Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 07:27:21 -0400 (EDT)
To: "Ratical" <dave@ratical.org>
From: American Action Market <news7@americanactionmarket.org>
Subject: MARKET WILL ATTEMPT TO PREDICT WHITE HOUSE MOVES
Sender: news@americanactionmarket.org

August 1, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONSORTIUM FOLLOWS PENTAGON LEAD WITH NEW TERROR MARKET
AmericanActionMarket.org will attempt to predict White House actions

Contact: info@americanactionmarket.org

Inspired by the futures market in terror and war that the Pentagon released earlier this week (and then immediately yanked; see http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Policy+Analysis+Market%22), a consortium of computer scientists, political scientists and others announced today an online futures market in White House behavior.

"The Pentagon felt that a market in terrorism futures could predict terrorism," said AAM spokesman Tad Hirsch, a researcher at MIT's Media Lab. "If the market is indeed such a powerful tool, then it should be directed at the most urgent question facing the world: what will the White House do next? And the second most urgent: what is it doing right now?"

The site, http://americanactionmarket.org/, will offer various categories of "futures" that users can bet on and trade. Some of these have easily verifiable outcomes:

• Who will be the next foreign leader to move from the CIA payroll to the White House "most wanted" list?
  
  
• What will be the next major White House lie to break, and how will the White House attempt to control it? Will the attempt be successful?
  
  
• Which corporation will be next to see its close relationship to the White House erupt in scandal?

(See http://americanactionmarket.org/concept.htm for more examples.)

In addition, AAM will also allow users to place and trade longer-term wagers on current or past scenarios that are in the short term unverifiable because of White House secrecy, and which will only be proved or disproved via impeachment hearings, journalistic sleuth-work, etc. For example:

• Was Rumsfeld the first to suggest using the attacks as pretext to overthrow Saddam Hussein, as reported in the press, or did the idea first come from others?
  
  
• Was the invasion of Afghanistan planned from the start as a stepping-stone to an attack on Iraq?
  
  
• Was the President fully conscious of the lies in his pre-war speeches, or were the decisions to lie taken by others? By whom?
  
  
• How important a long-term factor in the 2003 Iraq was Iraq's expulsion of U.S. and British oil companies from Iraq between 1972 and 1975?

(See http://americanactionmarket.org/concept.htm for more examples and sources.)

As evidence is accumulated to prove or disprove a particular future, its market value will change; this change may serve analysts as an indicator of a scenario's likelihood, even if a final resolution of the bet is never achieved.

Just as a gambler buys chips at a casino, users of the AAM system will use a secure webpage to buy "Smart Dollars," which they will then use for trading. Users will be able to "cash out" at any time by trading in their "Smart Dollars" for real ones, with 10% going to charity.

Hirsch acknowledges that the value of markets as predictors is not certain, but he insists it's worth trying. "If there's even a small chance this will help predict what the White House will do, it's well worth the effort, given the stakes."

AmericanActionMarket.org will be fully functional and ready for bets on October 1, the day the Pentagon's now-defunct futures market was scheduled to open.

# 30 #

Copyright © 2003 American Action Market
Reprinted for Fair Use Only.




In the interests of preserving history at this peak of our era's pathological institutional governing form of the publicly traded, limited liability corporation and its essential employment of financial speculation which is inherently predatory, the Policy Analysis Market site is being replicated at different internet locations including the American Action Market and here at < http://http://www.ratical.org//ratville/CAH/linkscopy/PAM/ >.