Betting on acts of terrorism - UK Indymedia

Artificially-High Stock Prices Until very recently share prices, by general consensus, were set purely by market forces (though they were influenced somewhat by the Fed’s control of short term-interest rates and government tax and spending laws). Whether the market went up or down was not generally seen as a pressing policy matter for the federal g

In 1955, when the total market capitalization of the S&P 500 Index was $220 billion, neither futures nor options that would enable market participants to speculate on (or hedge against) the price of the index even existed. Then index futures and options were created—a marketing bonanza for the financial field. These new products made it easy no

The fact that intelligent agents will be available to investigate and perhaps retaliate in one fashion or another against those who initiate violence is merely a hint of this new vista in protection.

The uncertainty in question will not be an accident of our circumstances — it will be entirely deliberate. We want to tempt others to engage in economic behavior, the output of which is uncertain, at the opportunity cost of behavior that is presumably much more certain. In effect, we are buying uncertainty with certainty.