Money
There, I showed you it.
There, I showed you it.
I had a huge amount of fun putting the money chart together. It was the first time in a long time that my life’s been stable enough that I’ve been able to really disappear into a project—I’d almost forgotten how enjoyable it can be.This is a chart comic - a type of comic that Randall does from time to time. He has for instance done maps of the Internet (twice!) and other huge visualizations like this chart Radiation with a similar structure as this chart but with Radiation as the subject. The Radiation chart is most likely the inspiration for this much more comprehensive Money chart.
In this money chart there are five boxes with items on different scales of monetary value denoting prices and values of many things, big and small (with the values contemporary to the comic's release in 2011; most are now more expensive due to inflation). Each scale of dollar increments are different colors. One dollar increments are green - naturally, because American paper money is green. Thousands are orange/red. Millions are gray. Billions are yellow. Trillions are blue. This comic uses the short scale for naming large numbers (so a billion = 1000 millions = 109 rather than a million millions = 1012 as in continental Europe).
Included in one frame is a small man with a red and white striped shirt, blue pants, a cane and a knit cap. He is known as Wally or Waldo (in the US) from the Where's Waldo? books. To not give anything away for those who wish to search for him themselves there will be no spoiler here. But if someone needs a little help... Then by clicking this link you will be directed to the relevant section amongst the five sections where Waldo can be found. (The link will take you to that section of the full transcript page). If you still cannot find him (or give up in advance) then just search the transcript page for Wally or Waldo. There is a unique header text for this comic.
The title text is a reference to the phrase "Show me the money!" which originates from the film Jerry Maguire.
Extra Money pages
Since this comic is so big and complicated, extra pages have been created to include much more information than is wished for on this main page. These pages are listed here for convenience, but they are also listed in the relevant sections below:
- 980: Money/Transcript - The full transcript of the entire comic can be found here. It is linked from the Transcript section.
- 980: Money/Prices in tables The complete list of every item in the comic.
Tables with explanations
Dollars
Top-left The price of various common bills and commodities. The One Dollar Menu is a type of menu at various fast food restaurants. The one dollar bill and ten dollar bill are likely used for reference points. A Starbucks coffee actually ranges in price from $1.95 to $2.15 depending on the location. Middle-left Pet Ownership. The ASPCA is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The most expensive animal on this list may seem surprising; rabbits cost an average of 35 dollars more than dogs and 70 dollars more than cats. Bottom-right Four boxes indicate that the CEO pay has skyrocketed from $490.31 (hourly) to $5,419.97 (hourly) in the same time period in which the average worker's salary has grown 10 cents. Thousands
Top-right Hogwarts degree: a reference to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy from the popular book series by J. K. Rowling about Harry Potter. One box is the estimated yearly tuition for the school and the next is how much seven years at the school would cost. To get a degree at the school, it takes 7 years (starting at age 11, ending at age 18).
Bottom A reference to the song by Barenaked Ladies entitled "If I Had $1000000" and all the things referenced in the song to buy the love of another person. Middle-Right A few items on the marriage of Kate Middleton and Prince William, the major royal wedding of 2011, including:
- a wedding dress with its own Wikipedia page of 3 times the annual per capita income of the average UK person,
- an 8-tier wedding cake,
- and the flowers for the wedding. These re-appear in the Millions section of the graph, where they also list the costs for the security around the event ($20 million).
Millions
Left Dr. Evil's ransom demands from the film "Austin Powers" corrected for inflation between 1969 and 1997. Middle-right Another reference to J. K. Rowling, comparing her (actual $1 billion) net worth as an author with her (imagined $82,000) net worth as a rapper. The magnified 82 orange/red ($1,000) boxes are footnoted "Professional assessment by rapper/geek culture expert MC Frontalot." MC Front-A-Lot is the creator of the subgenre of hip-hop known as Nerd Core.
Middle An F-22 Raptor fighter jet (valued at $154.5M) is compared to a Velociraptor ($1.9M in production costs for the film Jurassic Park) Billions
Top-Left ((Fictional)Billionaires section) Carlisle Cullen is from the Twilight series of books and movies. He is a vampire and adoptive father of Edward, Emmett and Alice Cullen, as well as Rosalie and Jasper Hale. He was born in the 1640s and amassed his wealth through many years of compound interest and investments. Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character from many Disney properties including the afternoon cartoon, Duck Tales. Scrooge McDuck has a "money bin" full of coins and other sorts of collectibles that he routinely goes swimming in. Bruce Wayne is Batman. Batman is Bruce Wayne. He is portrayed in many comic books, graphic novels, TV shows and movies by many different actors. Artemis Fowl is an Irish child prodigy and a ruthless master criminal from the eponymous book series. He uses his intelligence to build his family fortune through crime. Trillions
As Randall already indicated in the transcript, this is the block for world, continent and nation finances. The numbers are really huge. There are no jokes in here (apart from the fact that Randall tried to make the shapes of the GDP look like the continent), likely because financial values this large aren't funny to start with. GDP is gross domestic product, the market value of all goods and services produced in a nation.
- The major chart in the center shows the development of the GDP in the world since the 1940s. So far the US GDP has always grown, except for a small reduction in the early 1980s, a flat line around the 1991 global recession and a flat line in the second half of the naughts. The world-wide GDP is growing more rapidly, but is also much more volatile.
In the middle of the box, it shows the worth of all gold ever mined in 2011 prices. This is important because of the concept of the gold standard, a concept where monetary values are linked to the value of gold. As indicated in the top-right of the box, both the EU and the USA have more debt than the total value of all gold in the world. Derivatives are a complex financial instrument where one is not trading in something tangible, but in derived values - like options. Derivatives thus are dangerous as one trades in concepts instead of values. Critics claim that derivatives are at the base of the 'economic bubble'.
- The growth of the derivatives market size is incredible - more than doubling every four years. The derivatives market thus is much larger than the GDP of the entire world.
- We get a reference to a proposed project to power the world by erecting massive solar farms out in the deserts. The area of Texas alone would be enough to match almost all of our modern power costs (though the people who live in Texas wouldn't enjoy being displaced).