(Hint: One reason I seldom discuss AP is that to me it's just a special case of the larger issue of untraceable markets for such acts, something I've been worried about for almost a decade now. There is little reason to engage in the fiction of a "betting pool" when a hit may be untraceably contracted for and the standard fee ($1000 or less in some inner cities, $5000 for ordinary suburbanites, $30,000 or more for high-profile cases...so I hear) be paid with untraceable cash...as soon as truly untraceable digital cash becomes a reality.)
I always thought you hated to discuss AP because you didn't want to appear overly knowledgeable on the subject.. heh heh hmmm, interesting points. sounds like a *lucrative* business. perhaps even some major *investment*opportunities* involved, eh!!! but I'm still a bit confused about those prices. what determines them, anyway? risk to the assassin? it seems that it ought to be as easy to snuff out one person as it would another. e.g. everybody walks alone out at night at different times, it seems. perhaps we have some assassins that are offering some kind of "value added" services to justify the difference in pricings. otherwise, it would seem to be a scam just like IBM did with one of their printers-- have a version that has a "slowdown chip" in it and charge less for that one. charging what the market will bear regardless of cost so to speak... since you are so open to discussion of the subject, would you care to speculate on the cost of, say, a person who has a large stock portfolio? or how about a cyberspace crackpot? I guess the latter would go for something like $100 on your sliding scale and the former for 100K+, maybe? do you have to pay different amounts of money whether you want a special kind of arrangement like a slow, agonizing demise? does that cost more or less than the quick and deadly type? I must admit I'm new to the concept and could definitely use some input from someone with some obvious knowledge on the subject such as yourself. I do rather like Jim Bell's ideas of pools however. maybe not have a betting pool, but just a pool of contributions from multiple "donors". do you think that idea has no merit? it seems like there ought to be all kinds of uplifting applications of that arrangement, hmmmm? so who are your "sources" for those estimates, anyway, timmy? hee, hee. be vewry carefwul!!! we're hunting wabbits!!!!