More on the Pentagon Casino

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What Was Behind the Pentagon's Betting Parlor?
by David Morse

What was behind the Pentagon’s screwball scheme to establish an online futures market for acts of terrorism?

The $8 million betting parlor was scuttled only three days before its scheduled debut on August 1. Was it just a one-time fluke? If so, it raises questions about who is running the Pentagon. If it was part of a pattern, then it raises some serious questions about the Bush administration.

The announced purpose of the Policy Analysis Market, as it was known, was to harness the “anonymous forces of market capitalism” to predict the likelihood of acts of terrorism - much as commodity-trading speculates on the future price of coffee or pork bellies. The Pentagon’s justification was that “markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information.” ... more at http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0804-11.htm