Despite our inverse appreciation of Pat's ideas, please see my post number 18, above, then please enlighten me as to why this terror futures market might be a good predictor.
(I'm not being sarcastic--I really want to understand what I am misssing about the thinking behind it).
While I'm unsure if an exchange of money had been built into the design, I can think of other items of exchange such as points or simple prestige that could have been an incentive for reasoned participation.
If you imagine a college basketball poll at the beginning of a season, then you can imagine how INACCURATE such a "market" might be. (One reporter one vote. Perhaps in the "terror poll" it would be "one government office one vote.") At the same time, in the basketball poll, there's a clear ability to put likely winners in the upper levels of the poll.
I think it's an imaginative idea that was worth further tinkering and test marketing.
Imagine Army, Navy, AF, Marines, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, CIA, FBI, State Deptmt, Commerce, Air, Transportation, etc. down to sublevels each having a vote they can cast in the poll of "where the next terror act will occur."
There's no telling what kind of info someone from Commerce might bump into that would determine their vote. That info would accompany the vote as the rationale. Others would be able to read it and incorporate it into their analyses.
It seemed an interesting way to forecast as well as an interesting way to bring otherwise overlooked information to the discussion.