Now your money can be at work in a different way, helping predict outbreaks as you spend it. Researchers at Northwestern University are testing a new computer modeling program that tracks the flow of dollar bills across the US as a way to predict the spread of swine flu. [New York Times]
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Lets just use Where's George.
@TheGuinnessTooth
They already have 10 years' worth of data.
(I think I still have my old stamp kicking around somewhere...)
I fail to see how tracking money is analogous to the spread of a disease.
If I have an easily communicable disease and I cough and sneeze during my cross-country flight I can infect several people who then in turn can infect people.
If I give a $10 bill to someone... They can only give it to someone else. The change from that bill cannot be tracked by any model. The money does not replicate itself in any fashion unlike a virus can.
Now - if you can find a way to make my money self-replicate like organisms... Let me know.
@CRCError1970: Now - if you can find a way to make my money self-replicate like organisms... Let me know.
Create a stimulus bill?
Where's George has been around since about '98, and I seem to remember more than one group using it for different modeling scenarios.
This is just more recycled news based on the latest fear-mongering headlines.
Money is DIRTY. Not just in a philosophical way.
You know how many people don't wash their hands after they go to the bathroom? And then when they give you paper money you get their germs! Eyyeeeew!
Skeeves me out!
Ah yes. One more reason why I rarely carry cash.
@TheGuinnessTooth: lol U haven't heard about Where's George in forever! I have a few bills signed up over, but I think I've looked them up in years!
NO! FUCK! I clicked through a few pages and was horrified.
[rocs.northwestern.edu]
This is the exact same thing we used to screw the economy up.
Stochastic models and Brownian motion are ALWAYS used by lazy modelers to "predict" chaotic actions. These models are drastically prone to high-sigma events and assume "rational actors." That's because they're based on physics models of molecules moving in solutions and such, and molecules don't have borders closed on them or cease traveling by air because they're scared.
Black-Scholes, CAPM, and all of the other flawed math behind finance drives the flawed math here, which always reaches the same distribution conclusions inaccurately. There is a behavioral component to the spread of disease! This model is crap!
One thing you learn in the money business pretty quickly : always question your stupid quants.