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TerrorBet Terror Futures Exchange Re-Opens for Pre-Registration TerrorBet the world's first trading exchange to offer contracts on civil unrest events today reopened for preregistration following its presentation to the European Commission in Brussels. Brussels, Belgium (PRWEB) April 6, 2004 -- TerrorBet the world's first trading exchange to offer contracts on civil unrest events today re-opened for preregistration following its presentation to the European Commission in Brussels. Aiming to become one of the core innovation projects as part of the European Commission's Preparatory Action on the enhancement of security research, Terrorbet was invited to present the project to over 400...

Sites to pick up terrorism futures market NEW YORK--The Pentagon's roundly vilified plan for a terrorism "futures" market was axed last week before it saw the light of day, but some private online betting exchanges may soon pick up where the government left off. However weird it may seem, the Pentagon's hope was that such "futures" contracts would help it take advantage of the predictive ability of markets to help prevent future attacks and track key political developments. While the U.S. Congress jumped all over the quirkier plans for contracts on assassinations and terrorist attacks, the exchange also planned "futures"...

Online Exchanges Mull Pentagon 'Terror Futures' Sat August 9, 2003 07:59 AM ET By Eric Burroughs NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Pentagon's roundly vilified plan for a terrorism "futures" market was axed last week before it saw the light of day, but some private online betting exchanges may soon pick up where the government left off. However weird it may seem, the Pentagon's hope was that such "futures" contracts would help it take advantage of the predictive ability of markets to help prevent future attacks and track key political developments. While the U.S. Congress jumped all over the quirkier plans...

<p>Congress should regulate terrorist-identifying technology being developed by the Pentagon's Terrorism Information Awareness program, rather than scrap the entire effort for fear of violating Americans' civil liberties, according to a paper published yesterday by the Heritage Foundation.</p> <p>The "discovery technology" has the potential to be a valuable tool in the war on terrorism, said the conservative think tank's policy paper.</p>

Question: If a veterinarian visiting a Montana ranch should conclude the dead cattle there had died of mad-cow disease, who would know first: Congress, or the cattle futures market? Answer: In hours, word of how the cows died would panic the trading pits. Argentine cattle futures would soar, U.S. cattle futures sink. The impact would be instant on the stock prices of McDonald's, Burger King and Outback. Investors in futures markets are acutely attuned to anything that affects the price of the commodities they buy and sell by the hour. One credible meteorologist warning of a long, cold winter or...

Question: If a veterinarian visiting a Montana ranch should conclude the dead cattle there had died of mad cow disease, who would know first: Congress, or the cattle futures market? Answer: In hours, word of how the cows died would panic the trading pits. Argentine cattle futures would soar, U.S. cattle futures sink. The impact would be instant on the stock prices of McDonald's, Burger King and Outback. Investors in futures markets are acutely attuned to anything that affects the price of the commodities they buy and sell by the hour. One credible meteorologist warning of a long, cold winter...

<p>Retired Adm. John Poindexter has decided to resign his Pentagon position after an outcry over a scheme to create an online futures market designed to anticipate terrorist attacks, assassinations and wars in the Middle East, a senior defense official said yesterday.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.WASHINGTON, July 31 — The official who oversaw a plan for the Pentagon to run a terrorist futures-trading market is resigning under pressure, a senior Defense Department official said today. John M. Poindexter, a retired rear admiral who was President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, is stepping down "within a few weeks," the defense official said, after the disclosure of a proposal that outraged lawmakers and embarrassed senior Pentagon officials. The plan was to create an online trading parlor that would have rewarded investors who forecast terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups. Defense...

The Pentagon at least deserves credit for thinking inventively in coming up with a new way to spot terrorists before they strike. Its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was due to launch a project Friday that would have tried to forecast major political events in the world by tapping inside knowledge within the business community through a government-run speculative financial market. Here's how it would have worked (before an uproar in Congress forced the Defense Department to kill it): Up to 10,000 investors would have been invited to buy contracts that would have paid out money based on the...

Admiral Poindexter, he of the TIA and the Terrorism Futures Market idea, has resigned, and Rummy has accepted. RATS + Mainstream Media = Politics of Personal Destruction.More details TK...

Rumsfeld Says He Nixed Terror Futures Plan After Flap WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday he killed a proposed terrorism futures market because it was doomed to failure after an uproar in Congress, but he did not have enough information to judge whether it was a bad idea. Rumsfeld said he scrapped the Pentagon's scheme to let investors bet on the probability of wars, terrorist attacks and assassinations as a policy analysis tool "an hour after I read about it." On Capitol Hill after a closed briefing with senators, he said it was clear "that even...

But for all the grandstanding and moral posturing, the most important question has been absent from the discussion: Would the market have worked? In other words, would it have improved American intelligence capabilities and enhanced national security? All the evidence suggests that it would have. As Daniel Gross and Brendan Koerner mentioned in their Slate pieces yesterday, similar markets have proven surprisingly good at predicting the outcome of presidential elections, box-office results, and even the fall of Saddam Hussein. We now have more than a decade of empirical results to back up the idea that "decision markets" can work, in...

Terror Futures – Expiration of a Great Idea Terror futures expired Tuesday – before they got a chance to trade. That’s a shame. Pricing action of such a derivative could provide an early indicator that deadly information had surfaced in the market. And terror futures could be a means of providing insurance to small business and individuals who are exposed to the real financial risk of terrorism, but have few ways of protecting against it. Based on the details made public by the Department of Defense, the market would have allowed traders to take either side of a bet on...

Is a Futures Market on Terror Outlandish? Maybe not. There is strong evidence that futures exchanges can predict events better than other forms of analysis. FORTUNE Wednesday, July 30, 2003 By Jeremy Kahn The Defense Department announced yesterday that it is canceling a controversial program to develop a futures market that would allow traders to bet on wars, assassinations and terrorism in the Middle East. The plan, which FORTUNE first reported on in its March 3rd issue (Place Your Bets—On War), was abandoned after Democratic senators assailed it as ghoulish, immoral, and absurd. Senator Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South...

<p>A Defense Department program that would have encouraged investors to forecast terrorist attacks, coups, and assassinations - apparently in the belief that market instincts could predict such events - was abruptly canceled yesterday after it came under withering criticism from lawmakers.</p>

<p>The Pentagon yesterday pulled the plug on an online gambling parlor designed to predict Middle East terrorist attacks for profit after criticism from Capitol Hill lawmakers, who called the plan "grotesque."</p> <p>Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he first learned of the market trading plan sponsored by the Terrorism Information Awareness program in the morning newspaper on his way to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.</p>

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) is setting up a stock-market style system in which investors would bet on terror attacks, assassinations and other events in the Middle East. Defense officials hope to gain intelligence and useful predictions while investors who guessed right would win profits. Two Democratic senators demanded Monday the project be stopped before investors begin registering this week. "The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque," Sen. Ron Wyden (news, bio, voting record), D-Ore., said. The Pentagon office overseeing the program, called the Policy Analysis Market, said...

'TERROR BETTING' DROPPED The Pentagon has abandoned plans to set up a 'terror stock market' in which investors could bag cash by successfully predicting terrorist attacks. US defence chiefs had hoped the market would have been a valuable tool in second guessing when terror strikes would occur. But critics dismissed the move as "unbelievably stupid", "ridiculous" and "grotesque". The programme, which would have run on the internet, was called the Policy Analysis Market and would have been overseen by the Pentagon and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. Windfall Traders would have been able to buy and sell futures contracts...

The Pentagon is abandoning its plan for an internet futures market where investors could gamble on potential terror attacks and assassinations in the Middle East. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told lawmakers Tuesday that the plan was, in his words, "maybe too imaginative." The project was disclosed by two Democratic senators on Monday. The planned eight-million-dollar Policy Analysis Market was an internet site that would allow people to place money on predictions and would pay profits if they guessed correctly. One example listed on the web-site is the overthrow of Jordan's monarchy. Registration was to begin Friday, with trading to...

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. THIS IS AN EXCERPT