Oops, looks like they closed the betting window early on me:
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 policyanalysismarket.org 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." |
