The Depression that Cured Itself (James Grant, Austrian Economics Research Conference)

What might have been...if the human race were only a little bit more adept with money...

"Cleopatra died in the year 30 B.C. (on the authority of Wikipedia).

Let us say that one of her loyal servants had the presence of mind to liquidate $100 dollars of her bangles and make a perpetual deposit at 2% interest in the 'Bank of Eternity' in Alexandria.

So...2044 years at 2% interest...let's see...carry the three...yes...that would be 37,909,764,047,315,200,000. That's the sum of money that would be available to us human beings.

Now that's an awkward some. That's before tax and depredations... So let us reduce it to a more manageable per capita sum. That would be $5.3 billion dollars per capita. [$5.3 billion dollars for each person on the earth.]

...Which, as the former middleweight champion, Jake LaMotta, used to say, "is a lot ta money...even when you say it fast."

Perhaps you have read the somewhat down casting news, fully 36% of Americans nearing retirement age have saved $1,000 dollars or less.

Now I put it to you ladies and gentlemen...the difference between $5.3 billion per capita in the world and less than one thousand dollars is the measure of the difficulty we have buying low, selling high, and keeping our hands off other peoples money."

-James Grant (below video)