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> Rejoice, people of Earth! News outlets are reporting that NASA is planning to visit an asteroid made of gold and other precious metals! At current prices, the

> Rejoice, people of Earth! News outlets are reporting that NASA is planning to visit an asteroid made of gold and other precious metals! At current prices, the minerals contained in asteroid 16 Psyche are said to be worth $700 quintillion -- enough to give everyone on the planet $93 billion. We’re all going to be richer than Jeff Bezos! No one ever thought it was going to work this way.

umvi 7y ago
> enough to give everyone on the planet $93 billion In the words of Syndrome: "When everyone's super... no one will be" Poverty is relative wealth, so if everyone's wealth increased by the same amount, the poverty line would be exactly the same. If you gave everyone on earth 1kg of gold simultaneously, it would actually make the poor poorer since it would devalue any of their current golden possessions to near zero.
- GhostVII 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure giving everyone 1kg of gold would just devalue gold, not devalue their other possessions (unless those possessions could be made much cheaper with gold).
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    There is a story about one of the worlds richest man Mansa Musa making a pilgrimage to Mecca and handing out so much gold that he devalued it for about 10 years. And supposedly the Spanish plunder of the new world devalued both gold and silver for centuries. Also remember people saying that in the early 1980's cocaine was essentially worthless in Bimini because it was being used as a staging point in the drug trade.
- ddingus 7y ago
  At the core, wealth is actually time. Wealthy people have more of their time to purpose. Poor people have less. If we suddenly get a lot of new resources, we should ask how does that impact people's time, and those answers will indicate meaningful changes in wealth. Just as examples: The CEO making millions, but also working non stop, could be fairly poor in the basic sense. Slave to the job. One can make the argument they want to do that, etc... and once family, other basics are factored in, that argument may not be as easy as one might think. Close that next deal, or attend the soccer game? Another example may be someone who has very little financially, but maybe lives lean, has few dependencies. They may just not need too much, and have lots of time to purpose. That person is fairly wealthy, despite a low net worth.
- tschwimmer 7y ago
  Only in nominal terms, and assuming that a significant portion of the world holds any gold. In real terms, everyone would be 1kg of gold richer. Think about it this way: what if we gave everyone in the world a brand new iPhone. It's true that the resale value of an iPhone would decrease, but would the world really be poorer? I think that's a very hard argument to make.
  - umvi 7y ago
    An iPhone is more useful than a raw hunk of gold, though. You are comparing a raw material with a processed good. The value of gold (and basically all raw materials) is tightly coupled to its supply; not as much with iPhones. If everyone in the world got 1 kg of gold, it would be as if everyone on earth got 1 kg of aluminum... that is to say, you would have a hard time turning that gold into something more useful than a paperweight. You would probably be able to take it to the nearest scrap metal recycling plant and get a few bucks.
- ggggtez 7y ago
  >it would actually make the poor poorer Nope. This is entirely wrong. Consider: You have $100. I have $1000. We both get +$50 worth of gold. So you have $150 and I have $1050. You increased your welth by 50%, but I only increased my wealth by 5%. So yes, if you had no money, you actually did earn purchasing power. Let's consider another example: The poor person probably has $0 invested in gold. So if anything, it hurts people in the middle class, who might have let's say 5% of their wealth in gold, which is suddenly worthless. So the poor person has actually increased their buying power compared to the middle class, and the rich (who probably have so much money in real-estate and stocks that any gold investment is minuscule) are unaffected.
  - jbattle 7y ago
    Ah, but who would pay you $50 for that gold?
- lkbm 7y ago
  > it would actually make the poor poorer since it would devalue any of their current golden possessions to near zero. It would make people whose wealth is disproportionately stored in gold poorer. Same as if a company hands out a bunch of shares ex nihilo -- the existing shareholders are screwed. The people who had no shares and now have some shares are richer, despite the shares being devalued. If the poor are heavily invested in gold, then plonking a bunch of gold into the economy will make them poorer, but I don't think they are.
dukoid 7y ago
Wouln't Jeff Bezos also get an extra $93 billion -- so one still wouldn't be richer than him?

umvi 7y ago

> enough to give everyone on the planet $93 billion In the words of Syndrome: "When everyone's super... no one will be" Poverty is relative wealth, so if everyone's wealth increased by the same amount, the poverty line would be exactly the same. If you gave everyone on earth 1kg of gold simultaneously, it would actually make the poor poorer since it would devalue any of their current golden possessions to near zero.

GhostVII 7y ago
I'm pretty sure giving everyone 1kg of gold would just devalue gold, not devalue their other possessions (unless those possessions could be made much cheaper with gold).
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  There is a story about one of the worlds richest man Mansa Musa making a pilgrimage to Mecca and handing out so much gold that he devalued it for about 10 years. And supposedly the Spanish plunder of the new world devalued both gold and silver for centuries. Also remember people saying that in the early 1980's cocaine was essentially worthless in Bimini because it was being used as a staging point in the drug trade.
ddingus 7y ago
At the core, wealth is actually time. Wealthy people have more of their time to purpose. Poor people have less. If we suddenly get a lot of new resources, we should ask how does that impact people's time, and those answers will indicate meaningful changes in wealth. Just as examples: The CEO making millions, but also working non stop, could be fairly poor in the basic sense. Slave to the job. One can make the argument they want to do that, etc... and once family, other basics are factored in, that argument may not be as easy as one might think. Close that next deal, or attend the soccer game? Another example may be someone who has very little financially, but maybe lives lean, has few dependencies. They may just not need too much, and have lots of time to purpose. That person is fairly wealthy, despite a low net worth.
tschwimmer 7y ago
Only in nominal terms, and assuming that a significant portion of the world holds any gold. In real terms, everyone would be 1kg of gold richer. Think about it this way: what if we gave everyone in the world a brand new iPhone. It's true that the resale value of an iPhone would decrease, but would the world really be poorer? I think that's a very hard argument to make.
- umvi 7y ago
  An iPhone is more useful than a raw hunk of gold, though. You are comparing a raw material with a processed good. The value of gold (and basically all raw materials) is tightly coupled to its supply; not as much with iPhones. If everyone in the world got 1 kg of gold, it would be as if everyone on earth got 1 kg of aluminum... that is to say, you would have a hard time turning that gold into something more useful than a paperweight. You would probably be able to take it to the nearest scrap metal recycling plant and get a few bucks.
ggggtez 7y ago
>it would actually make the poor poorer Nope. This is entirely wrong. Consider: You have $100. I have $1000. We both get +$50 worth of gold. So you have $150 and I have $1050. You increased your welth by 50%, but I only increased my wealth by 5%. So yes, if you had no money, you actually did earn purchasing power. Let's consider another example: The poor person probably has $0 invested in gold. So if anything, it hurts people in the middle class, who might have let's say 5% of their wealth in gold, which is suddenly worthless. So the poor person has actually increased their buying power compared to the middle class, and the rich (who probably have so much money in real-estate and stocks that any gold investment is minuscule) are unaffected.
- jbattle 7y ago
  Ah, but who would pay you $50 for that gold?
lkbm 7y ago
> it would actually make the poor poorer since it would devalue any of their current golden possessions to near zero. It would make people whose wealth is disproportionately stored in gold poorer. Same as if a company hands out a bunch of shares ex nihilo -- the existing shareholders are screwed. The people who had no shares and now have some shares are richer, despite the shares being devalued. If the poor are heavily invested in gold, then plonking a bunch of gold into the economy will make them poorer, but I don't think they are.

dukoid 7y ago

Wouln't Jeff Bezos also get an extra $93 billion -- so one still wouldn't be richer than him?