← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sojourner
Thread ID: 8550 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-07-29
2003-07-29 11:44 | User Profile
This one leaves me speechless. Not to say that most everything they do anymore doesn't though. :rolleyes: What the hell are they thinking???? :shock:
[url=http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usterr293392399jul29,0,2727356.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines]LINK[/url]
Pentagon: Place Your Bets On Terror in Middle East
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 29, 2003
Washington - The Pentagon is planning a commodity-market style trading system in which investors could bet on Middle East political and economic events - including the likelihood of assassinations and terrorist attacks.
Two Democratic senators yesterday called for a halt to the project before investors begin registering this week. The Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.
The Policy Analysis Market is intended to help the Pentagon predict events in the region based on investors' information or analyses. A graphic on the market's Web page, www.policyanalysismarket.org, showed hypothetical futures contracts in which investors could trade on the likelihood Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be assassinated or Jordanian King Abdullah II would be overthrown.
Traders who believe an event will occur would buy a time-sensitive futures contract from traders who believe the event is unlikely. If the event occurs within the specified time period, the buyer would collect; if not, the seller would pocket the contract price. Analysts would be motivated by the "prospect of profit and at pain of loss" to make accurate predictions. Contracts would be available based on economic health, civil stability, military disposition and U.S. economic and military involvement in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. Contracts also would be available on "global economic and conflict indicators" and specific events.
Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota released a letter to retired Adm. John Poindexter, supervisor of the Policy Analysis Market, calling for an immediate end to the program. Poindexter is head of the Terrorism Information Awareness program and in the 1980s was a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal. "The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque," Wyden said. Dorgan described it as useless, offensive and "unbelievably stupid."
According to the Web site, this would be a joint program of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and two private companies: Net Exchange, a market technologies company, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of the publisher of The Economist magazine. Registration would begin Friday, with trading beginning Oct. 1. The market, initially limited to 1,000 traders, would increase to at least 10,000 by Jan. 1.
Dorgan and Wyden noted a May 20 report to lawmakers that cited the possibility of using market forces to predict whether terrorists would attack Israel with biological weapons. "Surely such a threat should be met with intelligence gathering of the highest quality - not by putting the question to individuals betting on an Internet Web site," they said.
Wyden said $600,000 has been spent on the program so far and the Pentagon plans to spend an additional $149,000 this year. The Pentagon has requested $3 million for the program for next year and $5 million for the following year. Copyright é 2003, Newsday, Inc.
2003-07-29 19:35 | User Profile
Looks like somebody made them come to their senses... Of course, after wasting $600.000.00 on a stupid project... :rolleyes: :angry:
[url=http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3179948]LINK[/url]
Pentagon Terror Futures Market Scrapped
Tue July 29, 2003 12:44 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Pentagon plan to get information on the Middle East by setting up an online futures market where investors would bet on the probability of war, terrorism and other events is going to be scrapped, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on Tuesday. "My understanding is it's going to be terminated," Wolfowitz told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He added that while the Defense Department was supposed to be imaginative, "it sounds like maybe they got too imaginative" with the online futures market plan.
The Policy Analysis Market, launched online at [url=http://www.policyanalysismarket.org]http://www.policyanalysismarket.org[/url] by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aimed to let anonymous traders log on and wager money on when and whether such events as the overthrow of the Jordanian monarchy might take place.
Traders were to begin registering for the program on Friday, with live trading set to start Oct. 1.
The plan drew sharp criticism from congressional Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who on Tuesday asked the Bush administration to renounce the plan and apologize for it.
"We are asking the administration this morning to renounce this plan to trade in death," Daschle said on the Senate floor. "The administration should issue a public apology, especially to the families of the victims of Sept. 11. This is just wrong."
é Copyright Reuters 2002. All rights reserved.
2003-07-29 21:42 | User Profile
Did they even realize how easily this could be manipulated by either terrorists and/or greedy traders? Oh I'm sorry wallstreet stock brokers never lie, at least according to the Wall Street Journal dogma.
:thd: