Is your government/wal street speculating on your death? Yes!

Disclaimer: Please don't ask me how I made it to page 19998.

These are excerpts from Congressional Record, proceedings of the 108th Congressional First Session (Volume 149-Part 1, page 19998, July 28 2003 - September 5, 2003, which can be found here @

http: //books.google.com/books?id=mN5kIxCq3ecC&pg=PA19998&lpg=PA19998&dq=assassination+speculation+market+congressional+record&source=bl&ots=6-2h0lrbM7&sig= FZUUpKlcCbClc5cOHLJQgSitacI&hl=en&ei=Nq4aTpb-PKrg0QG7we2WBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false]
Link works, verified. Also, try refreshing your browser when loading the link, sometimes it stalls for me during load.

TRADING IN DEATH

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I come to the floor in part to call to the attention of my colleagues and article which appeared in the New York Times this morning. The article is entitled "Pentagon Prepares A Futures Market on Terror Attacks."
The article reports that the Bush Administration is prepared to spend $8 million on a program that actually encourages betting on the probability of future terrorist attacks. I am really amazed. This fits in that category; "We are not making this up."
You ask whether there are traders or trators--T-R-A-D-E-R-S or T-R-A-I-T-O-R-S. As we understand it, even terrorists would be allowed to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks.
This program could provide incentive to commit acts of terrorism.

Pentagod Prepares a Futures Market on Terrorism [and Assassinations]

The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.

Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

...

''Research indicates that markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information,'' the Defense Department said in a statement. ''Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often better than expert opinions.''

Source : www.nytimes.com...

So, we can see that this is the direction the government would like to head into. Why settle for making around $500 billion a year in illegal drug trafficking? This is definately going to be an incredibly lucrative market for the megacontrollers to bet with their knowledge of future false-flag terror attacks, a place where terrorists can recoup their financial expenditures of violence, and where speculation on the assassination of a president, dictator or head of state is a profitable bet to make.

What is our country becoming, and why are we letting it become this?

Fight back and enrich your minds with knowledge, because the only way to stop the onslaight of tyranny is knowledge gained in order not to repeat history.

Mr. DASCHLE. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. DURBIN. I would like to ask the Senator from South Dakota, our distinguished minority leader, is it not true that those who find your statement incredulous can log on to [witheld] and find this proposal from the Department of Defense to create some sort of investment speculation in the possiblity of assassination and terrorism? Is that not fact?

Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator from Illinois has exactly stated the fact. [witheld] can be called up on your web site today. The web site can be called up on the Internet and you can see for yourself.

...

Of course, the site is now owned by a Russian book club of some sort, though the goals of the administrations have not seemed to differ much, I would be on the look out ATS for something similar to arise soon enough, if it has not already.

Thankyou for your time.

So this hasn't actually been implemented right? I ask since the date reads 2003. I wonder if they ripped this off from "Assassination Politics," the creator of which ended up getting jailed, but for a different reason. This blows my mind. DARPA...Really, lol? I don't know what to say.

Originally posted by JiggyPotamus
So this hasn't actually been implemented right? I ask since the date reads 2003. I wonder if they ripped this off from "Assassination Politics," the creator of which ended up getting jailed, but for a different reason. This blows my mind. DARPA...Really, lol? I don't know what to say.

I really do wonder if this was memory-holed back in 2003. There is a whopping 1 article on the matter, and it is the article mentioned in the Congressional Record. This was not supposed to get out to the public in a real way, I imagine. I would also imagine that, due to the lack of concern over the subject matter, there is little to deter one from assuming that this will be or is already implemented in another form or fashion.

This thread merely points out that there really is no limit to the things the government will do destroy this country.

reply to post by sbctinfantry


Very interesting post!

If thats all true, then Its possible its not just your government but everyone elses as well.
And the fact that its extremely morbid no?

I have this picture in my head of about 10 or 15 of the worlds leaders standing around a craps table, beers in hands and cigars in mounths having the banter and betting on our misery....

Anyway.....

reply to post by sbctinfantry


Explanation :S&F!

Attempting to fix the broken link [sorry no garantee's that I can make it work but I give it my best ]

Excerpts from Congressional Record, proceedings of the 108th Congressional First Session. [books.google.com]

Personal Disclosure: BARF! :shk: The truth hurts!

Originally posted by soundofathousandbirds
reply to post by sbctinfantry

 

If thats all true,

It's all straight from the Congressional Record, that I linked to, which takes you right to most of the info. I even cite the page and everything!

It's not like Sen. Daschle even tried to deny it... the guy didn't even seem to see anything wrong with it. Those are your leaders people, they have no morals or values. They swear upon the altar of the allmighty dollar, while pretending to prostrate themselves to the people.

Back in 2003 it was being discussed on the usenet newsgroups.


2003 article in the New York Times

2003 article at the BBC

What goes around comes around.
This concept of a "futures" market where probabilities are computed (odds) on the liklihood of current events is an almost identical retread of the DELPHI POOL described in John Brunner's classic future drama "Shockwave Rider." Essentially, the delphi pool represented a public opinion matrix constructed somewhat like an econometric model and displayed like the race track odds - but the public never really understood it wasn't just a gambling device or a predictive tool for future planning, but a social control mechanism as well. Having not read the Pentagon's report, we have no clue what the full intent of the program might be. But the idea is straight out of Brunner's book and has intrigued me with the possibilities for the last 30 years.

ganjoa

Lugubrious as it sounds, the idea is that markets are rational and that "the wisdom of crowds" is a good predictor of future events. You will note that in their outrage, no-one bothered to ask if actual money would be traded, or if people would simply be given, 100 "points" that they could invest. The Wall Street Journal had a similar on-line "market" during the last presidential election. It successfully predicted that Obama would win the election, but the heaviest betting was on whether Sarah Palin would resign before election day. She bucked the market by staying on until the bitter end, proving that markets are not necessarily right all the time.

Edit to add: Extremely misleading title!

Originally posted by DJW001
Lugubrious as it sounds, the idea is that markets are rational and that "the wisdom of crowds" is a good predictor of future events. You will note that in their outrage, no-one bothered to ask if actual money would be traded, or if people would simply be given, 100 "points" that they could invest. The Wall Street Journal had a similar on-line "market" during the last presidential election. It successfully predicted that Obama would win the election, but the heaviest betting was on whether Sarah Palin would resign before election day. She bucked the market by staying on until the bitter end, proving that markets are not necessarily right all the time.

Edit to add: Extremely misleading title!

edit on 11-7-2011 by DJW001 because: (no reason given)

Actually you are completely incorrect. Read the Congressional Record, and the parts I've excerpted.

The gentleman asks if even Terrorists would be able to trade on this market and make profit from their 'predictions'. The answer is a deafening yes.

Edit, direct quote being typed due to lack of abiltiy to read on behalf of the quoted reply.

As we understand it, even terrorists would be allowed to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks.

This program could provide an incentive, actually, to commit acts of terrorism. We are asking the administration this morning to renounce this plan to trade in death. The administration should issue a public apology, especially to the families of the victims of September 11. This is just wrong: The Pentagon calls its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the "broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." I don't know how one can possibly use the marketplace for that purpose.

The initiative, which is called the Policy Analysis Market, is to begin registering up to 1,000 traders on Friday. It is the latest in a series of projects advanced by DARPA, a Pentagon unit that has run into a great deal of controversy over other issues.

But I must say, this is perhaps the most irresponsible, outrageous, and poorly thought out of anything I have heard the administration propose to date. For the life of me, I cannot believe anybody would seriously propose that we trade in death, that we set up a futures market on when, as the Web site proposed, the King of Jordan could be overthrown, when a leader would be assassinated, when a terrorist attack would occur. Most traders try to influence their envestments. How long would it be before you saw traders investing in a way that would bring about a desired result?

I hope that the administration will explain what it is they had in mind, why they are doing this, why we are investing taxpayer dollars in the probability of future terrorist attacks.

...


Mr. DURBIN. If the senator would further yield on a question, is it not true that they put up some hypothetical things that people could invest in, questions as to whether, for example, Mr. Arafat, with the Palestinian Authority, would be assassinated, whether North Korea would launch a missle attack, whether the King of Jordan would be overthrown, and whether Israel would be attacked with bioterrorism weapons? Weren't these some of the items on which the Department of Defense was suggesting we start opening speculation and investment and betting by people around the world, including possible terrorists? Wasn't this on the web site yesterday and removed today?

Mr. DASCHLE. Each of the items that the Senator from Illinois has reported were on the website yesterday: When the first, biological attack would occur in Israel, when the king of Jordan might be assassinated. Each of these were listed as possible investment opportunitues

I was trying to respect ATS's policy on long quotations, but this is Congressional Record and therefore public so as far as I know, doesn't apply. If the above poster will direct his/her attention to the bold areas, the reading becomes much more ... understandable for some.

Hopefully you can comprehend now that they are not talking about betting some fake unit of currency, we are talking real dollars for real lives and terrorism.

reply to post by sbctinfantry

Hopefully you can comprehend now that they are not talking about betting some fake unit of currency, we are talking real dollars for real lives and terrorism.

Correct, both Senators are under the impression that these markets use real money. There is nothing from DARPA or the DoD to confirm or refute this impression. Do you really think that politicians are aware of all of the facts before they start speechifying?

Originally posted by DJW001
reply to post by sbctinfantry

 

Hopefully you can comprehend now that they are not talking about betting some fake unit of currency, we are talking real dollars for real lives and terrorism.

Correct, both Senators are under the impression that these markets use real money. There is nothing from DARPA or the DoD to confirm or refute this impression. Do you really think that politicians are aware of all of the facts before they start speechifying?

From the dialogue, there only seems to be the one Senator who is speaking up about this assumption. So this is where the current state of our governments morals are. That is, essentially, the whole point of the thread. Thankyou for taking the scenic route to it, but alas, we arrive.

reply to post by sbctinfantry


???

Have you ever participated in a "virtual market?"

This is really a sort of intelligence gathering mechanism, to be blunt.

Though the idea could be quite flawed. Things like horse races, election results, etc are often well outside the prospecting parties' control. If I were taking a bet on when a particular leader were to be assassinated, I would certainly make the attempt on the stated day, were I to make one at all.

Again - this is operating under the assumption this all uses real currency - and this is not specified even once in the congressional records.

As for the ethics of it - there are people out there with bets on when Obama will be assassinated - plenty of them. Whether they are 'permitted' or not doesn't really stop people from doing it. I think it displays the enormous hubris of politicians to believe their laws somehow govern the intrinsic behavior of people. Setting up a centralized location for people to carry out trading of these futures would provide valuable intelligence information that would, otherwise, go untapped.

But that's okay - the politicians against this sort of 'unethical' market are in support of monitoring network traffic and internet kill switches.

Govt is not the one betting on this but it is exclusively Wall Street. These are the types of bets that has turned the entire financial system into one giant ponzi scheme meets casino.