Reality Show Concept: Follow That Dollar
Feb. 7th, 2010 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleInspired by http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ , I'd love to see a "reality show" which I would call "Follow That Dollar". A hundred one-dollar bills are randomly selected and traced as they leave their source - say, a restaurant tab, or a car purchase, or a surgical operation. A panel of judges would make witty observations about where the money tended to go, sort of like MST3K of money.
The problem with wheresgeorge is that actual dollar bills don't have a very interesting life - they don't participate in the most important transactions, like paying taxes or buying a house. But you can still use the same concept to trace money through any kind of transaction. The bills don't have to be real bills, you can just choose random things from a business' accounting books using a computer program to weight the choices, just as if there were actual bills being passed around.
This is absurdly geeky, but if you could actually get at the numbers it would be so interesting to look at the economy from this perspective. I bet the results would be scandalous in dozens of ways, and in particular would lay bare the truth about class and economic inequality.
The problem with wheresgeorge is that actual dollar bills don't have a very interesting life - they don't participate in the most important transactions, like paying taxes or buying a house. But you can still use the same concept to trace money through any kind of transaction. The bills don't have to be real bills, you can just choose random things from a business' accounting books using a computer program to weight the choices, just as if there were actual bills being passed around.
This is absurdly geeky, but if you could actually get at the numbers it would be so interesting to look at the economy from this perspective. I bet the results would be scandalous in dozens of ways, and in particular would lay bare the truth about class and economic inequality.
