How Money Moves
The title should actually be “How Dollar Bills Move,” but it’s not as alliterative.
A fascinating item on the work of Dirk Brockmann, who’s used WheresGeorge.com to map the movement of dollar bills, and the boundaries over which they’re least likely to cross:
I have no idea what to do with this, or whether it even has any useful application. But it’s at least a fine example of the fruits of human curiosity.
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Those lines seem to match up pretty closely with the Federal Reserve district lines, except for the middle of the country.
http://blog.glencoe.com/georgia/the-federal-reserve-bank/
h got to it first. Bills go round within the FRB zones now that no one pays for anything in cash.
Reminds me of cases where unions have had their employees paid in cash and stamped all the bills to make it obvious who’s paying the bills (surprise, it’s the government funded naval shipyard).
Given that physical dollars are mainly used in illegitimate commerce nowadays, this probably matches drug corridors more than honest commerce.
From my own experience in the Midwest, I’d say those E-W boundaries don’t match normal commerce. Most sales connections are N-S. OKC does business with Dallas, Tulsa ties to Kansas City.
What I take away from this is that the movement of 1 dollar bills is a poor proxy for the movements of either people or commerce.
With singles specifically, and the people who participate, you have at least two levels of built in selection bias.
It’s difficult to see this representing anything of significance.
The barrier along the MI – OH line is very hard to understand, even in dollar terms. Detroit – Toledo should be as open as Chicago – Milwaukee.
Western MI should be in the same zone as Chicago.
The MI mitten should probably be divided, similar to the U.P. There was a big article in the Freep just last Sunday about business people making common plans for Detroit and Grand Rapids – strongly suggesting a current lack of cross-state commerce.
When I travel, I use credit cards, not Georges.
Cheers!
JzB
Is anyone surprised Indiana is the most insular part of the entire country?