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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

#481

Post by ninetyninenine »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #465
ninetyninenine wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What some call cynicism is often just clarity. We live in a twilight world, where even the truth casts shadows

I could not disagree more. Clarity is easy if you remove all detail from the world. There's no surer way for me to be disinterested in a position than it be absolute. The opposite of clarity is not self-doubt but curiosity. And unlike cynicism it's constructive because it's not afraid of being challenged.

I never said anything absolute. Read it again. The remark was that clarity is often mistaken for cynicism, which is often true given the lengths people delude themselves about many things. It's not absolute. I qualified it as "often," which makes it extremely reasonable.

See what happened there? A clear statement was made, but obscured because you mistook it for cynicism.

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

#482

Post by Cthulhu_ »

throaway920181 wrote: post #319
RajT88 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Takes longer for some than others. Depends on your job title.

I'd say a small (single digit) percentage of people are able to accumulate $1.5 million over "a few" (2-3) years of working, but maybe I'm out of touch.

Given you use dollars, I'll use US economics as the benchmark. Your estimate only applies to the 1%, according to https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom..., according to [0], the top 1% earners has a minimal gross income of $682,577 per year; deduct taxes, cost of living and other expenses, there's no way they'd save up $1.5 million over 2-3 years.

Yeah you're very much out of touch, what kind of income are you earning or is this more wishful thinking?

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom...

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

#483

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jjk166 wrote: post #291
ggreer wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It costs about $.032 to produce a 1 dollar note, so an extra 500000 new bills would be about $16k. It could be even cheaper if these were old bills than needed to be pulled out of circulation. In that case they'ed be paying money to dispose of them anyways.

Paper money in the UK used to be incinerated, if they used the heat to generate power, or even just heat water for the facility, then there would still possibly be some cost in not burning it ... but much though.

Not sure if they still burn the plastic money, would be nice to imagine they dissolve it in acid and use it to make more money (but they probably can't because of the dyes, at least).

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

#484

Post by actionfromafar »

jjk166 wrote: post #325
actionfromafar wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's perhaps the heftiest clue that it might not be actually 1 million $1 bills. Looks unsafe to perch it like that.

It's substantially more than 1 million $1 bills.

So more than a metric tonne swiveling like that? Sounds dangerous.

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

#485

Post by noduerme »

RajT88 wrote: post #218
onionisafruit wrote: post #195

From a 2014 reddit post[0]: > This is actually not a million dollars in singles. It is over $1,000,000. The box was created with the wrong dimensions by the contractor, but they still decided to fill it, display it, and claim it is $1,000,000. > > Source: Tour Guide at the Chicago Fed [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2f9sp7/one_million_do...

This thread is very informative on your chances of carrying off a heist stealing this cube. Conclusion: Low, unless you're willing to take only a fraction of the face value. Thinking through it though - you might be able to get away with spending the cash overseas, where it will take some time indeed for the money to be under scrutiny by banks to see if the serial numbers are out of circulation. There's then problem…

>> you might be able to get away with spending the cash overseas

Outside the US is probably the last place you'd want to pass those bills off. Besides the logistical problem of physically getting an enormous stack of $1 bills past customs... there's so much counterfeit US currency out there that the level of caution is extremely high. Just spent a couple weeks in Costa Rica, and USD is not accepted anywhere if it is even slightly torn, worn, or out of date by more than a few years. Maybe you could tip with it, but that's about it.

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

#486

Post by eru »

acatnamedjoe wrote: post #474
eru wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that, and Germans need the 1 Euro coin to unlock their shopping trolley. (Or at least they used to; when I visited back recently many supermarkets had free trolleys! Can you imagine my shock?)

Unlocking trolleys with a coin is normal in Britain too. I'd never considered that this might be unusual. Is this not a thing in other countries? How do they get people to return their trolleys to the bays?

It's not a thing in the US, I think.

And did Britain have this before the invasion of Aldi and Lidl?

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

#487

Post by rmnwski »

wavemode wrote: post #308
viccis wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man how expensive was that contractor when your art installation requires $1M in cash and all the labor to assemble it, but you can't just tell the contractor to do a new box?

The cash probably didn't cost the government anything. They can just use bills that are slated for replacement/removal from circulation.

for them it's just paper. how much does it cost to print a dollar bill. (would you even need to print it for this project)

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

#488

Post by rmnwski »

numlock86 wrote: post #432
onionisafruit wrote: post #195

From a 2014 reddit post[0]: > This is actually not a million dollars in singles. It is over $1,000,000. The box was created with the wrong dimensions by the contractor, but they still decided to fill it, display it, and claim it is $1,000,000. > > Source: Tour Guide at the Chicago Fed [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2f9sp7/one_million_do...

> The box was created with the wrong dimensions by the contractor, but they still decided to fill it This sort of implies that it was cheaper to just go with he extra cash needed than to do a cube with the right dimensions? But then again it's the Fed, so they probably just printed more money. (Which also costs money, though?)

why print it? the illustration of the size of the cube is still valid if unprinted (if it where correct) and it makes it worthless to steal

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

#489

Post by jama211 »

kiwijamo wrote: post #457
antod wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonably commonly used in Commonwealth countries. Next Friday is sometimes too ambiguous, you can never be sure you share the same definition with the other person. Is it the same as This Friday (the very next occurring Friday), or Friday Week (ie next week's Friday).

Never seen or heard this in New Zealand from native speakers.

I’m Australian and I’ve heard this a lot

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

#490

Post by whatevertrevor »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #481
whatevertrevor wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not disagree more. Clarity is easy if you remove all detail from the world. There's no surer way for me to be disinterested in a position than it be absolute. The opposite of clarity is not self-doubt but curiosity. And unlike cynicism it's constructive because it's not afraid of being challenged.

I never said anything absolute. Read it again. The remark was that clarity is often mistaken for cynicism, which is often true given the lengths people delude themselves about many things. It's not absolute. I qualified it as "often," which makes it extremely reasonable. See what happened there? A clear statement was made, but obscured because you mistook it for cynicism.

I sense some confusion, let me try to clarify:

The absolute I'm talking about in the GP comment, is in reference to the clarity you are referring to in the GGP. You don't actually provide any example of said clarity. And I didn't refer to anything you said directly as cynicism past the point in the chain where you state your preference towards analogizing a museum exhibit to an over-arching pattern about the Fed's handling of money. That to me is indeed casual cynicism, and it provides no clarity, only hand-wavy oversimplification with a defeatist sort of appeal.

Since you don't provide any other example of a statement that I would consider cynical, which in your view actually provides clarity, I'm having to use my own imagination as to what kind of "clarity confused for cynicism" you could possibly be referring to. Those are the statements I'm talking about in the GP comment. And I completely stand by what I said there.

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