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[–] 66 points 8 months ago (15 children)

If Elon Musk finds a $100 bill in the street, it isn't worth his time to pick it up

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  • [–] 43 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (12 children)

    Meanwhile, if your yearly salary is less than $315,360 it is worth your time to pick up a penny.

    mathAssume picking up a penny takes one second. There are 31536000 seconds in a year (roughly, let's not get into leap seconds). Multiply that by $.01, the value of a penny. Then you get the salary such that across the year you're making a penny every second. A caveat to this is that even if you're making more than this you need to debate what "worth your time" means because it's still a penny you wouldn't have either way, but I think this is enough to illustrate the wealth gap.

    Small edit: To add to that last point, what I mean is that it's not like you stop earning your yearly salary while you're picking up a penny.

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  • [–] 25 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I mean to be fair, you wouldn't be getting paid $315,360 for a years worth of work, you'd be getting paid $315,360 for 7.488 million seconds in a year (ish, 40 hour weeks, no missed days)

    So really to have picking up a penny in one second be "worth" your time, you'd only have to be making $74,880 a year or less

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago* (3 children)

    Picking up a penny takes way longer than one second! At least 5, if it includes stopping, and even longer if you check it out and put it in your wallet!

    😁

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    I'd have to include another 30 seconds to unlock my phone and search something like "is 1956 penny worth anything", then another 20 seconds for disappointed reflecting.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    You just need to remember the silver cutoff dates on silver coins. Pennies are only worthwhile if they aren't a Lincoln penny. Even the commemorative pennies with the centennial backs of Lincoln are like a dollar mint for the whole set. Wheat pennies and stuff like that should be obvious just looking at the penny.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    There are specific valuable pennies that are worth more than their copper value, like steel pennies from 1943, copper wheat error penny (also 1943), double die (I think from the 50s?), Indian head (pre-1909) etc.

    There's obviously a huge incentive to know whether your currency is above face value, so I feel like 99.9% of notable coinage has already been removed.

    When your boomer/greatest gen relatives graduate from this planet, it's always a good idea to look between the cushions of that mid-century sofa they couldn't part with, and everywhere else that can hold such treasures. Sweet old Meemaw and Peepaw may have left the musty davenport in the will, but overlooked the actually good stuff!

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Unless picking up the bill stops someone from earning for some reason, most people should earn their hourly wage plus $100

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Is this part not showing for you or did you just miss it?

    Small edit: To add to that last point, what I mean is that it's not like you stop earning your yearly salary while you're picking up a penny.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    That’s what I meant as well - we are saying the same thing. I think I misread your comment as that being the threshold to make it worth it. Don’t mind me, my brain is mush after work lol

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Idk, I think he'd pick it up because it's liquid wealth. The majority of his wealth is tied to the speculative market. I'm uncertain how much he could even make cashing his winnings out of the Stockmarket. Assuming he withdrew all assets and liquidated them. I'm sure it would be a ridiculous amount still.

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