First of all, the program has been canceled.
Secondly, isn't it a bit of an erroneous comparison to draw, that of the predictive value of the current commodities futures market, which is based on a multitude of factors that affect prices over time and are available to everyone to interpret, and that of the predictive value of a futures market on one time events? Where the price of orange futures is heavily dependent on weather conditions in Florida, the value of a futures contract on the assassination of a political leader predictive factors that only few may have access too. The wide range of useful information that is available in the commodities market would not be available in the Pentagon version. On top of that, much of the information may be of low reliability, so as to only cloud the predictive information.
Thirdly, it is bad politics. If other countries began sponsoring wagers on when George W. Bush is going to be assassinated, or when members of congress will be assassinated, or other catastrophic type events, I'm sure there would be public outrage, as they should be. Profiteering at the expense of others should be distasteful. Not only that, the plan creates a financial incentive to encourage certain criminal acts.
Those are all things I don't want my government engaging in.
Secondly, isn't it a bit of an erroneous comparison to draw, that of the predictive value of the current commodities futures market, which is based on a multitude of factors that affect prices over time and are available to everyone to interpret, and that of the predictive value of a futures market on one time events? Where the price of orange futures is heavily dependent on weather conditions in Florida, the value of a futures contract on the assassination of a political leader predictive factors that only few may have access too. The wide range of useful information that is available in the commodities market would not be available in the Pentagon version. On top of that, much of the information may be of low reliability, so as to only cloud the predictive information.
Thirdly, it is bad politics. If other countries began sponsoring wagers on when George W. Bush is going to be assassinated, or when members of congress will be assassinated, or other catastrophic type events, I'm sure there would be public outrage, as they should be. Profiteering at the expense of others should be distasteful. Not only that, the plan creates a financial incentive to encourage certain criminal acts.
Those are all things I don't want my government engaging in.