Considered one of my favorite books of the yr was Randall Munroe’s What If? 2, which like its predecessor provides critical scientific solutions to absurd hypothetical questions. For instance, “What would occur if the photo voltaic system was crammed with soup out to Jupiter?” The quick reply is nothing good. Munroe’s extensively researched reply begins merely with “Please make sure that everyone seems to be safely out of the Photo voltaic System earlier than you fill it with soup.”

Or, what would occur for those who put in a big iron dice cooled to absolute zero in your front room? (For those who can keep away from the chance that liquid oxygen collects like dew on the dice’s floor, then units your own home on fireplace, you’ll be high quality. Simply don’t lick the dice.)

Impressed, I took to Twitter to ask individuals for his or her absurd hypothetical questions in regards to the financial system, to which I’d try critical solutions. This column is simply too quick — and this columnist insufficiently gifted — to do justice to Munroe’s books. But I need to attempt; these absurd hypothetical questions aren’t going to reply themselves.

What does the world seem like if all financial transactions at the moment are performed with solely penny cash? — Stuart Langridge

The apparent drawback is that your purse would turn out to be relatively heavy. The British penny weighs 3.56 grammes; put one other method, £2.81 weighs a kilogramme. Most merchandise would weigh considerably lower than the cash required to purchase them. A grocery store store costing £100 would require 35.6kg of pennies, so ensure you park subsequent to the purchasing trolleys. All this might be inconvenient. Individuals would possibly begin to determine workarounds. What would possibly they do? Historical past provides a clue.

A couple of thousand years in the past, the residents of Sichuan, China, have been ordered to make use of cash manufactured from iron. (Sichuan was a frontier province, and China’s rulers didn’t need gold and silver circulating round Sichuan, probably leaking into international lands.) Sichuan’s residents instantly confronted the penny drawback, particularly that hardly something weighed greater than the iron cash you would wish to lug round to purchase it. Moderately than pushing round wagonloads of iron cash, retailers would write IOUs, promising to settle their payments later when it was extra handy for everybody.

Then — this step is clear in hindsight — individuals began paying for issues by passing across the IOUs. If the extensively revered Mr Zhou purchased one thing from my store and wrote me an IOU, then after I went to your store later, I might write you an IOU in flip. However you would possibly want it if I gave you Mr Zhou’s IOU as a substitute. In any case, we each know that Mr Zhou at all times pays his money owed. Now you and I, and Mr Zhou, have collectively created a sort of paper cash. It’s a promise to repay that has a marketable worth of its personal that may be handed round from individual to individual with out being redeemed with these tiresome iron cash. I believe that if we have been pressured to undertake Stuart’s “pay in penny cash” system, we’d invent paper or digital options simply because the Sichuanese did, and be again the place we began.

What if we had not a minimal wage however a most wage? — Rachel Wrangham

The perennial concern with a minimal wage is that it’d destroy jobs. Oddly, the utmost wage might have the identical impact. In each circumstances, staff and employers have to discover a candy spot in wage negotiations: a wage that’s excessive sufficient to draw the employee, however low sufficient to be worthwhile for the employer. An issue with each minimal and most wages is that the candy spot could also be unlawful — wherein case the job gained’t exist. Both it’s unprofitable for employers, or unattractive for the employees. Oops.

Wage guidelines additionally change the ability dynamic within the office. Minimal wages put extra bargaining energy into the palms of staff. A authorized wage most would put extra bargaining energy into the palms of employers. It’d effectively improve company earnings whereas decreasing famous person salaries. I believe that extremely paid staff would attempt to discover loopholes, for instance, within the type of self-employment. However then self-employment has been a loophole for avoiding the minimal wage, too.

What would occur if tax wasn’t a factor? — John Cronin

The fast consequence could be that we’d have to seek out one other strategy to pay for, or go with out, issues reminiscent of the military, the police, roads, the NHS, colleges, state pensions and repaying public debt. For a touch at what this would possibly seem like, choose up a British newspaper this month. In fact it could be extra intense than that. UK authorities debt could be repudiated, pensioners would return to work or beg for alms, and healthcare and education could be paid for in the identical method as meals and housing — out of individuals’s personal pockets.

Many individuals is perhaps shocked at how little distinction such a radical change made to their lives. What they saved in taxes, they’d pay as a substitute on visits to the physician or faculty charges. However an enormous quantity of redistribution is quietly performed by public spending, so the nation could be full of people that couldn’t afford healthcare, education, street pricing, pensions or a lot of the rest.

And a few issues simply don’t lend themselves to consumer charges. The Meteorological Workplace might most likely pay for public climate forecasts by voluntary contributions, however it’s unclear that you possibly can pay for the military, navy and air power just by having a whip-round.

A radical different is to pay for public spending by printing cash. This might trigger inflation, and eat away at everybody’s spending energy. At a primary approximation, it ought to price residents about as a lot as their taxes would have carried out. The burden would fall otherwise, although. Individuals with giant money holdings or nominally fastened incomes would lose most. Those that held tangible belongings or have been simply capable of maintain their wealth in foreign currency would lose the least.

Attempting to pay for all present public spending by printing cash could be disastrous pretty shortly. Within the UK, the federal government is answerable for about half of all spending within the financial system, so firing up the printing presses would quickly trigger chaotic hyperinflation. But when public spending have been dramatically diminished, and well being, schooling and different providers have been offered on a fee-for-service foundation, then maybe the printing presses might remedy that nagging query of methods to pay for the military. In abstract: make sure that everyone seems to be safely in another country earlier than you abolish all taxation.

What would occur if everybody in Coventry was given £1mn on situation they didn’t go away Coventry? — Neil Pattinson

Coventry would turn out to be the Qatar of the West Midlands. With everybody in Coventry abruptly turning into a millionaire, it could be laborious to influence anybody to do disagreeable work. Nonetheless disagreeable work would should be carried out. That may imply persuading a brand new class of non-resident staff to commute into town to do it — an association that’s more likely to show inefficient and costly. Throughout the metropolis’s boundaries, it could be absurd to attempt to produce something aside from Michelin-starred restaurant meals or luxurious spa therapies for Coventry’s unique residents. And the entire thing would finish in tears if the cash ran out. On the upside, Coventry would host a incredible World Cup.

With apologies to Randall Munroe. Written for and first revealed within the Monetary Instances on 23 December 2022.

The paperback of The Information Detective was revealed on 1 February within the US and Canada. Title elsewhere: How To Make The World Add Up.

I’ve arrange a storefront on Bookshop within the United States and the United Kingdom. Hyperlinks to Bookshop and Amazon might generate referral charges.