Show Originally Aired: 8/4/2003 CALL 1 800-423-TALK
Betting on Terror
Traders in the S&P 500 futures pit, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (AP) Email to friend
We're calling all Middle East experts. Do you have an informed hunch about when Saddam Hussein will be captured or killed? Do you know where Osama bin Laden is hiding? Or maybe you can forecast where Al Qaeda will strike next. Would you like to make some money for getting it right, and help the United States make the world a safer place?
That was the idea behind the Pentagon's new terror futures market. But last week, the program died a swift death after outraged members of Congress called it "harebrained" and "unbelievably stupid." But some economists and Middle East watchers are now mourning the program's passing. Forget morality, they say. Markets are good at one thing, and that's prediction. They do it for oil futures, pork bellies, and elections. Why not let them do it for terror?
