Exactly.

Unknown factoids about Julian Assange.

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Prediction Markets:

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ Hollywood Stock Exchange

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ InTrade

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ HubDub

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Previously:

- AVATAR

- THE EARTH FROM ABOVE

Previously: Capitalism: A Love Story — Download CAPITALISM — The new film/movie by Michael Moore

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Prediction Markets:

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ Hollywood Stock Exchange

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ InTrade

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ HubDub

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Previously:

- AVATAR

- THE EARTH FROM ABOVE

Previously: Capitalism: A Love Story — Download CAPITALISM — The new film/movie by Michael Moore

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ Hollywood Stock Exchange

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ InTrade

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ HubDub

Reviews:

- New York Times on Capitalism

- Google News on Capitalism

Interviews:

Previously: Capitalism: A Love Story — Download CAPITALISM — The new film/movie by Michael Moore

“Capitalism: A Love Story” is a documentary film directed by Michael Moore. The film centers on the financial crisis of 2007-2009, the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration, and the stimulus and bailout package.

YouTube video (US trailer):

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Technical Note: The current version “Video Download Helper” is buggy. Please, use “Easy YouTube Video Download”, instead.

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How to download the CAPITALISM trailer:

• Install any video capture software. I recommend Video Download Helper because it is more universal, but Easy YouTube Video Download is good enough. Both software packages are extensions for FireFox. [*]
• Go to the YouTube webpage for the film/movie “CAPITALISM”.
• Video Download Helper: Select “HQ 22″ in the scrolling list (at the right upper corner of FireFox). Save the high-quality MP4 file to your hard drive. [**]
• Easy YouTube Video Download: Right-click on “HD” (on the right sidebar) to open the link in another tab. Save the high-quality MP4 file to your hard drive.
• Be patient while downloading; it is a big file.
• If the 2 methods described above fail, then use a GreaseMonkey script to download the MP4 file —no HD, alas.
• If you didn’t manage to download the MP4 file from YouTube, you might have gotten the FLV file. (“FLV” is YouTube’s native file system). To convert the FLV files into MP4 files, use MPEG StreamClip.
• Alternatively, download the film/movie trailer from the Apple site (HD MOV file). Once there, click on the high-resolution HD link, which should open with QuickTime, and when the video is fully loaded, save the MOV file to your hard drive. If you need to know, the URL is: http://movies.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov
• DISCLAIMER: You shall be informed that downloading a video goes against YouTube’s terms of service and against Michael Moore‘s world domination view.

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[*] Here are some other means to download any video to your hard drive:

• If you watched a video within your browser, the file might be stored in your browser cache. Search for it.
• A list of Web-based or PC-based download software packages or services, compiled by the great folks at Mashable.
• The Torrent sites: – OpenBitTorrent – PublicBitTorrent

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[**] Video Download Helper:

• “HQ 22″ = HD MP4 file
• “HQ 18″ = MP4 file
• “HQ 35″ = FLV file

Nota Bene: If you don’t see “HQ 22″ or “HQ 18″ in the scrolling list of “Video Download Helper”, don’t hesitate to reload the YouTube page; it should work the second time. If this fails, then use “Easy YouTube Video Download”, instead. If this fails too, use the GreaseMonkey script. If this fails too, then download the FLV file, and convert it into an MP4 file.

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- Translation: Download CAPITALISM film = Descargar CAPITALISM película = Herunterladen CAPITALISM film = Télécharger film CAPITALISM

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Prediction Markets:

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ Hollywood Stock Exchange

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ InTrade

- Capitalism: A Love Story @ HubDub

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Previously:

- AVATAR

- THE EARTH FROM ABOVE

I don’t get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn’t get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote — and yours — on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

[O]ver the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I’ve watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere, well that’s when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the “F” word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama’s pastor does — AND the “church bulletin” once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER! [...]

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See Memeorandum for more on the PA election.

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Democratic Primary – Pennsylvania

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InTrade stopped outputting compound charts for primaries, alas.

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Hillary Clinton:

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Barack Obama:

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Obama won’t win the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.

© NewsFutures

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2008 US Presidential Election Winner – Individual

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2008 US Presidential Elections

Source: Dynamic, compound prediction market charts from InTrade

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Next US President

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Winning Party

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Female President?

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Democratic Candidate

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Republican Candidate

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Source: BetFair Politics Zone

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Barack Obama to win the Democratic nomination

© NewsFutures

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Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination

© NewsFutures

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Next US President Will Be Democratic.

© NewsFutures

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Next US President Will Be Republican.

© NewsFutures

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CNBC

HubDub blog

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Explainer On Prediction Markets

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Prediction markets produce dynamic, objective probabilistic predictions on the outcomes of future events by aggregating disparate pieces of information that traders bring when they agree on prices. Prediction markets are meta forecasting tools that feed on the advanced indicators (i.e., the primary sources of information). Garbage in, garbage out… Intelligence in, intelligence out…

A prediction market is a market for a contract that yields payments based on the outcome of a partially uncertain future event, such as an election. A contract pays $100 only if candidate X wins the election, and $0 otherwise. When the market price of an X contract is $60, the prediction market believes that candidate X has a 60% chance of winning the election. The price of this event derivative can be interpreted as the objective probability of the future outcome (i.e., its most statistically accurate forecast). A 60% probability means that, in a series of events each with a 60% probability, then 6 times out of 10, the favored outcome will occur; and 4 times out of 10, the unfavored outcome will occur.

Each prediction exchange organizes its own set of real-money and/or play-money markets, using either a CDA or a MSR mechanism.

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More Info:

- The Best Resources On Prediction Markets = The Best External Web Links + The Best Midas Oracle Posts

- Prediction Market Science

- The Midas Oracle Explainers On Prediction Markets

- All The Midas Oracle Explainers On Prediction Markets

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In his book, Plight of the Fortune Tellers, Riccardo Rebonato describes how an invitation to bet can be used to separate cheap talk from truly held beliefs (and, in the process, ruin an otherwise engaging dinner conversation).

In the early to mid 1990s in the United Kingdom and in other European countries a widespread fear developed that a variant form of CJD might spread to humans. CJD is a fatal illness—also know as “mad cow disease”—that is well-known to affect bovines. The variant form was thought to have contaminated human beings via the ingestion of beef from cattle affected by the disease. … When the first human cases appeared scientists did not know whether they were observing the tip of an iceberg or whether the relatively few observed cases, tragic as they were, constituted a rather limited and circumscribed occurrence. “Expert scientists” were soon willing to go on record with statements to the effect that “it could not be excluded” that a catastrophe was unfolding. The nonscientific press was all too eager to jump on the bandwagon, and extravagant claims were soon presented, such as that hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions, of lives could be lost over the next decade. Specific probabilities were not stated, but the prominence of the reporting only made sense if the possibility of this catastrophic event was nonnegligible: the newspapers, at least judging by the inches of column space devoted to the topic, were not talking about a risk as remote as being hit by a meteorite.

As the months went by … the number of cases did not significantly increase…. Looking at the data available at the time with a statistical eye, I was becoming increasingly convinced that the magnitude of the potential effect was being greatly exaggerated. At just the same time, a well-educated, but nonscientist, friend of mine (a university lecturer) was visiting London and we decided to meet for dinner. As the conversation moved from one topic to another, he expressed a strong belief, formed by reading the nonscientific press, that the spread of CJD would be a major catastrophe for the U.K. population in the next five to ten years. He was convinced, he claimed, that “hundreds of thousands of people” would succumb to the disease. … I challenged him to enter a bet, to be settled in ten years’ time, that the number of occurrences would not be consistent with a major epidemic. My friend refused to take me up on my offer, despite my very attractive odds (attractive, that is, given his stated subjective probabilities). He claimed that “one does not bet on these things”; that he found my proposal distasteful; that, anyhow, he was not a betting man; and so on. I explained that I was not trying to gain material advantage from a possible human disaster, but I was simply probing the strength of his convictions on the matter. Ultimately, the bet was not entered, and the evening was rather spoiled by my proposal.

Julian Simon’s bet with Paul Erhlich is perhaps the most famous example of the use of a bet to test the strength of convictions. Robin Hanson has done a substantial amount of work on the foundations of such “Idea Futures” mechanisms. A similar concept underlies Long Bets and the Simon Exchange.

At Long Bets they say, “Long Bets is about taking personal responsibility for ideas and opinions.” That is the basic idea I had in mine when I suggested that “it would be a real public service to run well-conceived prediction markets based on the grandiose political pronouncements of the ‘chattering classes’.” It is all about an author taking personal responsibility for the opinions he publishes by, in effect via the prediction market, offering to fund countering opinions on well-defined claims if and only if those countering opinions turn out to be true.

(See also Chris Masse’s post. I’m not claiming any originality on my part here, I’m just trying to nudge the idea closer to common practice by suggesting a potentially interesting and fruitful area of application.)

Naomi Klein? Ann Coulter? Pat Buchanan? Michael Moore? Maybe they believe what they write, and would be willing to subsidize a prediction market out of their book royalties to demonstrate the strength of their convictions. Or how about the books from the current crop of U.S. presidential candidates—I wonder if these books contain any claims that are specific and substantive enough to be either true or false.

If such punditry-based prediction markets were common, mistaken-but-honest demagogues (those pundits who actually believe what they write, and are willing to stand behind it) would end up subsidizing more thoughtful analysts participating in the markets; correct honest demagogues would end up taking home larger financial rewards; and dishonest demagogues would dissemble, seek to avoid being pinned down on specific claims, and when pressed for actionable claims they would run and hide.

[Cross posted at Knowledge Problem.]

My thoughts:

#1. The Google blogger does not have the first clue about marketing. She proposed promoting (buying textual ad spaces on Google Search and its network) as a remedy for the negative impact of Michael Moore’s movie, Sicko, on the US health care industry. In reality, the true remedy would be… branding… or more exactly … re-branding… (changing people’s perceptions about the US health care providers, via massive, uplifting multimedia messages crafted by smart communication agencies). [Her semi retraction, here.]

#2. I’m seeing that big mistake in the field of prediction markets. Some industry practitioners are over-obsessing with textual ads pitching web links whose results can be tracked thanks to web stats tools. But those marketing-unsavvy youngsters completely forget about branding… that is, crafting a prestigious corporate image that lasts long. And, in my view, Bo Cowgill’s Google is of no help for branding.

UPDATE: Search Engine Land + Matt Cutts

UPDATE #2: CNET…

Instead of spending money on ads designed to spin the story, why don’t members of the health care industry create high-quality content to present their side? Are they worried that no one will notice?

Stephen Crowley / The New York Times

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Sicko at HSX = $26.27

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- Michael Moore’s publicist????

- Left-libertarian Mike Linksvayer????

- A leftist media????

- A Castro-lover commie????

- BELIEVE IT OR NOT, IT’S FOX NEWS.

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–> Sicko at Hollywood Stock Exchange: $14. Quite good for a documentary.

- Wikipedia: Michael Moore

- Wikipedia: Sicko

- Wikipedia: Fahrenheit 9/11

In April 2004 the film was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 57th Cannes Film Festival. [...]

[Micheal] Moore responded: “There was only one French citizen on the jury. [*] Four out of nine were American. [...] This is not a French award, it was given by an international jury dominated by Americans.” He also responded to claims that the award was political: “Quentin [Tarantino] whispered in my ear, ‘we want you to know that it was not the politics of your film that won you this award. We are not here to give a political award. Some of us have no politics. We awarded the art of cinema, that is what won you this award and we wanted you to know that as a fellow filmmaker.’”

[*] Plus one French-speaking Belgium actor, whom I count with the French. Other than that, what Michael Moore said is 100% exact.

–> Even though I disagreed with some of Michael Moore’s positions, I enjoyed Fahrenheit 9/11 very much as a movie. I have a Republican friend in Pennsylvania who refused to see it. I recommend this movie in DVD, collector edition, with all the bonuses. And the 2004 international jury in Cannes gave it la Palme d’Or for all the good reasons.

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Psstt… I went to Cannes, yesterday, just to breathe away from the prediction markets. And I listened to Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux explaining that the jury should be very diverse, encompassing many nationalities, different age groups, different backgrounds, event people outside the entertainment industry. That French snobbish intellectual with an inflated ego has probably not read James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom Of Crowds, but he is applying his principles stricto sensu.

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