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The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

calvin.sh

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Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#101

Post by darkstar999 »

fires10 wrote: post #95
citizenpaul wrote: post #82

Meanwhile I'm in a debate about the effectiveness/competence of government workers on another post. I realize the fed is not technically a government agency.

I do not understand the claim the Fed is not a government agency?

> Although an instrument of the U.S. government, the Federal Reserve System considers itself "an independent central bank because its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the president or by anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by Congress, and the terms of the members of the board of governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#102

Post by eggy »

Did you account for the paper band that wraps the 100 one-dollar bills? Not nitpicking, but you said you counted everything you could see.

It should be between 0.002-0.004 in. thick, so each band per bundle is about 0.004 to 0.008 thick. Might take off a little bit of your overage.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#103

Post by johnfn »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #7

There are additional stacks hidden by the aluminum framing. Everything is flush against the glass so there are a few more inches on each face not counted in the 102 figure.

That's not an answer to the problem - it just makes the discrepancy greater.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#104

Post by burnt-resistor »

fires10 wrote: post #95
citizenpaul wrote: post #82

Meanwhile I'm in a debate about the effectiveness/competence of government workers on another post. I realize the fed is not technically a government agency.

I do not understand the claim the Fed is not a government agency?

They're an IA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_Un...

The for-profit ones (Amtrak, USPS, etc.) are called SOEs.

The loan-related ones (Freddie Mae) are called GSEs.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#105

Post by johnfn »

eggy wrote: post #102

Did you account for the paper band that wraps the 100 one-dollar bills? Not nitpicking, but you said you counted everything you could see. It should be between 0.002-0.004 in. thick, so each band per bundle is about 0.004 to 0.008 thick. Might take off a little bit of your overage.

OP counts the number of bundles, so I don't think this solves it.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#106

Post by tzury »

In case you wondered, $1M in cash ($100 bills) weigh approximately 22 pounds (about 10 kilograms).

Last week I was watching that episode of Better Call Saul where he carries $7M throughout the desert for 36 hours, and realized his bags were supposed to get ripped 4 minutes into the process.

--

Calculation by Claude:

Here's the calculation:

A single US banknote weighs about 1 gram regardless of denomination.

So 70,000 bills × 1 gram = 70,000 grams = 70 kilograms = 154 pounds.

That's quite heavy - equivalent to carrying around a large person!

Those 70,000 bills would also represent $7 million in cash

* edit corrected the pounds calculation

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#107

Post by nativeit »

crazysim wrote: post #65

I wouldn't be surprised if the bills themselves are marked with specimen or something on the non-visible side. Maybe they're also artificially worn bills produced during bringup or testing.

Someone else had mentioned these were retired dollar bills (aka, otherwise headed to the incinerator) but I don't know the provenance of this information.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#108

Post by johnfn »

mrandish wrote: post #91

> For all we know, the middle is just air and crumpled-up old newspaper. I think this is the answer. I suspect the exhibit designers had a cool idea for a display, did a rough estimate of the area needed and then commissioned the exhibit builders to make the big metal-framed cube. Either they made an error in their calculation or the innate variability in the size of stacks of used bills threw it off. It's also possi…

I think this is the most reasonable answer on the thread. As amusing as it is to see everyone come up with zany solutions, it is most likely something boring like this.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#109

Post by nativeit »

taeric wrote: post #37

Since the rows counted were not uniform, why assume all 19 under each of them is? As such, it wouldn't have to be hollow, but doesn't have to be neatly packed in the center, either. Hilarious and well written exercise, regardless. Kudos!

Sort of defeats the purpose of visualizing $1M. I'd call this art project flawed in its execution, at best.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#110

Post by ehsankia »

Maybe just my biased brain, but the title made it sound like they were half a million under, not over. In some way, this is how 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles will never be exactly 1000 pieces. As long as there's at least 1000, I think most people are fine, especially as an art piece. And of course as mentioned, there's the possibility that there's filler inside.

It would've been much worse if it was under though.

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