How much metal one can buy with 1k USD - infographic

[Altair]

How much metal one can buy with $1K USD.




Previously:

All the metals mined in 2021 - infographic
Most expensive materials in the world - photo
World's rare earth reserves - infographic
How long will the world's natural resources last - infographic
The 100 trillion global economy - infographic

[mwmkravchenko]

The scaling is all wrong. That's annoying. But the concept is interesting. It annoys me that someone probably drew this up correctly and then some genius convinced enough people that they need wow factor rather than truth. Because if 24 inches come up to this man's waist he is a rather short man.

Mark

[ductape]

The scaling is all wrong. That's annoying. But the concept is interesting. It annoys me that someone probably drew this up correctly and then some genius convinced enough people that they need wow factor rather than truth. Because if 24 inches come up to this man's waist he is a rather short man.

Mark

That was my first thought, too. The person in this infographic would be pretty good at hide and seek, being so small. On another note, this is pretty dated. I'd love to be able to buy that much steel for $1000. It's at least twice that price now.

[carl blum]

Hello Everyone:

Plus the scaling is not linear and they didn't include the weight or volume, just the cubed space.

It would be better if two of the dimensions stayed constant: Gold at a cubic cm and steel would be a 1 cm square rod 2.4 km long. (244,141 cm)

Carl.

[piper184]

Ignoring the scale of the person, if the cubes are relatively to scale it is a decent representation of the comparative values of metals.

Also, steel is a poor choice as it is not a raw material, iron would be more appropriate.

Comparing the metals to an arbitrary number assigned to a piece of paper is not very helpful.

A friend and I were discussing this the other day and we had some products with price stickers on them (remember those?) and we could determine the year by the sticker. I went back and compared those products to the "price" of gold at the time. The relationship between gold and the products has remained fairly constant across those 40 years. What has changed is the number assigned to the notes of paper we used as a medium of exchange.

Someone once said that in medieval times an ounce of gold would buy a really nice suit of clothes for a man, and today, that still holds true.

Interesting way to think about "prices" and "inflation"...

[Philip Davies]

He’s got a very big hand, though!

[Duke_of_URL]

Time to get into Osmium mining!

[mwmkravchenko]

Ignoring the scale of the person, if the cubes are relatively to scale it is a decent representation of the comparative values of metals.

Also, steel is a poor choice as it is not a raw material, iron would be more appropriate.

Comparing the metals to an arbitrary number assigned to a piece of paper is not very helpful.

A friend and I were discussing this the other day and we had some products with price stickers on them (remember those?) and we could determine the year by the sticker. I went back and compared those products to the "price" of gold at the time. The relationship between gold and the products has remained fairly constant across those 40 years. What has changed is the number assigned to the notes of paper we used as a medium of exchange.

Someone once said that in medieval times an ounce of gold would buy a really nice suit of clothes for a man, and today, that still holds true.

Interesting way to think about "prices" and "inflation"...

We have inflation for one simple reason. Somone wants to make more money.

Banks
Government through taxes
Wealthy individuals through Corporations that are supposed to earn more every 3 months.

The last one is the constant driver.

The first two are episodic.

The decoupling of currency from a tangible commodity is the source of the constant generation of more wealth.

Have a finite amount of precious anything that your currency is tied to limits the total possible amount of this currency.

Good, and bad. Bad in that the people that are good at making the money will accumulate it. Wait, that's happening anyway...

Can't say it's working though. 40 years ago there was a middle class in Canada and the U.S. Hard to find now.

Education is the key. Canada is the most over educated country in the world. No one is wanting to do the real jobs.

Sad.

I'll get off my little box now.

Mark

[ductape]

We have inflation for one simple reason. Somone wants to make more money.

Banks
Government through taxes
Wealthy individuals through Corporations that are supposed to earn more every 3 months.

The last one is the constant driver.

The first two are episodic.

The decoupling of currency from a tangible commodity is the source of the constant generation of more wealth.

Have a finite amount of precious anything that your currency is tied to limits the total possible amount of this currency.

Good, and bad. Bad in that the people that are good at making the money will accumulate it. Wait, that's happening anyway...

Can't say it's working though. 40 years ago there was a middle class in Canada and the U.S. Hard to find now.

Education is the key. Canada is the most over educated country in the world. No one is wanting to do the real jobs.

Sad.

I'll get off my little box now.

Mark

History has shown that greed is the second most destructive human trait. The violence caused by it is unfortunately the first.

[carl blum]

Pure Aluminum doesn't exist in nature either, only as aluminum oxide. I'm sure several of the other metals have to be refined too.