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

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

#231

Post by logifail »

ggreer wrote: post #145
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…

It could be that they measured a stack of bills sitting on a table, then did the math to make a metal frame to contain $1,000,000. But they didn't account for stacks compressing under the weight of higher stacks, and it wouldn't look as nice if the top part of the cube was empty. Still, it does seem like it would be cheaper to rebuild the case than to add $500k to it. Maybe it's easy for the Fed to acquire more cash…

> Maybe it's easy for the Fed to acquire more cash as long as it's guaranteed not to be spent.

Based on Fed policy since 2007, they may be happy to hand out cash especially if it's going to be spent.

"Money printer go brrr" and all that...

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

#232

Post by necovek »

c249709 wrote: post #223
necovek wrote: post #174

I counted and got the exact same numbers from the first photo in the article: 8x19x102. No helper software needed, on a small phone screen. Though having an app handy might make sense sometimes.

it's the uncertainty that kills me, I'm never sure if i've missed anything/double counted something

In general, it's pretty easy to get the 8x or 19x correctly — these are the large dimensions. So really, you are only looking at being wrong on the 102, and off by two (100-104) is not such a big difference (1.52M-1.58M).

Once you realise that the error bars are small (and it was mostly intuitive for me, probably looking at counting up to a hundred, so a few percent off is not a big deal), you stop worrying about the uncertainty as much ;-)

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

#233

Post by Dylan16807 »

goodcanadian wrote: post #117

It's funny how all the comments seem to assume the conclusion is correct. I think it is far more likely that it is exactly $1M (plus or minus a couple of percent margin of error), and that the packing isn't uniform. It seems extremely unlikely to me that they would fuck it up so bad as to have $500k more in the box than claimed.

Non uniform in what way? If all the money in the middle is jumbled up and 50% air that's still extremely misleading. And it's not far off the crumpled up newspaper the article threw in as a possibility.

The conclusion that something is off is still right in that case.

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

#234

Post by hk__2 »

goodcanadian wrote: post #117

It's funny how all the comments seem to assume the conclusion is correct. I think it is far more likely that it is exactly $1M (plus or minus a couple of percent margin of error), and that the packing isn't uniform. It seems extremely unlikely to me that they would fuck it up so bad as to have $500k more in the box than claimed.

See sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44437004

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

#235

Post by alex_young »

jmkni wrote: post #192

Kind of off-topic, but I've always thought a good way to suss out what sort of background somebody comes from is to ask them to visualise $1million dollars. People from a "working class" background tend to see a massive pile of money, more middle class, a smaller pile, upper class maybe a cheque or a small stack of $100 bills or a bank transfer. It's maybe one of the weirdest parts of the JBR ransom note (getting rea…

IDK, a strap of $100 bills is $10k, so $1M would be 100 of them. Seems sizable. Looks like a strap is about .43 inches tall, so that would make your $1M about 3 and a half feet high or more than a meter tall for the non-imperial afflicted amongst us.

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

#236

Post by necovek »

a2800276 wrote: post #193
roywiggins wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the Fed though, does money actually "cost" anything for them? They're the ones who make the money!

Fun fact, people who work at the Fed just print their salary at the end of the month.

That'd be fun, but I am pretty sure they get it electronically into their bank account — as in, no money is ever made for their salaries, just like most white collar workers.

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

#237

Post by necovek »

deepsun wrote: post #181
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 those bills didn't go through decommissioning process for used bills. It's much easier to just keep $1M on passive cash balance forever. Yes, they lose about $5k/month on lost interest rate, but a bank can afford it.

$5k/month or $60k/year is roughly 6% of annual conformal interest rate — is there any bank that will provide that much return in USA today? (There are investment funds which usually do, but there are no guarantees there)

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

#238

Post by ekholm_e »

mrandish wrote: post #190
roywiggins wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the Fed though, does money actually "cost" anything for them? They're the ones who make the money!

Per this site: https://home.treasury.gov/services/currency-and-coins > "U.S currency is produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and U.S. coins are produced by the U.S. Mint. Both organizations are bureaus of the U.S. Department of the Treasury." But even if this exhibit was at a U.S. Mint site, your assumption doesn't account for how the real world works. The people involved in planning, creating and operati…

My wife works at the Fed, and I can confirm that 1) the Fed does decommission/retire bills and 2) that whole process is very tightly controlled. The retired bills are typically shredded, and if you go on a tour of a Fed bank, you can get little baggies of "Fed Shreds."

So it seems very likely to me that whatever money is in the cube is decommissioned.

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

#239

Post by lxgr »

ggreer wrote: post #145
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…

It could be that they measured a stack of bills sitting on a table, then did the math to make a metal frame to contain $1,000,000. But they didn't account for stacks compressing under the weight of higher stacks, and it wouldn't look as nice if the top part of the cube was empty. Still, it does seem like it would be cheaper to rebuild the case than to add $500k to it. Maybe it's easy for the Fed to acquire more cash…

> Maybe it's easy for the Fed to acquire more cash as long as it's guaranteed not to be spent.

The Fed doesn't acquire cash, it creates it. USD banknotes are liabilities of the Fed, but that concept only makes sense when somebody other than itself owns them.

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

#240

Post by nemomarx »

wodenokoto wrote: post #215
Aurornis wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think it’s funny that so many comments assume they would have lax accounting for the extra $500K, or that the artists could have casually asked for another $500K of old bills to use as filler and the request would have been granted. The Fed is extremely rigorous in tracking these things. It isn’t a couple guys in a room playing casually with millions of dollars. Even the retired bills are thoroughly monitored…

There was a danish artist that got a very large amount of cash to do a similar in spirit artwork. He then named it “take the money and run” and showcased what amounted to an empty frame.

wasn't he sued by the museum and made to pay it back?
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