Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
We are investigating the problem and will update you shortly.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


                 

Please log in.
Before you can vote, you need to register. Please log in or create an account.

Google Earth Money

Google Earth representation of daily flow of money
  (+14, -1)(+14, -1)
(+14, -1)
  [vote for,
against]

Where's all the money? Somebody has it, credit crunch or no credit crunch. Google Money shows you where it is, and where it's going.

Like Google Earth, in as much as it is a global image with detailed geographical features that you can zoom into, only instead of traffic movement detail, you can select the flow of money.

Rivers of currency can be seen slithering around from country to country, or at a detailed level from bank to bank. Stagnant reservoirs of money might be viewed like semi-transparent lakes hovering over certain locales, whilst in other places there would only be the faint glimmer of a few coins in the moonlight.

The information would be gleaned from a combination of internet traffic monitoring married with stock market analysis and crunched down using the type of super-computing power deployed for weather reporting and forecasting.

I think it would make fascinating viewing.

For a similar visual example, although sadly with no zoom or live update, see the link. It's slow to load, but worth the wait. I won't reveal it's contents, but it's not that hard to figure (actually title is a give away!)

xenzag, Dec 18 2008

Movements http://radar.zhaw.c...rces/airtraffic.mov
Might look a bit like this [xenzag, Dec 18 2008]

Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications http://www.swift.com/
in a small town somewhere in Belgium... if you've ever transferred money internationally, these people probably handled it from one bank's back office to the other - and they're not telling... unless you're the US government, and even then you have to twist their arms. [pertinax, Dec 21 2008]

One bill at a time - http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
[normzone, Dec 21 2008]

[link]






       great idea, but isnt there a privacy problem here?
williamsmatt, Dec 20 2008
  

       //internet traffic monitoring//   

       Although SWIFT (see link) probably use some of the same hardware infrastructure as the internet, I'd be very surprised if you could tell anything about amounts of money being moved by looking at internet packets.
pertinax, Dec 21 2008
  

       irony of ironies. You still think money has a location? My bank account is a number that i can use from any location on the face of the earth. Unless you know where I am you don't know where my money is. Furthermore the situation is even more complicated when you include multinational corporations, shareholders, equities, futures, contracts, governments. If we can't even figure out where the MadeOff money went how can you represent where "money" is? Does my money live in my home while it is working in money market accts. and small caps, or does it live where the equities and loans are made? Does it have two homes? Three? Is debt equity money, or does the lender retain the "money". It isn't as simple as one might think.
WcW, Dec 21 2008
  

       Actually, [WcW], your numbered account *is* somewhere, at least in the sense of being in one jurisdiction and not another. A lot of IT infrastructure and international legal infrastructure have gone into making it *seem* omnipresent, but it isn't really. In the same way, this website is actually hosted in a particular location, though most of us, most of the time, don't have to think about which location that is: but we'd soon notice the difference if it were in, say, China.
pertinax, Dec 22 2008
  

       Money is such a vauge and unsatisfactory term. As the Hon. Member for the Loyal Colonies alludes above, credit, which is what is affected by the present market upsidaisiness, does not flow, really, as it is only imaginary. To avoid the GEM interface becoming increasingly imaginary and Narnia-esque (randfauns gambolling across the veldt, shaggy krone scooping salmon from crystal springs, the globe falling under a dark shadow as volatile queen of Mt. Knox has one of her many low moods), the idea could relate to physical tender: tracking, at its most alarmingly detailed, the flow of foreign smash into junk drawers and repurposed sweetie tins, emptied from still strangely sandy holiday shorts pockets.
calum, Dec 22 2008
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle