Joe is going off the deep end. Market noises are now interpreted as the intergalactic battle between the pro-HCR and the anti-HCR, who are both seeking to manipulate the InTrade prediction markets. No evidence whatsoever is displayed.
P.S: I am not picking on Joe, who is a good web curator, and a nice chap. Just disagree with him (and Andrew Golberg) that prediction market journalism is easy to do. Good prediction market journalism is very hard to do. Requires scoops and pertinent analysis. Scrapping exchange probabilities and aggregating it with re-written news is not enough.
ADDENDUM
More info on health care reform on Memeorandum.
Previously: Insider trading in the InTrade prediction market on health care reform?
Howard Lutnick will be the Lloyd Blankfein of 2011
http://www.hubdub.com/m67797/Howard_Lutnick_of_CantorFitzgerald_forced_out_per_a_CantorX_boxofficefutures_trading_scandal
And when CantorX blows up – and it’s bailed out for ‘national security’ or some such nonsense – then the look-back investigation will reveal that – as of today; this “new” market was fraudulently conceived, wrongly approved by the CFTC, and outrageously peddled on CNBC.
Not that there is anything wrong with this, unless you think that the US can do something other than run a casino-gulag; which, I don’t think it can at this point. Too many predatory bankers looking to milk what’s left of the diminishing resources to pull the US out of its nose dive (against emerging economies like China, India, Russia, etc. )
It’s one thing to speculate on insider trading scenarios, but what is the basis for claiming that the exchange itself will “blow up”, that the clearing mechanism on a CFTC DCM will break down?
Also, Max, I recall an Al Jazeera clip where you stated with apparent sincerity that the US government was behind 9/11. Please, above all, tell us that was an elaborate joke.