RE: Comments on elections

From: extropians@HarveyNewstrom.com
Date: Tue Nov 07 2000 - 12:14:04 MST


hal@finney.org wrote,
> The Iowa Electronic Markets are real-money futures market where
> players can bet on which candidate will win, shares of the vote, and
> related issues in a number of races, http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/.
> This morning's odds show Bush with a 70% chance of winning.
> This figure has been stable over the past week. See the graph at
> http://128.255.244.60/graphs/Pres00_WTA.gif.

This is my problem with using money futures markets. I believe that Bush
and Gore are much closer than this market would predict. I believe that
statistically, people with money to invest are more likely to be Bush
supporters, and that this skews the results. I therefore see these types of
futures markets as an opinion poll of the wealthy, but not a good indicator
of future events. I even find them less useful in predicting actual
technical issues.

I would accept the premise that people with more money might be better
judges of business issues, but I don't see why available investment capital
should be assumed to be proportional with intelligence of technological
savvy.

--
Harvey Newstrom, Security Testing Manager, Fiderus
Phone:321-676-4894 Tollfree:866-FIDERUS Mobile:321-258-4809 FAX:321-676-5707
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