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Hello my honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal. Send
me your love by wire.
Popular song of the early 1900s
A billion here, a billion there—pretty soon it adds up to
real money.
Everett Dirksen, US senator
Senator Dirksen was talking about the federal budget, but he
could have been marveling about wire transfers. In today’s
global economy, the transfer of wealth by wire dwarves or
any other means. Trillions of dollars are moved every day on
the strength of little more than some electronic impulses.
Although the amounts involved are quite mind-boggling,
equally astonishing is the variety of means used to send
money by wire. ...