- New York Times & CNBC.

- InTrade co-founder Patrick Young (privately to me) & InTrade investor Dean LeBaron (who quotes Patrick Young).

- Tyler Cowen. Max Keiser. Justin Wolfers. Caveat Bettor. Robin Hanson.

- Here’s InTrade trader Sacha Peter on John Delaney’s personality. And here are all the negative remarks by the blog commenters on various outlets.

UPDATE: John Delaney’s widow is quoted here.

John Delaney, 41, from Ireland, has collapsed less than 50m from the top. He left for the expedition on April 9 and was due back in Ireland at the end of this month. His body will remain where he died.

InTrade’s other co-founder Patrick Young was the first, at time of publication, to express his condolences.

UPDATE: Tyler Cowen. Max Keiser. Justin Wolfers. Caveat Bettor. Dean LeBaron (who quotes Patrick Young). Robin Hanson.

UPDATE: John Delaney’s widow is quoted here.

NEXT: Psychologist and economist George Loewenstein, Carnegie Mellon University, was an avid mountain climber “until I had kids and couldn’t tolerate the risk.” — [TAKEAWAYS]

NEXT: John Delaney’s OB — [RANT]

Spot the global warming prediction markets on the right side.

Cav, by the way, congrats for your PageRank of 5/10.

Best wishes to him/her. I hope that he/she will reveal his/her ID in the future. “Wiser Than The Crowd” is the wrong role model in that regard, triple alas.

Addendum:

Thanks to my Deep Throats, I know roughly who “Wiser Than The Crowd” is. He did not lie. He indeed works for a good neurobiology department at a University in some northern country. I will not reveal my confidential information, just as I wouldn’t say who Caveat Bettor is. A lot of people talk to moi, and I talk back to a lot of people —and then I check and re-check my sources. You’re pretty naive if you think you can escape my inklings.

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- Among others, I highly recommend the blog of our good friend Caveat Bettor.

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Some blogger says his wife is fantastic.

New York Times portrait of Joe Biden.

UPDATE: Barack Obama‘s speech + Joe Biden‘s speech

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I think it is the worst pick ever. What a blunder. Joe Biden (a D.C. insider) is unpopular and gaffe prone. Plus, that choice shows that Barack Obama is insecure when it comes to foreign policy. An emphasis on the economy and, thus, on a successful gubernatorial experience would have been better.

Kathleen Sebelius was the one to pick. She is my vice president. (And Ron Paul is my president. )

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I have over-estimated the secretiveness of Barack Obama’s decision process. The chart above obviously shows that the Joe Biden narrative leaked out to reporters was beamed out for a purpose: testing the Obama-needs-a-VP-who-is-strong-in-foreign-policy argument, and letting the Press do the final vetting on gaffe-prone Joe Biden.

InTrade CEO John Delaney (along with the HubDub and BetFair people) will now brag on his marketing material that his prediction exchange did forecast Joe Biden as the Democratic vice president nominee.

What’s bad in all that (other than I have an egg on my face [*] ) is that we won’t have a public debate on the different quality of the various primary indicators, and how that conditions the accuracy of the prediction markets.

[*] I have an egg on my face, but Caveat Bettor has a whole omelet on his.

• creating suspense (sometimes false) so as to generate free publicity;
• sending a positive message to the supporters of each VP candidate;
• letting the Press do the vetting of the VP candidates;
• flattering the political journalists by leaking to them;
• sending out false leaks so as to preserve the surprise for the scheduled announcement day;
• sometimes, buying time to impose the head of the VP search committee as the most serious VP candidate (remember Dick Cheney in 2000). [Psstt... Funny enough, in the 2008 election, Michael Moore is pulling for Caroline Kennedy. ]

All that means that there are no good primary indicators for the prediction markets on the Democratic and Republican VP-candidate selections.

I want to offer 6 remarks:

1. Not all prediction markets are created equal. Some have good primary indicators (e.g., the prediction markets on the presidential elections, thanks to polls), while some other prediction markets have unreliable primary indicators (e.g., the prediction markets on who will be on the ticket).
2. The prediction exchange executives (like InTrade-TradeSports CEO John Delaney) will never tell you that, because their job is to sell their wares, of course.
3. The public needs prediction market analysts, who can judge the quality of the primary indicators of one particular prediction market, so as to separate the grains from the shaft —reliable prediction markets from unreliable prediction markets. (A prediction market analyst has also other functions, which I will blog about later on.)
4. A prediction market analyst should have a dual competency —in a vertical (in our example, US politics), and in prediction markets.
5. The expertise in the vertical (here, politics) should be a major, and the expertise in prediction markets should be a minor. Take a look at these 2 mainstream media news stories: the one written Jack Shafer in Slate (which I linked to at the top of this post), and the one written by Justin Wolfers in the Wall Street Journal. Obviously, the one that shows the most mastering is the one written by Jack Shafer, an American professional journalist who follows US politics for a living.
6. The consequence of that for prediction market journalism is that the writer should be an expert in a vertical, and the editor should be an expert in prediction markets —and not the other way around.

That said, I wish the very best of luck to our good friends Caveat Bettor (who is betting on Tim Kaine) and Nigel Eccles (who is predicting Joe Biden).

UPDATE: My (informal) Democratic VP-candidate bet is on Kathleen Sebelius. Hint, hint.

UPDATE: Gawker says that Joe Biden would be a horrible choice. I agree. Plus, he has denied to be the pick. He could have lied to reporters, though.

UPDATE: New York Times publishes portraits of all VP candidates.

DEVELOPING…

NEXT: While InTrade CEO John Delaney is deceiving the journalists to sell his wares, Tom Snee of the Iowa Electronic Markets is telling them the truth: BEWARE THE VP-CANDIDATE PREDICTION MARKETS, THEY JUST AGGREGATE RUMORS.

It’s a complicated affair. I can’t sum it up for you. Go scanning it, if you’re curious.

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Best wishes to Steve Levitt and Koleman Strumpf.

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