Policy Analysis Market Reloaded
Despite harsh criticism from politicians and national columnists which forced the Defense Department to scrap the highly controversial Policy Analysis Market (PAM) on July 31st, the terror futures market is going operational this coming March, according to Mark Gongloff, CNN’s Money Staff Writer.
The Pentagon was previously heading up the technology with Net Exchange and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the publisher of the Economist magazine, to allow traders to "buy and sell contracts on political and economic events in the Middle East, including assassinations, the overthrow of regimes and terrorist attacks."
Net Exchange is the sole developer of this system now. Charles Polk, the president of Net Exchange explained that the market is an interesting alternative "to specialists reporting from the region....It’s a way of going directly to individuals in the region or outside who have knowledge or interest in the political and economic events in the area."
Even though Polk says "there are no financial incentives for nefarious activities," a system such as this, just by its very nature, will inevitably drive nefarious activities.
Polk is being a bit disingenuous. It’s not the people who have knowledge that he’s interested in using this market, it is people in control and with money. And once a system like this becomes functional, it will only stay active in the Middle East region until lucrative prospects drive it to other regions till it is a global system. Terrorism is indeed prominent these days. The question I pose is whether we need a futures market that legitimizes and promotes it.
The morality of this market is bleak. Net Exchange is obviously capitalizing on terror, as would all their clientele.
Note: See my original post on July 31st. I have commentary from Joe Conason and Scott Rosenberg regarding this project under government auspices.
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