[lbo-talk] Varian defends terror futures

[Brad DeLong]

>Brad DeLong wrote:
>
>>But simply having people bet on and thus forecast what the 
>>Economist GIU's "stability" indices will be in a year seems 
>>innocuous--and might actually provide some useful information...
>
>What useful info? The same kind that brought us TheGlobe.com at 
>$133? Or was it TheGlobe.com at 16 cents?
>
>Doug

When you hit Robin Hanson or Alex Tabarrok with that question, they 
say that yes, bubbles are a big problem, but that other ways of 
aggregating information have big problems too... Niger uranium 
sales... aluminum tubes...

Wouldn't you have rather had CIA analysts betting small sums setting 
publicly-available odds that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from 
Niger, rather than having Cheney announce that it was definitely true?

Brad