The Twelve Posts of Christmas - #5 (2013 Edition)

So the next time you're listening to those Christmas songs, and the Twelve Days of Christmas comes on (personally, this version is the favorite of the Brave Astronaut), do you wonder how much all that crap costs?  Well someone at PNC Bank did and, thirty years ago, and every year since - the folks at PNC have been letting us know how much all those birds, people, and Five Gold Rings cost.

One Partridge in a Pear Tree will run you $199.99, down $5 from last year.  Two Turtle Doves and three French Hens are stable at $125 and $165, respectively.  You will need $80 more for four Calling Birds, which will set you back $600.  The price of gold remains steady and five gold rings will cost you $750.  The cost of the next 13 birds (six geese-a-laying and seven swans-a-swimming) is also unchanged this year with $210 for geese and $7000 for swans ($7000 for swans, really?  they're just mean birds).

Now, moving into people, eight milkmaids will only set you back $58 (no change from last year).  However, nine dancing ladies, ten leaping lords, eleven pipers, and twelve drummers, will cost you more this year.  The ladies are going for $7552.84, a 20% increase from last year; the lords got a 10% raise this year, costing $5,243,37; the pipers and the drummers only got a 2.9% raise costing $2,635,20 and $2,854,50, respectively.

So when you add it all up - it's 364 gifts total, the cost of the Twelve Days of Christmas increased 7.7% this year for a total bottom line of $27,393.17.

From another source (BuzzFeed) - here's a ranking of the 12 days, ranked from worst to best.  Feel free to weigh in.

12. The 11th Day of Christmas: Pipers Piping.
11. The 12th Day of Christmas: Drummers Drumming.
10. The 8th Day of Christmas: Maids A-Milking.
9. The 6th Day of Christmas: Geese a-laying.
8. The 3rd Day of Christmas: French Hens.
7. The 7th Day of Christmas: Swans a-Swimming.
6. The 4th Day of Christmas: Colly Birds.
5. The 1st Day of Christmas: A Partridge In A Pear Tree.
4. The 10th Day of Christmas: Lords a- Leaping.
3. The 9th Day of Christmas: Ladies Dancing.
2. The 2nd Day of Christmas: Two Turtle Doves.
1. The 5th Day of Christmas: Five gold rings.

The Bretton Woods Conference

Sixty-nine years ago this month in July 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference convened at the Bretton Woods Hotel in New Hampshire.  Arriving in secrecy at the hotel were delegates from around the world, there to help establish an international financial system to help the world recover from the Second World War.  The link above is to a virtual exhibition that I helped to create when I worked at the International Monetary Fund.

There's a new book out on the work of the conference and the individual efforts of Harry Dexter White, the chief U.S. representative.  The book also sheds some new light on allegations that White may have been a Soviet spy.  The book is an excellent companion piece to the 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winning Lords of Finance.  There was also a recent article about White's alleged spying that appeared in Foreign Affairs.  When I worked at the IMF, I had the honor of spending some time with Jacques Polak, who was also a representative at the conference.  He told some amazing stories about the workings of the conference.

We've come a long way from those days in New Hampshire (and later in Savannah). The Brave Astronaut has a good friend who is coming out with a book in September on financial warfare.  I'm looking forward to reading it - you should too!