Taking stock of political markets

Mike Maxwell, Laurel MD — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:21:24 GMT

We used to do something like this in the Navy; we called it an "anchor pool". Sailors bet on when the anchor would be dropped (or weighed). All the bets went into the pool, and the closest guess won all the money in the pool.

Taking stock of political markets

Chuck Sweet, Poetland OR — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:26:13 GMT

It has been asked in the past if the ability to "See" economic factors was not an extra "Sense" that only some individuals in the populace actually saw, maybe not be able to explain them, but saw them nonetheless.
That sort of person would tend to be the large movers and shakers, as well as those who merely maintained a comfortable lifestyle, in either case, they are succesful. I can see how a 'poll' using market mass type indicators actually far outweighs the normal polling methods we have today. Maybe our government could use these types of indicators as for what balance of services to defense to research ratios do the people want?? This type of setup would be able to answer such questions if it were honestly and unbiasedly set up and run. Of course, the way the questions are framed will give certain weight as to how the answer will turn out, so much allowance and control must be made for that.

Taking stock of political markets

Tony Accardo — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:41:09 GMT

I see shades of "economics 2.0," the concept envisioned in Charles Stross' "Accelerando." There is something fundamentally new going on here with the emergence of prediction markets - any possible hypothetical event or combination of events will be monetizable, and dynamically so rather than in rigid insurance policies such as those sold by Lloyd's. The emergent properties of this phenomenon are impossible to fully foresee, but I sense vaguely that it will be tranformative to how economies function. This is very, very exciting.