FutureMap: betting on Terror
If someone told me that there would be an organization running a stock market style pool in which the general public could “bet” cash on acts of terrorism, assissinations, and other military incidents in the Middle East — it would’t have surprised me at all. But when I never would have guessed that the Pentagon would be behind such a money making scheme. I saw it via a local station, but Google News has more links, including the scoop on how it seems to be getting shut down faster then it started.
July 31st, 2003 at 8:19 pm
It sounds like it was one of high-concept ideas that some “blue sky” session within a government think tank came up with one day. Trouble is, people get so caught up in the cleverness of the concept that they ignore the way it plays out in reality. I’d say it was the brainchild of a person who just had a good run of trading stocks on Wall Street and then went home that night and watched Schwarzenegger’s “The Running Man” (i.e., the scenes of people betting on who lives or dies) before drifting off to sleep. The events of the day get meshed in dreams, and the next morning, a visionary idea!!!!
Talk about the very definition of “blood money”!!!!