Tuesday, October 07, 2003

I'll give you 9:7 against assassination

Last July, there were two or three days in which the biggest national news story was the Department of Defense's "PAM" program -- the "Policy Analysis Market" was supposed to predict terrorist attacks by allowing people to invest in possible future events. I read about it on Crooked Timber. There was a big uproar about creating a "market in terror", and Congress removed its funding. Then everybody forgot about it. Today, while reading another high-quality academic internet publication, I discovered that it's back in a non-governmental form. I greet this announcement much as I did the original program's explanation. It's not reprehensible, just stupid. Because the people who would be investing don't know anything about terrorist plans. But hmm -- now that I look more closely at it, it's a bit of a sketchy web site that's doing the announcing. www.policyanalysismarket.com. "In the two months since, solid reporting has conveyed that PAM was never intended as a 'Market in Terror'. In addition, many individuals have expressed the wish that PAM be reestablished beyond government involvement. PAM will open for trading in March 2004 free of government involvement." Emphasis added. By me. There's also a link to email whomever's in charge there. Anyone know anything about this?

No comments:

Post a Comment