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I'm not quite sure how this works, but from what I gather you get to play make-believe politics with make-believe money. It seems straight-foward enough: "You get a chance to predict the future of 2008 presidential primaries." Then it offers what seems like a straight-foward question: "Who will win the most Democratic primaries on Super Tuesday."
Now if it was just simply answering this question, I might want to try my hand at it. But then it goes into "active markets" and beginning with $5,000 worth of "CNN virtual dollars" and the whole thing escapes me.
Explanations are welcomed.
1 comment:
Okay, here is my attempt at an explanation.
This site is based on the same concept as a stock market. People come into the stock market to buy and sell shares of a company. If they believe the company is going to make money they buy shares. If they think the company is not going to do well, then they sell their shares.
It's much the same here. If a person thinks a candidate is going to do well then they buy an interest in that person. If they think the candidate is slipping away, then they sell shares. If more people want to buy, then the price of the shares increases. On the other hand, the price will go down if people's opinions start turning negative on the candidate.
The score is kept in a couple of ways. The first way is to look at the price of the shares of each candidate in the respective categories. For example, in the category "Who will win the Republican nomination?" John McCain is more than $50 ahead of his nearest competitor. This (obviously) shows that more people have confidence that he will prevail in the primaries and, therefore, have bought his shares. It also means that people have sold (or not purchase as many) shares of the other candidates. By looking at the price per share of each candidate you will be able to gauge the overall "market" opinion.
The other score is that of each player in the game. If you want to participate you are given $5,000 in hypothetical money with which you may invest. You can see how good of a player you are by looking at the overall value of your investment funds. If you've been selecting wisely -- for example, if you had sold Edwards stock a couple of months ago and bought Clinton -- you would have more than $5,000. If, however, you were placing big bets on Rudy and never sold as he slipped away, then your total would show you have lost money in your account.
In some ways it is a cross between investment analysis and gambling. But then, isn't that how the stock market is often described?
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