Value

Economics is predicated on value

-If an alien wanted to purchase everything on earth, what would it cost?

Maybe we'd give it to him/her for free, so he wouldn't blow us up...

Anyway,

I was reading the Wikipedia article on diamonds (Diamonds are carbon in an isometric-hexoctahedral crystal system, and the word derives from the greek for invincible/untamed; they are similar to graphite (used in pencils), but structured differently).   Anyway, they're just rocks.

BUT,

"According to the Rio Tinto Group, in 2002 the diamonds produced and released to the market were valued at US$9 billion as rough diamonds, US$14 billion after being cut and polished, US$28 billion in wholesale diamond jewelry, and retail sales of US$57 billion."

Approximately 130 million carats (26,000 kg (57,000 lb)) are mined annually.

Diamond production of primary deposits (kimberlites and lamproites) only started in the 1870s after the discovery of the Diamond fields in South Africa. Production has increased over time and now an accumulated total of 4.5 billion carats have been mined since that date.  Interestingly 20% of that amount has been mined in the last 5 years alone and during the last ten years 9 new mines have started production while 4 more are waiting to be opened soon. Most of these mines are located in Canada, Zimbabwe, Angola, and one in Russia. 

So if 130m carats are worth 57B, and there are 4.5B carats total, all the world's (gem-quality, not industrial) diamonds could be guestimated to be worth 1.973T dollars.   Why don't we bail out our economy with a bunch of rocks?

List of Famous Diamonds; LINK

Did you know that there is an estimated 45-62 TRILLION dollars worth of CDS (Credit Default Swaps) on the market, as of 2007?

The World GDP is, as of 2007, from the CIA world fact book, 54.62 T (on Wikipedia).   

What does the discrepancy between these two numbers mean? 

I'm not an economist, so I don't know where to begin to make sense of this, with some people making like two dollars a day.

Okay, what else do I know.  I know there are still slaves, and situations of squalor and dismal poverty.  I know, to prevent the threat of Iraq somehow getting a nuclear weapon on American soil, we invaded the country (which they didn't have -oops) which has cost us like a trillion bucks and destroyed a country in the process.  I know third parties aren't allowed into American debates, still.  I know there are problems and solutions and proposals and policies running willy-nilly everywhere, with what seems like no order or structure, on this silly warming ball we call earth, and there are food crises and monster storms and people arguing about gay marriage.

We all live in a yellow submarine.  Woo-hoo!  Want to buy some saltwater?

I'm at home with my dogs, trying to summarize the solutions to the world's biggest problems so anyone around the world with a computer who wants to read the summary can have access to it, before/if they buy it.