cheap shot proves nothing whatsoever and makes you appear ignorant.

Well, if you really think that an organization can be the "enforcers" to a "cartel" that will not exist for the better part of a century,....

well, let me say that I'm happy to "appear" ignorant to someone capable of thinking that.


Perhaps I'm wrong. Do you know the factual rebuttal to Tippit's claim?

There are lots of factual rebuttals to Tippit's claim; I provided one of the most obvious.

[drkitten]

And my definition of counterfeiting is the stealing of crunchy goodness power!1!!

And my definition of counterfeiting is stealing the title of decent films for use in bad remakes.

Funny how when Tippit uses ************ definitions, his arguments are ************.

[Tippit]

Well, if you really think that an organization can be the "enforcers" to a "cartel" that will not exist for the better part of a century,....

well, let me say that I'm happy to "appear" ignorant to someone capable of thinking that.



There are lots of factual rebuttals to Tippit's claim; I provided one of the most obvious.

The proximity of the founding dates of the secret service and the Fed is irrelevant. Their role is not dependent on when they were founded, because roles can change. Of course, that's obvious.

[maddog]

Based on the evidence in my wallet, the answer is $13.

Of course, that is a sample size of 1... :p