CFTC Requests public Input on Possible Regulation of "event contracts" jim mccarthy: not everything is a commodity, nor should something that is typically covered by some sort of property and casualty insurance suddenly become exchange tradable. He says if there is 'interest' to develop these sorts of risk event instruments, it seems an admission that the insurance sector is perhaps marginal or worse, incompetent or too greedy to determine how to offer insurance for events presumably produced by nature
CFTC Requests public Input on Possible Regulation of "event contracts" jim mccarthy: not everything is a commodity, nor should something that is typically covered by some sort of property and casualty insurance suddenly become exchange tradable. He says if there is 'interest' to develop these sorts of risk event instruments, it seems an admission that the insurance sector is perhaps marginal or worse, incompetent or too greedy to determine how to offer insurance for events presumably produced by nature
CFTC Requests public Input on Possible Regulation of "event contracts" jim mccarthy: not everything is a commodity, nor should something that is typically covered by some sort of property and casualty insurance suddenly become exchange tradable. He says if there is 'interest' to develop these sorts of risk event instruments, it seems an admission that the insurance sector is perhaps marginal or worse, incompetent or too greedy to determine how to offer insurance for events presumably produced by nature
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@
secretary
From: Andrea Psoras-QED! [apsora:
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 3:08 PM
To: secretary
‘Subject: CFTC Requests Public input on Possible Regulation of “Event Contracts"
Commodity Futures Trading Commission "os
‘Three Lafayette Centre g :
1155 2ist Street, NW 24
Washington, DC 20581 Roo
202-418-5000
202-418-5521, fax
202-418-5514, TTY
[email protected]
Dear Commissioners and Secretary:
Not everything is a commodity, nor should something that is typically covered by some sort of property
and casualty insurance suddenly become exchange tradable. Insurance companies for a number of years
have provided compensation of some sort for random, but periodic events. Where the insurance industry
wants to off-load their risk at the expense of other commodities markets participants, contributes to sorts
of moral hazards - which I vigorously oppose.
If where there is interest’ to develop these sorts of risk event instruments, to me it seems an admission
that the insurance sector is perhaps marginal or worse, incompetent or too greedy to determine how to
offer insurance for events presumably produced by nature.
Now where there are the weather and earth shaking technologies, or some circles call these weather and
electro-magnetic weapons, used insidiously unfortunately by our military, our intelligence apparatus,
and perhaps our military contractors for purposes contrary to that to which our public servants take theit
oath of office to the Constitution, I suggest prohibiting the use of that technology rather than leaving
someone else holding the bag in the event destruction produced by, and where so-called ‘natural’ events
‘were produced by military contractor technology in the guise of 'mother nature!. *
Consider Rep Denis Kucinich as well as former Senator John Glenn attempted to have our Congress
prohibit the use of space based weapons. That class of weapons includes the 'weather weapons’.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO4O9F html as well as other articles about this on the Global
Research website.
Respectfully,
Andrea Psoras
"CFTC Requests Public Input on Possible Regulation of “Event Contracts”
Washington, DC - The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is asking for public
5/7/2008Page 2 of 35,
comment on the appropriate regulatory treatment of financial agreements offered by markets commonly
referred to as event, prediction, or information markets.
During the past several years, the CFTC has received numerous requests for guidance involving the
trading of event contracts. These contracts typically involve financial agreements that are linked to
events or measurable outcomes and often serve as information collection vehicles. The contracts are
based on a broad spectrum of events, such as the results of presidential elections, world population
levels, or economic measures.
“Event markets are rapidly evolving, and growing, presenting a host of difficult policy and legal
questions including: What public purpose is served in the oversight of these markets and what
differentiates these markets from pure gambling outside the CFTC’s jurisdiction?” said CFTC Acting
chairman Walt Lukken. “The CFTC is evaluating how these markets should be regulated with the proper
protections in place and I encourage members of the public to provide their views.”
In response to requests for guidance, and to promote regulatory certainty, the CFTC has commenced a
comprehensive review of the Commodity Exchange Act’s applicability to event contracts and markets.
The CFTC is issuing a Concept Release to solicit the expertise and opinions of all interested parties,
including CFTC registrants, legal practitioners, economists, state and federal regulatory authorities,
academics, and event market participants,
The Concept Release will be published in the Federal Register shortly; comments will be accepted for
60 days after publication in the Federal Register.”
‘Comments may also be submitted electronically to [email protected]. All comments received will be
posted on the CFTC’s website.
‘Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025
A Research Paper Presented To Air Force 2025
August 1996
Below are highlights contained within the actual report. Please remember that this
research report was issued in 1996 - 8 years ago - and that much of what was
discussed as being in preliminary stages back then is now a reality.
In the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of national
security policy with both domestic and international applications. Our
government will pursue such a policy, depending on its interests, at various
levels.
In this paper we show that appropriate application of weather-modification can
provide battlespace dominance to a degree never before imagined, In the future, such
operations will enhance air and space superiority and provide new options for
battlespace shaping and battlespace awareness. "The technology is there, waiting
for us to pull it all together” [General Gordon R. Sullivan, "Moving into the 21st
Century: America's Army and Modernization," Military Review (July 1993) quoted in
Mary Ann Seagraves and Richard Szymber, "Weather a Force Multiplier," Military
Review, November/December 1995, 75].
A global, precise, real-time, robust, systematic weather-modification capability
5/7/2008Page 3 of 35
would provide war-fighting CINCs [an acronym meaning "Commander IN Chief" of
a unified command] with a powerful force multiplier to achieve military objectives.
Since weather will be common to all possible futures, a weather-modification
capability would be universally applicable and have utility across the entire spectrum
of conflict. The capability of influencing the weather even on a small scale could
change it from a force degrader to a force multiplier.
In 1957, the president's advisory committee on weather control explicitly recognized
the military potential of weather-modification, warning in their report that it could
become a more important weapon than the atom bomb [William B. Meyer, "The
Life and Times of US Weather: What Can We Do About It?" American Heritage 37,
no. 4 (June/July 1986), 48].
‘Today [since 1969], weather-modification is the alteration of weather phenomena
over a limited area for a limited period of time. [Herbert S. Appleman, An
Introduction to Weather-modification (Scott AFB, Ill.: Air Weather Service/MAC,
September 1969), 1].
In the broadest sense, weather-modification can be divided into two major categories:
suppression and intensification of weather patterns. In extreme cases, it might involve
the creation of completely new weather patterns, attenuation or control of severe
storms, or even alteration of global climate on a far-reaching and/or long-lasting
scale.
Extreme and controversial examples of weather modification-creation of made-to-
order weather, large-scale climate modification, creation and/or control (or
steering”) of severe storms, etc.-were researched as part of this study... the
‘weather-modification applications proposed in this report range from technically
proven to potentially feasible.
Applying Weather-modification to Military Operations
How will the military, in general, and the USAF, in particular, manage and employ a
weather-modification capability? We envision this will be done by the weather force
support element (WFSE), whose primary mission would be to support the wat-
fighting CINCs with weather-modification options, in addition to current forecasting
support. Although the WFSE could operate anywhere as long as it has access to the
GWN and the system components already discussed, it will more than likely be a
component within the AOC or its 2025-equivalent. With the CINC's intent as
guidance, the WFSE formulates weather-modification options using information
provided by the GWN, local weather data network, and weather-modification
forecast model. The options include range of effect, probability of success, resources
to be expended, the enemy's vulnerability, and risks involved. The CINC chooses an
effect based on these inputs, and the WFSE then implements the chosen course,
selecting the right modification tools and employing them to achieve the desired
effect. Sensors detect the change and feed data on the new weather patter to the
modeling system which updates its forecast accordingly. The WFSE checks the
effectiveness of its efforts by pulling down the updated current conditions and new
forecast(s) from the GWN and local weather data network, and plans follow-on
missions as needed. This concept is illustrated in figure 3-2.
5/7/2008Page 4 of 35
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Two key technologies are necessary to meld an integrated, comprehensive,
responsive, precise, and effective weather-modification system, Advances in the
science of chaos are critical to this endeavor. Also key to the feasibility of such a
system is the ability to model the extremely complex nonlinear system of global
weather in ways that can accurately predict the outcome of changes in the influencing
variables. Researchers have already successfully controlled single variable nonlinear
systems in the lab and hypothesize that current mathematical techniques and
computer capacity could handle systems with up to five variables, Advances in these
two areas would make it feasible to affect regional weather patterns by making small,
continuous nudges to one or more influencing factors. Conceivably, with enough
lead time and the right conditions, you could get "made-to-order" weather
[William Brown, "Mathematicians Learn How to Tame Chaos," New Scientist (30
May 1992): 16].
The total weather-modification process would be a real-time loop of continuous,
appropriate, measured interventions, and feedback capable of producing desired
weather behavior.
The essential ingredient of the weather-modification system is the set of intervention
techniques used to modify the weather. The number of specific intervention
methodologies is limited only by the imagination, but with few exceptions they
involve infusing either energy or chemicals into the meteorological process in the
right way, at the right place and time. The intervention could be designed to modify
the weather in a number of ways, such as influencing clouds and precipitation,
storm intensity, climate, space, or fog.
5/7/2008Page 5 of 35
PRECIPITATION
"significant beneficial influences can be derived through judicious exploitation of
the solar absorption potential of carbon black dust" [William M. Gray et al.,
"Weather-modification by Carbon Dust Absorption of Solar Energy," Journal of
Applied Meteorology 15 (April 1976): 355]. The study ultimately found that this
technology could be used to enhance rainfall on the mesoscale, generate cirrus
clouds, and enhance cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) clouds in otherwise dry areas,
«if we are fortunate enough to have a fairly large body of water available upwind
from the targeted battlefield, carbon dust could be placed in the atmosphere over that
water. Assuming the dynamics are supportive in the atmosphere, the rising saturated
air will eventually form clouds and rainshowers downwind over the land.
Numerous dispersal techniques [of carbon dust] have already been studied, but the
most convenient, safe, and cost-effective method discussed is the use of
afterburner-type jet engines to generate carbon particles while flying through the
targeted air. This method is based on injection of liquid hydrocarbon fuel into the
afterbumer's combustion gases {this explains why contrails have now become
chemtrails].
To date, much work has been done on UAVs [Unmanned Aviation Vehicles] which
can closely (if not completely) match the capabilities of piloted aircraft. If this UAV
technology were combined with stealth and carbon dust technologies, the result could
be a UAV aircraft invisible to radar while en route to the targeted area, which could
spontaneously create carbon dust in any location.
If clouds were seeded (using chemical nuclei similar to those used today or perhaps
a more effective agent discovered through continued research) before their downwind
arrival to a desired location, the result could be a suppression of precipitation. In
other words, precipitation could be "forced" to fall before its arrival in the
desired territory, thereby making the desired territory "dry."
FOG
Field experiments with lasers have demonstrated the capability to dissipate warm fog
at an airfield with zero visibility. Smart materials based on nanotechnology are
currently being developed with gigaops computer capability at their core. They could
adjust their size to optimal dimensions for a given fog seeding situation and even
make adjustments throughout the process. They might also enhance their dispersal
qualities by adjusting their buoyancy, by communicating with each other, and by
steering themselves within the fog. They will be able to provide immediate and
continuous effectiveness feedback by integrating with a larger sensor network and
can also change their temperature and polarity to improve their seeding effects
U. Storrs Hall, "Overview of Nanotechnology," adapted from papers by Ralph C.
Merkle and K. Eric Drexler, Rutgers University, November 1995], As mentioned
above, UAVs could be used to deliver and distribute these smart materials.
Recent army research lab experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of
5/7/2008Page 6 of 35
generating fog. They used commercial equipment to generate thick fog in an area
100 meters long. Further study has shown fogs to be effective at blocking much of
the UV/IR/visible spectrum, effectively masking emitters of such radiation from IR
weapons [Robert A. Sutherland, "Results of Man-Made Fog Experiment,”
Proceedings of the /991 Battlefield Atmospherics Conference (Fort Bliss, Tex.
Hinman Hall, 3-6 December 1991)}.
STORMS
‘The damage caused by storms is indeed horrendous. For instance, a tropical storm
has an energy equal to 10,000 one-megaton hydrogen bombs [Louis J. Battan,
Harvesting the Clouds (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1960), 120]. At any
instant there are approximately 2,000 thunderstorms taking place. In fact 45,000
thunderstorms, which contain heavy rain, hail, microbursts, wind shear, and lightning
form daily [Gene S. Stuart, "Whirlwinds and Thunderbolts,” Nature on the Rampage
(Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1986), 130}.
Weather-modification technologies might involve techniques that would increase
latent heat release in the atmosphere, provide additional water vapor for cloud
cell development, and provide additional surface and lower atmospheric heating
to increase atmospheric instability. The focus of the weather-modification effort
would be to provide additional "conditions" that would make the atmosphere unstable
enough to generate cloud and eventually storm cell development.
‘One area of storm research that would significantly benefit military operations is
lightning modification... but some offensive military benefit could be obtained by
doing research on inereasing the potential and intensity of lightning,
Possible mechanisms to investigate would be ways to modify the electropotential
characteristics over certain targets to induce lightning strikes on the desired targets as
the storm passes over their location.
In summary, the ability to modify battlespace weather through storm cell
triggering or enhancement would allow us to exploit the technological "weather"
advances,
SPACE WEATHER-MODIFICATION
This section discusses opportunities for control and modification of the ionosphere
and near-space environment for force enhancement, A number of methods have been
explored or proposed to modify the ionosphere, including injection of chemical
vapors and heating or charging via electromagnetic radiation or particle beams
(Such as ions, neutral particles, x-rays, MeV particles, and energetic electrons) -
[Peter M. Banks, "Overview of lonospheric Modification from Space Platforms," in
Tonospheric Modification and Its Potential to Enhance or Degrade the Performance
of Military Systems (AGARD Conference Proceedings 485, October 1990) 19-1.
It is important to note that many techniques to modify the upper atmosphere have
been successfully demonstrated experimentally. Ground-based modification
techniques employed by the FSU include vertical HF heating, oblique HF heating,
microwave heating, and magnetospheric modification [Capt Mike Johnson, Upper
5/7/2008Page 7 of 35
Atmospheric Research and Modification-Former Soviet Union (U), DST-18205-475-
92 (Foreign Aerospace Science and Technology Center, AF Intelligence Command,
24 September 1992)].
Creation of an artificial uniform ionosphere was first proposed by Soviet
researcher A. V. Gurevich in the mid-1970s. An artificial ionospheric mirror (AIM)
would serve as a precise mirror for electromagnetic [EMJradiation of a selected
frequency or a range of frequencies.
RANS GROUND-BASED
STATION AIM GENERATOR STATION
ARTIFICIAL WEATHER
While most weather-modification efforts rely on the existence of certain preexisting
conditions, it may be possible to produce some weather effects artificially, regardless
of preexisting conditions. For instance, virtual weather could be created by
influencing the weather information received by an end user.
‘Nanotechnology also offers possibilities for creating simulated weather. A cloud, or
several clouds, of microscopic computer particles, all communicating with each other
and with a larger control system could provide tremendous capability.
Interconnected, atmospherically buoyant, and having navigation capability in three
dimensions, such elouds could be designed to have a wide-range of properties...
Even if power levels achieved were insufficient to be an effective strike weapon [if
power levels WERE sufficient, they would be an effective strike weapon], the
potential for psychological operations in many situations could be fantastic,
One major advantage of using simulated weather to achieve a desired effect is that
unlike other approaches, it makes what are otherwise the results of deliberate
actions appear to be the consequences of natural weather phenomena. In
addition, it is potentially relatively inexpensive to do. According to J. Storrs Hall, a
5/7/2008