Here's an interesting thought experiment: imagine that somehow all the money in the world was gathered and evenly divided among every person. A farmer from Wisconsin would get exactly the same amount as a potter in Delhi, a goat herder in Namibia, or a doctor in Sydney. It sounds utopian, but let's figure out how much money there actually is on Earth and what that means for each of us.

First question: what kind of money are we talking about? When discussing global finance, it's important to understand the difference between just cash in your pocket and the money supply M2. They are not the same. M2 includes cash in circulation plus bank deposits that can be quickly converted into cash. In simple terms, it's all the money you could get relatively fast if you wanted to. This differs from global wealth, which includes real estate, stocks, art, and other assets that are not so easily converted into cash.

So, how much money is there on Earth in the form of this money supply M2? According to CEIC data for 2024, the global M2 money supply is approximately $123.3 trillion. This number includes the monetary aggregates of all countries worldwide. For comparison: the total private wealth of the planet, according to UBS, reaches $487.9 trillion, but that’s a different story altogether, as it includes all assets.

Now, the most interesting part. If we divide this $123.3 trillion by the world population in 2024, which was about 8.162 billion people, we get roughly $15,108 per person. Or in euros, about €13,944. Sounds unimpressive? But that’s equivalent to two years’ worth of average household expenses, a used car, or, amusingly, the price of a Dacia Sandero without extras. That’s the kind of answer we get when asking how much money there is on Earth per resident.

I think this is a good way to understand the scale of the monetary mass in the global economy. Most people don’t realize how small this sum is compared to what they see in the news about trillions and billions. The reality is that money is distributed extremely unevenly, and this hypothetical even distribution clearly illustrates that.

It’s also interesting to look at specific countries. Take Spain. According to CEIC data for December 2024, Spain’s M2 money supply was about $1.648 trillion. The country’s population, according to INE data for January 2025, was approximately 49.078 million people. Applying the same logic and dividing Spain’s M2 by its population, each Spaniard would get about $33,571, or roughly €30,968. That’s more than twice the global average. It turns out that how much money there is per person depends also on which country they live in.

All this shows how complex the modern financial system is. M2 is just one of many indicators of economic health. But as a thought experiment, it provides food for reflection on how global finance is structured and why wealth is distributed so unevenly.