Responding to msg by anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com () on Mon, 4 Dec 1:42 AM

That authority now sits in other hands. In silicon.

I doubt the President wants a market meltdown as we start to move towards an election year. Body bags and a bad economic front are a bad mix and could swing the whole election with the dual near unsurmountable election obstacles.

Hopefully, god-willing, we won't face any tragedies.

----- Financial Times, Dec 4, 1995 US Marine chiefs trade places to experience tranche warfare Officers are preparing to do virtual battle in the Nymex oil pits [and wargame FinCide] By Laurie Morse A dozen US Marine Corps generals and colonels will today march on to the New York Mercantile Exchange trading floor and start matching wits with commodity futures traders. The traders often describe their fraught existence in the trading rings as virtual warfare, and the US military appears to agree. Keen to find ways of training officers to cope with the demands of high-tech 21st-century warfare, a group of Marine Corps top brass will venture into the Nymex crude oil pit in the World Trade Center after the regular market has closed. Assisted by a group of handpicked veteran commodity traders, the marines will plunge into a simulated session of futures trading that will include several market reversals and a barrage of oil-linked "news". Mr Gary Lapayover, the Nymex trader co-ordinating the event, says the trading session will allow the officers and traders to become acquainted on friendly turf, and give the Marines a glimpse of the multiple tasks and the speed -- that breakneck trading entails. Today's simulated trading will be followed tomorrow by a war games session. About 15 traders will follow the generals to an old officers' club on Governor's Island, off Manhattan, and test their skills in a computerised game designed by Gama Corp. a Virginia-based company that specialises in computer-generated battle scenarios. Later, the traders will tell the officers and their aides what they think of the battle experience. What do the Marines hope to learn from the commodities pits? "Our vision of what warfare will be in the 21st century is very different from what we've faced in the 20th," says Colonel Tom Harkins, director of operations at the Marines' war-fighting laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. In future, the Marines expect to be drawn into smaller conflicts of the type seen in Somalia and Bosnia. At the same time, warfare will become increasingly digitalised, calling for rapid decision-taking amid a barrage of information. "How does a commander make decisions on a digital battlefield?" asks Col Harkins. "Technology will increase the tempo of battle, and the influx of digital information will require skills in what you might call pattern analysis. This is what futures traders do. In this exercise we want to see how people who face these conditions every day deal with the stress, and get comfortable with the risks." During tomorrow's war games, traders will be confronted by an on-screen battle area laid out on a grid, with as many as 50 small teams of cyber-soldiers seeking the "enemy". Once "contact" is made, the teams will request firepower. Under pressure, "commanders" must decide how to deploy resources to the best strategic advantage, while limiting losses. For Mr Eric Bolling, an independent trader who has survived nine years in the Nymex energy pits, the Marines are being shrewd in seeking to cross laser-swords with battle-hardened heroes of the trading pits. Mr Bolling, a 33-year-old former minor league baseball player, has no military background, but sees a lot of parallels between trading, sport and the armed services. All three require high levels of self-motivation and decision-making ability. Some of the generals and colonels may be shown to be more suited to high-stress, high-stakes environments than others, he says. "You have to be able to prioritise and analyse a lot of information rapidly -- then initiate risk by making a decision; and, finally, manage that risk by having the discipline to manage the trade," says Mr Bolling. "A lot of people can't do that, and wash out of these markets. I don't think it's something that can be learned really -- it's a personality type." Mr Lapayover said he selected floor veterans like Mr Bolling to participate because he was looking for "survivors" people who have been successful traders over a number of years. "Military experience wasn't a factor. The Marines are looking for people that can help them understand the process." Mr Lapayover has also suggested that the top brass visit the "war rooms" of America's largest investment banks to observe Wall Street's fixed income and equities traders, and the strategies of high-stakes corporate raiders. The war games are part of a new programme directed by General Charles Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps. "War games are not designed to give you a total solution, they are designed to give you insight" he says. "We're going to have our laboratory analysts with us, and they will be looking at improving the process." -----