How Much Money You Need To Realistically Recreate The Scrooge McDuck ‘Gold Coin Swim’ - Polidicks

[img]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17kdmwf1pq9wbjpg/original.jpg[/img] [quote] Along with making it rain, Scrooge McDuck's money swim is a definite sign of excess in success. The question is though, how much money does one need to pull off the money swim? The Billfold tackled the question and came up with a giganto number. Using an estimate on the height of coin piles and a bit of calculus and graphing, Billfold came up with the formula y=-x2-1x+5 (where x an y is one inch). According to them: When the area under the curve is calculated (from x=-3 to x=5), it yields roughly 46 square inches. The assumption will be made here that one cubic inch is roughly one ounce of gold. To convert that into a dome shape the value is simply cubed, which becomes 97,366 ounces. Given that 1 ounce of gold is roughly $5.00, it can extrapolated that each large pile of gold in the vault is worth $486,830. $486,830! But if you adjust for inflation as Scrooge McDuck was first drawn in 1947 that would mean 5.2 billion dollars in one pile. And if you guesstimate how many pile are in the room, the final tally comes out to 31.2 billion dollars. That kind of money means only the six richest people in the world could pull off this stunt. Guess we should start saving. [/quote] [url]http://gizmodo.com/5904097/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-do-scrooge-mcducks-money-swim[/url] [quote] After executing smart mortgage derivatives and diversifying high yield stocks, cash should start flowing freely, leaving the smart investor with even more questions, like “how do I protect my municipal bonds?” and, “should I invest in a C-Share or blend fund?” and, “how much money do I need to create giant floes of gold in a private vault and dive into it like Scrooge McDuck?” In most money circles (insider tip: “money circles” is a term used by only the most elite investors), wealth is measured exclusively by how closely one can recreate this famed animation. It has come to represent success in America and anything less than doing the backstroke amongst a sea of Earth’s rarest metal should be considered an abject failure. A main problem of this measure, however, is that there is no agreed-upon Scrooge McDuck quantity of gold. In order to give the young investor a goal to shoot for, and to clear up this age-old question once and for all, the following is a precise judgment of exactly how money you need to be successful. Looking at some of the best pictorial evidence of the McDuck vault, it is evident that this large pile of gold on the left appears to be five feet tall. This is deduced under the assumption that the average duck 14 inches tall, which is then used comparatively to quantify the pile (5 ft = 4.3 duck heights). With a little calculus and graph-work, the rough integral can pinpointed to y=-x2-1x+5. This equation puts every “x” and every “y” value at exactly one inch, as seen below. When the area under the curve is calculated (from x=-3 to x=5), it yields roughly 46 square inches. The assumption will be made here that one cubic inch is roughly one ounce of gold. To convert that into a dome shape the value is simply cubed, which becomes 97,366 ounces. Given that 1 ounce of gold is roughly $5.00, it can extrapolated that each large pile of gold in the vault is worth $486,830. However, Scrooge McDuck was first drawn in 1947, therefore inflation must be adjusted for which totals a whopping 5.2 billion dollars per pile. In the picture, there are two smaller piles which roughly equal the larger doubling the total to 10.4 billion. However, the shadows in the corner suggest that the room is a least three times as large as it is. Therefore, Scrooge was privy to a cool 31.2 billion dollars. This means that only the six richest people in the world could afford to pull off the Scrooge swim. Swimming in gold truly is a marker for success, but for the world’s big wigs, there are goals beyond even this. Another famous picture of Scrooge McDuck skiing down a mountain of money is even more alluring still. Calculating his velocity (roughly 5 m/s2) suggests that this mountain (of which we cannot see the summit) has a slope of 35 degrees, putting a rough estimate of the entire hill at 73.5 billion. Is it possible that McDuck pushed together his wealth to make this monstrosity? In theory, yes, but the eye line of McDuck (fixed at 8 degrees above the horizon relative to the slope) suggests that there are at least two other such mounds, putting his total wealth at over 210 billion, and well beyond the meager 70 billion of richest man in the world Carlos Slim Helu. It’s also heartening to see cash in this picture, as a diverse portfolio is always a successful one. If you follow the rules of global trends, equity markets, and grizzled anthropomorphic birds, you will be well on your way to a swan (or shall we say “duck”) dive into nearly limitless gold.[/quote] [url]http://thebillfold.com/2012/04/how-much-money-you-need-to-realistically-recreate-the-scrooge-mcduck-gold-coin-swim/[/url] I want to see Bill Gates do that

And still not even close to US debt.

compare 15 trillion to 36.2 billion just rolls right off your tongue

is this brand of realism the kind that sets aside the fact that diving head-first into a pile of metal debris would fuck you up

[QUOTE=Lankist;35674196]is this brand of realism the kind that sets aside the fact that diving head-first into a pile of metal debris would fuck you up[/QUOTE] it wouldn't fuck you up, you would just smash straight into it as if it was solid concrete.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp33zDazq1Y[/media]

[QUOTE=Lankist;35674196]is this brand of realism the kind that sets aside the fact that diving head-first into a pile of metal debris would fuck you up[/QUOTE] [video=youtube;v5aU1dmg5IE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5aU1dmg5IE[/video] [editline]22nd April 2012[/editline] Oh god damn it ninja'd

As a kid I always wanted to get as rich as Scrooge, so I started to save up. My parents encouraged me to do so as well :v:

[QUOTE=Gears of duty;35674372]As a kid I always wanted to get as rich as Scrooge, so I started to save up. My parents encouraged me to do so as well :v:[/QUOTE] Do you have a lucky dime?

They explain in the comic that Dagobert(he is called Dagobert in Germany) and McMoneySack are the only people who have the skill to dive into a pile of coins. Actually the beagle boys attempted to do it and got hurt, joke's on you, haters.

[QUOTE=Sie-Sveinhund;35674253][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp33zDazq1Y[/media][/QUOTE] In the video, you can clearly see the floor, so instead of hitting coins you hit coins and the floor.

when I was really little I'd always think that one day we'd have so much crap in our house we'd have to literally swim through it to get anywhere

[QUOTE=cccritical;35675512]when I was really little I'd always think that one day we'd have so much crap in our house we'd have to literally swim through it to get anywhere[/QUOTE] And then you watched Hoarders.

[QUOTE=nomad1;35675191]But you can clearly see the floor, so instead of hitting coins you hit coins and the floor.[/QUOTE] fill your bathtub with pennies and dive straight into it, i bet you wont hit the bottom of the tub

[QUOTE=Ermac20;35674155]compare 15 trillion to 36.2 billion just rolls right off your tongue[/QUOTE] And still the Rothschild family owns 500 trillion.

[QUOTE=nomad1;35675191]But you can clearly see the floor, so instead of hitting coins you hit coins and the floor.[/QUOTE] You're seeing coins on top of coins, you can't see the floor at all in that video

And that math is just the cost to recreate the piles on top, not the entire vault. Assuming that the 90' depth gauge is accurate, and that the room is 40'x40' (a rough estimate I made using the standard 12" spacing of ladder rungs), that comes to a total volume of 249 million cubic inches. Looking at experimental data online, it looks like quarters (which I'm using to approximate the size of the gold coins) will take up only about 89% of a volume, the other 11% being empty space. So that brings the actual volume of gold to around 221 million cubic inches. Plugging in that $5 per cubic inch figure in the OP brings the amount of gold in that room to a total of [B]$1.1 trillion[/B] (if it were recreated today). If it were created in 1947, the cost (adjusted for inflation) comes to a whopping total of [B]$74.7 trillion[/B]. Yes, that [i]is[/i] [B]over four and a half times the U.S. debt[/B]. And that's just in gold coins. That's JUST in gold coins. [img]http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs2/3015033_o.gif[/img]

[QUOTE=Echo 199;35682433]And that math is just the cost to recreate the piles on top, not the entire vault. Assuming that the 90' depth gauge is accurate, and that the room is 40'x40' (a rough estimate I made using the standard 12" spacing of ladder rungs), that comes to a total volume of 249 million cubic inches. Looking at experimental data online, it looks like quarters (which I'm using to approximate the size of the gold coins) will take up only about 89% of a volume, the other 11% being empty space. So that brings the actual volume of gold to around 221 million cubic inches. Plugging in that $5 per cubic inch figure in the OP brings the amount of gold in that room to a total of [B]$1.1 trillion[/B] (if it were recreated today). If it were created in 1947, the cost (adjusted for inflation) comes to a whopping total of [B]$74.7 trillion[/B]. Yes, that [i]is[/i] [B]over four and a half times the U.S. debt[/B]. And that's just in gold coins. That's JUST in gold coins.[/QUOTE]Conclusion: Scrooge McDuck is one rich motherfucker.

No doubt bout that

[QUOTE=Secrios;35679539]And still the Rothschild family owns 500 trillion.[/QUOTE] At this point, talking about the Rothschild family is like talking about the extended family of Adam and Eve.

When I was a kid, I always dreamed of swimming in a building filled with ballpen balls.

I guess I'll just have to do it in pennies...

If I convert my savings into Zimbabwean cents I might be able to pull this off :>

Bless me bagpipes! That's not a small number.

I wonder why the Mythbusters never tried this stunt? I mean diving into a pool full of coins.

[QUOTE=lil timmy;35684265]If I convert my savings into Zimbabwean cents I might be able to pull this off :>[/QUOTE] the crazy thing about zimbabwean currency is that its support (paper, metal) is worth more than the actual thing

It's the fact we are fucking discussing this.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3KRQSpORW0[/media]

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;35685566]the crazy thing about zimbabwean currency is that its support (paper, metal) is worth more than the actual thing[/QUOTE] So in theory you can get rich by collecting the Zimbabwean pennies and melting them down in to metal bars to sell?

[QUOTE=Secrios;35691856]So in theory you can get rich by collecting the Zimbabwean pennies and melting them down in to metal bars to sell?[/QUOTE] oh shit i think you just broke the economy.