Intrade is Down

After loving Intrade for years, Instapundit linked to Bryan Caplan's huffing about how the CFTC shut out American customers from the service.

Now Intrade is down because of financial irregularities, yet neither Reynolds nor Caplan has seen fit to mention it. To be wrong is one thing; not to acknowledge it is egregious.

(Prediction markets sound like a good idea to me, by which I mean that under conscientious  management the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, e.g. steps will be taken to ensure that people who commit an atrocity do not profit from betting on it. However, good ideas can attract fraudsters.)

So I was wrong about the CFTC's decision. I was also wrong when I supported the Three Wise Men's Stooges' (Greenspan, Rubin, Summers) when they squelching of the CFTC's warning about OTC derivatives.