The worth of the world

I’m not interested in the wealth of all the people in the world and its distribution. Not for this post anyway. No, it is the worth of the world. What would it cost to buy the world.

I do have an idea. Of course. My first thought is that it is immeasurable expensive. Far beyond the total wealth of all the people of this world. Which is around $241,000,000,000,000.

$241 trillion.

The worth of the world must be a trillion times a trillion times a trillion, and so on, and so on. Infinite.

I did do a search for this amount, but it is hard to find a thoughtful answer.

What is the total net worth of the world?
If we were to just simply add up the net worth in today’s US dollars of everyone/entities on the planet, what would the number be? Also, is this number a meaningless one not worth calculating? Is there a better way to approach this?

1 Answer
Anand Subbiah, eNgInEeR
501 Views
It may be hard to calculate the asset to bring the value in whole number .As we have natural resources by the time we sit and calculated total value of natural resources, man made assets the market fluctuations may change the value .

How much would it cost to buy the world?

Anonymous
151 Views
$80 Trillion

$80 Trillion is simply the gross world product. This number is a rough estimate of the lowest amount of the worth of the world.

Next, i looked into the list of the wealthiest people in the world: The World’s Billionaires. Below is a copy of the list of 2016 Billionaires.

No.	Name	Net worth (USD)	Age	Nationality	Source(s) of wealth
1	Gates, Bill	$75.0 billion	60	United States	Microsoft
2	Ortega, Amancio	$67.0 billion	79	Spain	Inditex
3	Buffett, Warren	$60.8 billion	85	United States	Berkshire Hathaway
4	Slim, Carlos	$50.0 billion	76	Mexico	Telmex, Grupo Carso
5	Bezos, Jeff	$45.2 billion	52	United States	Amazon.com
6	Zuckerberg, Mark	$44.6 billion	31	United States	Facebook
7	Ellison, Larry	$43.6 billion	71	United States	Oracle Corporation
8	Bloomberg, Michael	$40.0 billion	74	United States	Bloomberg L.P.
9	Koch, Charles	$39.6 billion	80	United States	Koch Industries
9	Koch, David	$39.6 billion	75	United States	Koch Industries
10	Bettencourt, Liliane	$36.1 billion	93	France	L’Oreal

I compared this with the list of wealthiest Dutch people.

World ranking	Name	Citizenship	Net worth (USD)	Sources of wealth
107	Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken	Netherlands	11.6 billion	Heineken
405	Frits Goldschmeding	Netherlands	4.1 billion	Randstad Holding
847	Hans Melchers	Netherlands	2.2 billion	HAL Investments
894	Wim Van Der Leegte	Netherlands	2.1 billion	VDL Groep
1054	John de Mol	Netherlands	1.8 billion	Endemol, Talpa, SBS Broadcasting Group
1190	Joop van den Ende	Netherlands	1.6 billion	Endemol
1250	Kommer Damen	Netherlands	1.5 billion	Damen Group
1250	Ralph Sonnenberg	Netherlands	1.5 billion	Hunter Douglas
1638	Carolus Nolet, Sr.	Netherlands	1.1 billion	Ketel One

I started with looking for the wealth of the Orange-Nassau family, the Dutch royal family. This is estimated to around 1.1 billion, in 2004. Old money.

Still, i am no closer to the answer to my question: what is the worth of the world?

I did this search in Dutch. I searched for the terms waarde (worth) en wereld (world).

An islamic blogpost turned up: Worth of the worldly life. I did read this page. Quickly i admit. Too quick to say anything meaningful about this.

Another result pointed to Lucebert. A line from one of his poems, de zeer oude zingt. That line was put on top of an insurance company, next to the art academy i went to.

Alles van waarde is weerloos

The adjective “weerloos” can mean “defenseless”, “helpless”, or “naked”, so the meaning is “All things of value are defenseless/helpless/naked”.

The very old one sings
there is not more in little
nor is there less
still is uncertain what was
what is to be will be will-less
first when it is it is serious
fruitless it recollects itself
and stays in great haste

all things of value are defenceless
grow rich from touchability
and equal to everything

like the heart of time
like the heart of time

© Translation: 2011, Diane Butterman

Last words of today
A rambling post. My apologies. To me there is some sense in all this.

Too many thoughts run in my mind.

Thinking back of a few months ago, when i came across of a current art school student. She was building and rebuilding a circle for half a day. Against the ownership of all the land in the world, everything divided neatly into countries. At the time i felt it was a good thought, but impossible to make a reality in any way in this world as it is today.

The world as it is today.

Dreadful. Gruesome. Horrible. Terrible. Appalling. Awful. Atrocious.

It is also still stunningly beautiful. Breathtakingly stunningly gorgeous. Magnificent. Splendid. Wonderful. Lovely.

I am happy i discovered Lucebert again.

I am happy.