Sounds Incredible
But True Instead of spying on Americans with electronic surveillance to
keep tabs on potential terrorists the pentagon now has the Idea of setting up
an online trading system in an effort to give them the ability to accurately predict
the probability of pending doom. Trading is to begin on Oct. 1, with the
number of participants initially limited to 1,000 and possibly expanding to 10,000
by Jan. 1.
Set up like the futures markets traders bullish
on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile
strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a
new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
(DARPA) According to descriptions given to Congress, available at the Web site
policyanalysismarket.org and provided by two senators,
traders who register would deposit money into an account similar to a stock account
and win or lose money based on predicting events. "For instance,"
senator Wyden said, "you may think early on that Prime Minister X is going
to be assassinated. So you buy the futures contracts for 5 cents each. As more
people begin to think the person's going to be assassinated, the cost of the contract
could go up, to 50 cents. "The payoff if he's assassinated is $1 per
future. So if it comes to pass, and those who bought at 5 cents make 95 cents.
Those who bought at 50 cents make 50 cents." The two Democratic senators
against the program demanded Monday the project be stopped before investors begin
registering this week. The senators said the program fell under the control
of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.
One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed
so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. "Can
you imagine," Mr. Dorgan asked, "if another country set up a betting
parlor so that people could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself
- people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?"
After the two senators spoke out, the Pentagon sought to play down the importance
of a program for which the Bush administration has sought $8 million through 2005.
The White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events to
be considered by the market that were visible earlier in the day at www.policyanalysismarket.org
could no longer be seen The Pentagon, in defending the program, said such
futures trading had proven effective in predicting other events like oil prices,
elections and movie ticket sales. "Research indicates that markets are extremely
efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information,"
