You know, one hates to fall into conspiracy theory mode, but . . . all of the programs, news releases, interviews warning us of the danger cum possibility cum probability of a pandemic? After reading that Rummy stands to gain the question is automatic: who stands to gain?

Your second header, "Misery loves Indixes" is incorrect. It should be "Indexes."

You might want to fix that.

Cool story! However, I do object to the statement "his or her winnings come at a steep price for thousands of people." Whether someone speculates correctly or incorrectly has no impact on if or when the event comes to pass; the actual speculation on the event in now way affects the probability of the outcome.

Yes, you do admit as much later in the article, but it's a leading statement, influencing opinion before all the facts are laid out.

Best,

C.S. McMahon

I am betting that Secretary Rumsfeld will finally resign when the bird flu reaches North America. Keep your eye on him. He stands to make megamillions on the U.S. and Canadian purchases of Tamiflu, a most important antiviral drug in demand to fight the flu. The company that owns the rights to Tamiflu (Gilead Sciences) leases the manufacture to the Swiss pharmaceutical company, Roche. Rumsfeld was Gilead's chairman before taking his job with the Bush administration, and he has never divested himself of his shares worth millions (and still growing) in Gilead stock (see the CNN story, here: http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/ ).

Others who stand to profit from bird flu coming to America are former Secretary of State George Shultz (Bechtel Corp.), who is on the Gilead board, and former governor of California, Pete Wilson, whose wife is on the board.

Since Rumsfeld was advised to hang onto his shares, the best thing he can do when the demand for Tamiflu goes through the roof, and when the U.S. government is spending millions of our taxpayer dollars to buy it, is to resign to avoid charges of conflict of interest and then laugh all the way to the bank. Questions might be asked, of course, but nothing would be done. Well, it's now perfectly legal for anyone to bet on when the flu will hit. So get those contracts lined up, folks, and when Rummy resigns to cash in, place your bets. It won't be long. I hope I haven't blown it for any insiders at Intrade.

There is something repugnant about betting on bird flu and terrorism—I don’t care how much money there is in it. Greed being what it is, futures market on terrorism would drastically increase the likelihood of it happening!

is that people will be actively rooting for the bird flu. It pits some peolple's pocketbooks against other people's health.

It's just so disturbing that people will be actively hoping for others to become ill (and possibly die) so they can make a few bucks.

The semantic distinction (we're just betting on the probability of something happening)is a little too subtle here. The fact is, if you have money on bird flu in March, you're going to be hoping for bird flu in March.

It's unsettling, to say the least.

I'm disappointed to not see any firm information on the accuracy of predictions in the Intrade market. As a previous poster noted, the market price is derived by a correlative effect based on the number of people who agree that something is/isn't likely to happen. The significant information therefore isn't trade price, or even movement in the trading price, but an overall predictive ratio.

Intrade markets should really be evaluated very similarly to weathermen. If a weatherman (weatherperson, whatever) estimates a 50% chance of rain tomorrow, 50% of the time that should be the result. In the long term, if it only rains 40% of the days the prediction is 50%, then it's more interesting and useful to realize that the weatherman is only 80% accurate.

Clearly the article is more intended to explore the ethical issues of Intrade markets, and I wonder how much of this is relevance vs. how much is laziness. How "dead on" are the markets?

The last trade on AIRSTRIKE.IRAN.JUN06 this morning was at 16.5. After reading this article, I should have a good feel for whether I should rationally buy or short this contract without basing my decision on some kind of vote about how I feel about airstrikes on Iran. If anything, predictive measurements might give journalists a jump on what questions they should be asking at press briefings prior to events unfolding.

This is classic autocorrelation. This is a derivative reference mark or index driven solely by the probability that other people agree with whatever the slight changes in direction are at any one moment in time. It's more or less the same mechanics that lead to the 1987 stock market crash and it is as equally flawed as a benchmark for reality or facts.

It's hard to know where to start critiquing this article, but I'll single out just a few sentences:

A recent example occurred on Oct. 21 with Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' confirmation contract. At approximately 8:30 that morning, traders monitoring the Harriet Miers confirmation process began aggressively selling contracts betting against her confirmation -- dropping her stock price 42 points in early trading. The following Thursday, Miers withdrew her nomination from the high court.

The extract above relates several facts but NO knowledge. The author uses 'Oct. 21' and then 'the following Thursday'. How long a time period is that? One day or seven? Why should I have to refer to my calendar while reading this article? Surely, the author knows how many days.

Then the author says, "...dropping her stock price 42 points...." It dropped from where? If the price fell from 100 points to 58, I'm unimpressed because the 'market' still thought she'd be confirmed. If the price fell from 42 to zero, I'm awed. Which should I be, unimpressed, awed, or something in between?

Come on editors, there's to your job than checking spelling, grammar, and 'flow'. Here's a hint -- Content, content, content.