Thank you for your answer to my question on the cost of the Vietnam war [January 11]. I was astounded to think we spent the equivalent of 32 years’ worth of Vietnam’s GNP trying to kill half the people who lived there. Now I have another question. Imagine that instead of the Soviet Union rushing headlong toward capitalism, the rest of the world decided to become socialist. If all the world’s wealth were divided up equally among all its inhabitants, how much would each of us have? –Stephen Wilhelm, New York
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The Soviet Union is definitely rushing headlong toward something, Steve; would that it were only capitalism. Be that as it may, you do raise what seems like the obvious next question. As before, the answer has to be larded with caveats. The numbers for world wealth are even shakier than those for the Vietnam war, where at least you had the benefit of unlimited MBAs to count the change. Bumbling aside, the figures reported by former communist-bloc countries have to be regarded with skepticism because there’s no free-market valuation of goods and services. Ditto for countries where a sizable portion of the population relies on subsistence agriculture.
Other interesting numbers: according to various sources, the world has 258 million automobiles, 1.2 billion cattle, 6.7 billion chickens, 111 million turkeys, and 43 million asses. The last two numbers surprise me. Obviously the census takers have never been to a Saint Patrick’s Day parade.
The ratio of 30 cubits for the circumference to 10 cubits for the diameter “from one brim to the other” of the “completely round” circle gives the value of pi as being exactly 3. Perhaps reliance on the Word of God motivated the Indiana legislators you trashed. You should have checked with the ultimate reference. –H.K. Saalbach, Springfield, Virginia
