Wednesday, July 14, 2010

What's Possible?

Dear Coca-Cola,

For some odd reason I got that little "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" song in my head today, and it got me thinking:  Could you, in fact, buy the world a Coke today?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 6,855,889,654 people in the world this moment. There are two ways I'd think about buying a Coke for everyone today.  The first, of course, is how much money would it cost.  Actually, I don't want to think about it, because it would probably cost me a lot more than the limit I have on my credit card.  Let's just pretend I work in investment banking and/or a hedge fund, and since it's been a bad year, my bonus was only a few hundred million.  A couple years of saving, and I've got plenty of money to buy the world a Coke.

The money factor aside, my real question to you is, would enough Coke be available?  Do you have 6,855,889,654 bottles or cans of Coke on shelves around the world at any given time?  If not, how many shipments of Coke would I have to stockpile in order to give a Coke to everyone?  How long would that take?

I'm just curious to know if I should make this thought a real goal.

Thanks for your time.
Your pal,
Jill

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