Fun Facts about Money

Here’s an extensive research on xkcd about how much things cost, including where government is spending tax payer’s money.  There is A LOT of information in there. Below, I’ve copied some of the more interesting facts to me…

– Median household net income in the States = $104.12 per day (A bit lower than I expected.)
– Cell phone avg monthly fee = $77.36 (Seems a bit high, I pay less than $20 for mine)
– Annual cost of cat/dog ownership = $670/$695 (cheaper than owning a rabbit)
– Typical 2007 CEO income = $5,420 per hour (Yes, PER HOUR!)
– Estimated one-year Hogwarts cost (incl. tuition) = $43,000 (That’s a bargain considering what you will learn there :0)

– Flower cost for William and Kate’s wedding = $800,000 (Imagine planning a wedding of that scale)
– Annual cost to run Wikipedia = $18.5 Million (I had no idea)
– Amount needed to live comfortably off investments = $4 Million (Depends on the individual/household)
– Most expensive car sold (1957 Ferrari 250) = $16.4 Million (Who would pay that much for such an old car?)
– Treskilling Yellow postage stamp = $83.7 Million = (Wish I was a stamp collector..)

– Mona Lisa assessed value = $731 Million (Art is a good investment)
– Mitt Romney’s net worth = $210 Million (I would retire if I were him)
– One F-22 Raptor = $154.5 Million (What an accomplishment for the engineers who worked on these)
– One B-2 Bomber = $2.5 Billion (0.o)

– The US’s 400 richest people have a greater combined wealth than the poorest 50% of the country (But some rich people still think they don’t have enough)
– A human life is valued at $8.4 million (How does one go about calculating this anyway?)
– Size of the derivatives market = $439 Trillion (Scary number, considering how un-regulated derivatives are)
– Total US public debt = $10.2 Trillion (That’s about $33,000 per person)
– Total Canadian public debt = $1.1 Trillion (Also about $33,000 per person, coincidence?)
– Total economic production of the human race so far $2.4 Quadrillion (That’s $2,400,000,000,000,000)