The world in numbers in real time

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on April 28, 2009 at 8:22

Liz: this is fascinating! Thank you.

The best known number incrementing in public in real time is the US national debt figure in Times Square, which ran out of digits nearly seven months ago, when the the US national debt climbed above $10 trillion. It'll be a lot more now!

But the web page you've drawn attention to applies to the whole world, is multi-dimensional and switchable to multiple languages.

Where did you find it?!

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Permalink Reply by Liz on April 28, 2009 at 9:37

(I can hear the teeth gnashing already from some but) I got the link from a contact on Twitter. It also has references and links to back up its data.

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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on April 28, 2009 at 10:04

Clive, I think you meant 'excrementing in public in real time', no?

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on April 30, 2009 at 1:03

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WELL, it certainly won't be decrementing any time soon!

As printers of the world reserve currency, the United States has in the past imagined that it can go on issuing what are in effect promissory notes, indefinitely. There will come a time, even if it is not already upon us (and I use the word 'us' advisedly) when the sky will darken with those promissory notes coming home to roost.

The massive banking and insurance bail-outs in the US, UK and elsewhere, necessary in order to cushion what would otherwise be a depression, don't just add to national debts. They mortgage the future of every single citizen for many years to come and we should have no illusion about that.

Gordon Brown, as the former Chancellor so-cosy with The City, did not cause the credit crunch. He just allowed Britain to be more vulnerable to it.

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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on April 28, 2009 at 10:09

Liz, this brings me back to some of the latrine pits we used dig in a Sierra Leonean village. No flush required so we never made it to this Worldometer webshite.

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Permalink Reply by Liz on April 28, 2009 at 10:17

Then the figures on Health or Water might be of more interest to you OAE, or perhaps Food compare some people's lack of it compared to others over consumption of it. Might explain all those flushing toilets.

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