"The Pentagon," according to the Associated Press, "is setting up a commodity-market style trading system in which investors would be able to bet on political and economic events in the Middle East — including the likelihood of assassinations and terrorist attacks ... A graphic on the market's Web page showed hypothetical futures contracts in which investors could trade on the likelihood that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be assassinated or Jordanian King Abdullah II would be overthrown."

Maybe this is a hot idea. But somehow I'd imagine we'd probably want to set this up as a front company, no?

On the other hand, progress is progress.

In the old days, all you could accomplish with mass-casualty terrorism was physical destruction, human suffering and death on a massive scale. Now, through effective market manipulation, you can achieve those ends and reap immense profits. Maybe even enough to fund the next terrorist attack.

Will there be derivatives?