Little Errors and Big Mistakes

With a mixture of amusement and disbelief, I read today of the apology made by PayPal regarding the error which resulted in a Pennsylvania man being credited with the quite staggering amount of 92,233,720,368,547,800 dollars. Apparently, we even have a word to describe such a huge sum. We call this 92 quadrillion dollars (not including the other 233 trillion of course).

At an atomic level or when estimating the number of colonies of a bacterium, it might be helpful to use such numbers. In real life, it is highly unusual to encounter a number of this magnitude. By comparison, the world population is estimated at a mere 7 billion people. I suppose the aspect of this story which is so baffling is the sheer amount of money concerned. To begin with, is there even that much money in the world? Given the fact that our country has been employing quantitative easing to kick start the economy, I suppose it is theoretically possible. But that was just the Bank of England printing money so just how real is it?

It only came to light when the rather startled man received his monthly bank balance. Seemingly, the amount was transferred and rectified very quickly. It reminds me of the immediacy of the digital age. In fact, it almost renders the entire concept of money meaningless. In many ways of course, it is. My ten pounds is just an arbitrary amount used as an equivalent against goods.

War doesn't come cheap and often precipitates hyperinflation when the fighting has finished. The most famous example of this occured when the Weimar Republic rather lost its way between the turn of the last century and 1923. In a shade less than a quarter of a century, compared to a gold deutschmark, one mark in 1900 became 1,000,000,000,000 by 1923. This was almost entirely due to the cost of participating in and losing the Greta War. Since that war was little more than a feud between the three cousins who presided over Germany, Britain and Russia, this was arguably one of the costliest fall outs in history.

Of course, one man's demise makes capital for the next man. As Germany reached its nadir in 1923, one American dollar was estimated to be worth 4,210,500,000,000 marks. By reissuing new versions of their currency and ditching many of the excess zeros, Germany began to get back on its feet such that it could ultimately become engaged in another war in 1939. If insanity really is the process of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, you would have to question the mental state of the German psyche at that time. The hyperinflated mark had become a figure of fun which would have been a great example of Dadaism. People were using the bank notes as wall paper because of the disparity in their value. Joking aside though, a country in such dire straits becomes easy prey for the extremists and Germany was no exception. It seems that the greater your financial woe, the more extreme the government to which you will be prepared to turn. You can't get much more extreme than Hitler of course.

But back to PayPal. Chris Reynolds was the 55 year old man who noticed this aberation on his bank statement. His reaction to this monumental oversight must rank as one of the great understatements of our age. He said it had been "quite a big surprise"!