Which natural resource is the most valuable? Rare earths, oil, diamonds, gold? Those are some of the most obvious contenders. So, which one do you think or is it something else altogether?
These are all estimates in US dollars, but they give us some interesting ballpark figures to consider.
To date, around $1 trillion worth of diamonds have been mined and there may be as much still in the earth. Even if we tripled those estimates, that’s still “just” $6 trillion.
The most abundant rare earth mineral is Cerium which has accessible supplies of about 6.3 billion metric tons, valued at about $23.6 trillion.
So Cerium looks more attractive than diamonds, but the world’s mined and known gold reserves total about twice as much at $47 trillion.
However, at the current price of about $60 per barrel, the world’s known oil reserves total about $106 trillion.
Have we found our winner in oil? No, there’s one often overlooked natural resource that’s worth much, much more.
The average lifetime earnings estimates of US workers varies from as little as $1 million up to $3 million. If we use the lower figure and a population of 340 million, the lifetime earnings of the US people is $340 trillion dollars.
The population of the US alone is worth almost 3.5 times as much as all the oil in the world. And the people don’t need to be dug up. Even a smaller country like the UK has some $53.5 trillion worth of people.
Obviously, these are democratic countries, so the people get to vote for the leaders who set their tax rates. In countries like Russia, where elections have been won by the same side for decades, the leaders can take as much as they want from their people. That may explain how Putin has acquired $200 billion in personal wealth. And also why he has to continue fighting the war with Ukraine. With a million Russians dead and injured, that could be some $650 billion worth of people lost. No wonder he needs to capture as much of Ukraine and their people as possible to replace his losses.
And in the US, the poorest 50% share just 2.5% of all American wealth, while the wealthiest 10% have already hoarded 67.4% of the wealth. How much more wealth do you think they’d capture if America gave up its democracy?
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