

How Google Can Avert the Next Financial Crisis - cwan
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-06/how-google-might-help-us-avert-a-financial-crisis.html

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127001brewer
_... Currently, most of the information that would be needed to calculate
DebtRank or any other similar measure is simply not public._

That's why this idea won't work - banks simply don't disclose their risk
levels.

And the article's title is misleading: Google is not building an algorithm to
avert financial crises. A _team of European physicists and economists_ created
an algorithm (called "DebtRank") based on the PageRank algorithm to identify
patterns that could potential lead to a financial crisis. (But, again, the
"DebtRank" algorithm needs more data that's not publicly available.)

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kshatrea
The current financial crisis is primarily one of debt. This is because of
excessive government spending. How is an algorithm going to change that?

