Another great idea by the US government

[gekko]

Well I stumbled upon a few other articles, for anyone interested.

First, we have a follow-up on the article. The plan has been canceled, and it seems many were unaware of it. Surprise, surprise.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp.../terror_market

Next up, the San Francisco Chronicle has an article on it, which explains it much better. Still can't say I support it, but the article does clear some things up, and explains the basis behind it. I might even go so far and say it's a decent idea on paper, but it would never work in the real world.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...9/MN126930.DTL

And last but not least, this isn't the Pentagon's only experiment involving the stock market. A grant was given to MarTek (Market Technology Systems) to develop these markets. Currently they have demo markets on the Homeland Security threat level, and the spread of SARS.

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by gekko

I was just jokingly saying that I look at each issue differently. I side with the Republicans more often than not, but there are many issues where I side with the Democrats. This isn't a me against you issue, I disagreed with you there cause I think you were wrong there, doesn't mean I do now, nor do I see this issue being divided on party lines. Two Democrats oppose it, I don't see the Republicans supporting it. Even the Republican-controlled Senate wants to cut funding to the project.

Your right. Only most of the time I agree with Democrats, but then every now and then one of them will com along and do something stupid that just makes me shake my head. People seem to think our entire government and political beliefs can be broken down into a couple of parties. Not going to happen, people are too diverse.

For this particular program, I don't think it should've ever been made avaliable to the public. I think it should've been displayed amongst the research groups, and maybe tried something different using the basic idea, or file it away. What scares me is that they planned to register next week, if I remember correctly. It progressed way too far.

Yeah, thats what I was saying. They were stupid for even announcing this idea had been run through there head.

It was a Pentagon research group, Bush isn't running it. I haven't heard Bush support it either.

Yeah, neither have I. Some people seem to think that Bush has a major influence on EVERYTHING that happens in America. Hes not smart enough for that, no one is. People seem to forget that we have a Senate, a house of representatives, sepreme court, cabinets, etc.

[Stonecutter]

Being pro-anything that deals with gambling, I don't have a problem with the government setting up a betting service.

But imagine if there were some european country with a "predict american leaders deaths" gambling ring going on. There would be so much outrage from politicians in the US. I'm sure there will be outrage abroad, however. This, like about 99% of the things the government is doing to "fight terrorism" will actually encourage more terrorism.

Now, if you really want to take some steps to stop terrorism, you could do something like.....oh.... I don't know.... maybe.... STOP GIVING MONEY/SUPPORT TO ISRAEL!

But that'll never happen...

[Bond]

This keeps interest up. So it is a smart idea.

And I wouldn't be proud to be a Democrat right now. You have one huge image problem.