Do you think Charles Rangel will be forced out as chairman of the Way and Means committee by Dec. 31st 2008? The odds are good and the spread is better. On the Intrade Prediction Markets, you can speculate on anything from Barack Obama becoming President, to Israel attacking Iran before the end of 2009, to the likelihood of mad cow disease emerging in the American herd. When forced to put their money on the line, the wisdom of the crowds always trumps simple opinion polls.
It works so well that the CIA briefly considered setting up a market along the lines of
Intrade.com in order to ask people to speculate on where the next terrorism attack would occur. Unfortunately, the project was shelved because the administration deemed it too insensitive.
The accuracy of
Intrade is well documented, accurately predicting all of the Senate election outcomes in 2006. Betting sites are great for determining how in-step your opinion is with general reckoning and the direction to which they're out of alignment. You can bet for or against yourself, depending on where you see the
equilibrium. With 2:1 odds on
Rangel being removed, I think the price is way out of alignment. According to the NY Post,
Pelosi's spokesman denies that Pelosi will insist on Rangel stepping down. But with the current price, you'll see 100% gain if you believe
Pelosi will do the right thing.
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