Pentagon Terror Futures Market Scrapped

Reuters ^ | July 29, 2003

[new cruelty]

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.

THIS IS AN EXCERPT

[dandelion]

These stupid morons just killed a GREAT informant program. The Democrats work for the terrorists.

[KantianBurke]

Pic of the guy who thought up this idea:

[dandelion]

Think about it - visit the page. It was an informant program that had the cover blown...

[Cold Heat]

Not really certain of the benefits of such a futures market.

All they need to do is monitor the LasVegas betting pools.(they do the same)

On the other hand, the government has no business in the markets they regulate.

All that being said, they democrats never mentioned a single valid point in their argument. They only called it morally wrong. A moral position by democrats is a joke!

I'll put money on that for sure.

[Cold Heat]

You may be absolutely right. It makes sense.

Shades of the Office of information debacle where a propaganda campaign was outed by the demorats on moral grounds.(sound familiar?)

Cheeky monkies they are!

[KantianBurke]

From what I've read, this idea is plain moronic and thankfully is being scrapped. The moral dimensions I'm not going to even bother getting into. Sheesh I'm willing to bet the same schmuck who thought up TIPS was behind this as well.

[dandelion]

You're probably right, the same one who thought up TIPS thought up this, and no matter what they come up with, the Democrats will leak it. They will tell us it's bad, and then get the program scrapped. So this means that any program that the Bush administration tries to implement to get informants will be destroyed by the Democrats.

Hell yeah, let's do that. If the Democrats say it's bad, they it MUST be bad, huh? After all, we must make sure that 9-11 never happens again, except on the terms acceptable to Charles Rangle and Tom Daschle...

[KantianBurke]

What the heck r u talking about?? If its a bad idea I could care less of a Pub or Rat points it out. Both have it seems. Regardless, in terms of stupidity TIPS fit the bill as does this. Then again I'm just a peon so shame on me for not allowing my betters in govt to decide what's smart and what isn't.

[Quick1]

It IS a bad idea. I can't even believe this got out of a think tank session without someone having a moment of clarity, slapping themselves on the head, and saying, "what are we thinking?"

The Dems are right on this one, it's a bad, morally wrong idea. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Quick1]

You're kidding, right?

[MatthewViti]

somone needs a xanax.

[Lazamataz]

It was an informant program that had the cover blown...

Right!

[tortoise]

It IS a bad idea. I can't even believe this got out of a think tank session without someone having a moment of clarity, slapping themselves on the head, and saying, "what are we thinking?"

No, it was a very GOOD idea. The people who are critical of this do not understand what it is intended to accomplish. I explained this on another thread, but this "game" is required to baseline very powerful mathematical models that can identify terrorist activities even if none of the people playing are aware of terrorist activities. Generally speaking, nobody could make money at this game without also revealing many details of a terrorist plot if they knew about it. It is a very well designed system, and the original idea (originating from a very mathematically savvy economist) is probably around a decade old.

This is one of those cases where people's opinions should be openly ignored unless they ACTUALLY understand what it is they have an opinion on. It is a very clever and very esoteric mathematical system with a positive track record in other areas, and they are employing it as yet another technological edge against the Bad Guys. It kills me that ignorant know-nothings in Congress killed this thing because it offended their sensibilities.

[Koblenz]

On the surface, this really sounds like a silly idea, dreamed up by some academic with no political experience. And sure, it'd be an intersting market to watch. Often, people say one thing but deep down they think something else. The political polls aren't nearly as accurate as political futures markets, where people have to put their money where their mouths are.

But this may have had another element that we're not aware of. If someone had inside information that there was going to be a terrorist attack, he'd probably log in and do some trades. And despite the fact that this system was supposed to anonymous, I doubt the DoD wouldn't be tracking those IP addresses. Also, in order to be paid if you made the correct bet, you'd need to provide an address or bank account. So the DoD would know something was up, and could presumably track down the bettor. Geez, they could probably prosecute that guy for insider trading, since he'd be trading on knowledge that wasn't public. If they can incarcerate Al Capone for income tax evasion, they could pursue insider trading violations.

From a PR perspective, this futures market was a horrible idea. People see it as "trying to make money off terrorism" and not as a fairly elaborate trap. Of couse, this being the DoD, you never know if it wasn't just some crazy academic exercise without the trap I've outlined above... But I sort of expect this to be a trap.

[Quick1]

I understand exactly what the program tries to accomplish. However, there are two HUGE problems with it.

-It's too easy for paranoia and rumor-mongering to influence the market.

-It's immoral.

[NYC Republican]

It reminds me of a Seinfeld episode, where one of Dinkins' advisors comes up with an idea of everyone wearing a name tag. Dinkins buys into the idea, and it costs him the election. The idiot that came up with the idea was canned. That's what should happen here. What a dumb idea!

[NYC Republican]

It's also way too easy to blame the Govt the next time an attack occurs... There were more than a few nuts who felt we did 911 to ourselves... Can you imagine if there's a profit to be made on that type of destruction in the future? What a disaster.

[Quick1]

You'll never guess who came up with this idea: Adm. John Poindexter.

[tortoise]

-It's too easy for paranoia and rumor-mongering to influence the market.

Not in any way that matters. If you think this is a problem, then you don't understand it. Most of the useful information comes from higher-order patterns, not what people are betting on. The betting gameplay makes it much easier to remove noise from the high-order models. The nice thing is that it is virtually impossible for a group of individuals to game the high-order models. And you can't game the zero-order model (i.e. the betting gameplay) without tipping your hand in the high-order models.

-It's immoral.

I don't see this at all. It is intrinsically amoral, neither "good" nor "bad". But since it is being used for good, it sounds like the program is pretty moral to me.