Trivia

[Cold Sea 9]

According to the Reserve Bank, as at the end of Feb 2018 we had approximately R146 330 155 000.00 in cash paper money and coins in circulation. I thought it might be fun to play around with this, converting it all into R100 notes. Now the math people must please help me out if I am wrong. Measuring a new R100 note I found it was 146mm long by 70mm wide by 0,11mm thick. Using these dimensions, I calculated the following:

·         If a rugby field is 70m wide by 140m long and you lay them flat side by side, you will fill 1526 rugby fields.

·         If you put them end to end, it will be 213 000 km long, 5,3 times around the earth.

·         If you decide to pack them all in 20 feet shipping containers, the containers will be 109m tall, about half the height of the Carlton Centre.

·         Pile them on top of each other and you will end up with a pile 161km high.

Then I thought, to myself, with the state capture commission and all going on, what size bag would Mcbesi Jonas have needed to put the R600 000 that was offered to him. I remember him saying that he was told to bring his own bag. Well, I was very surprised. I measured a new re-usable Woolworths bag and found that R600 000 would only half fill the bag. Come to think of it, you could easily confuse that with the cost of living nowadays.

[GROOVIE COINS 22]

20 hours ago, Cold Sea said:

According to the Reserve Bank, as at the end of Feb 2018 we had approximately R146 330 155 000.00 in cash paper money and coins in circulation. I thought it might be fun to play around with this, converting it all into R100 notes. Now the math people must please help me out if I am wrong. Measuring a new R100 note I found it was 146mm long by 70mm wide by 0,11mm thick. Using these dimensions, I calculated the following:

·         If a rugby field is 70m wide by 140m long and you lay them flat side by side, you will fill 1526 rugby fields.

·         If you put them end to end, it will be 213 000 km long, 5,3 times around the earth.

·         If you decide to pack them all in 20 feet shipping containers, the containers will be 109m tall, about half the height of the Carlton Centre.

·         Pile them on top of each other and you will end up with a pile 161km high.

Then I thought, to myself, with the state capture commission and all going on, what size bag would Mcbesi Jonas have needed to put the R600 000 that was offered to him. I remember him saying that he was told to bring his own bag. Well, I was very surprised. I measured a new re-usable Woolworths bag and found that R600 000 would only half fill the bag. Come to think of it, you could easily confuse that with the cost of living nowadays.

I'm very surprised that we have so much physical cash in circulation given that the entire economy is about R4.7 trillion. I've always remembered being taught from school days that physical cash only amounts to a small fraction of the money on the books or computer. From this we gather that a third of the economic activity in the country is held in physical form, which is explains why our inflation is so high and why we don't see real strengthening of the rand regardless of what dance government performs to impress investors. 

regards Robert

[Cold Sea 9]

The way I understand it, the amount here, R146 billion, is the free circulating cash, in other words, excluding the cash locked away in the bank vaults. You are right, all the cash together is something like R1,7 trillion. What is scary is that if we passed the hat around and collected all the free circulating cash, it still would not help sort out Eskom's debt of R419 billion. Now that is a big pile of money.

[GROOVIE COINS 22]

9 minutes ago, Cold Sea said:

The way I understand it, the amount here, R146 billion, is the free circulating cash, in other words, excluding the cash locked away in the bank vaults. You are right, all the cash together is something like R1,7 trillion. What is scary is that if we passed the hat around and collected all the free circulating cash, it still would not help sort out Eskom's debt of R419 billion. Now that is a big pile of money.

Sorry I misread the figure above. I see now it's 146 billion, not 1.4 trillion.

Edited February 12, 2019 by GROOVIE MOVIES