An interesting thought experiment: what if all the cash on Earth were evenly distributed among every resident? Imagine a farmer from Wisconsin, a potter from New Delhi, a goat herder from Namibia, and a dentist from Sydney—all receiving the same amount. It sounds like science fiction, but calculations reveal something intriguing.

First, let's clarify what is meant by "how much money is on Earth." We're talking about the M2 money supply—that's not just cash in wallets but an intermediate monetary aggregate. It includes currency in circulation, highly liquid bank deposits up to two years, savings accounts, and money market accounts. Essentially, these are all the funds you could reasonably get into your hands relatively quickly. Do not confuse this with total global wealth—there's also real estate, assets, and everything else that’s harder to convert into cash.

According to CEIC data for 2024, the global M2 money supply amounts to $123.3 trillion. It sounds astronomical, but when you divide that by 8.16 billion people, it’s not so much—about $15,000 per person. Or, if converted to euros, roughly €14,000. Enough for an average household for two years, a used car, or, as analysts joke, a new Dacia Sandero without additional options.

For comparison, let’s look at individual countries. Take Spain. Its M2 money supply at the end of 2024 was about $1.648 trillion, with a population of approximately 49 million. If Spaniards divided everything equally, each would get about $33,500 or around €31,000. This means Spaniards, in this hypothetical scenario, would be twice as wealthy as the average global resident. An interesting perspective when considering how much money is actually in circulation on Earth and how unevenly it’s distributed across regions.