Auditing the Federal Government
By David Feldman at 19 February, 2009, 4:48 am
Daylight Network, the first independent social network that allows every citizen to audit the federal government and collaborate on non-governmental solutions, launches the $5,000 Obama Prediction Market.
“We face unprecedented economic hardship, and continued erosion of self-confidence has led many to look to the government for answers. Federal government has an annual budget of over $3 trillion, a debt of over $10 trillion, and unfunded Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security liabilities of over $50 trillion. This deteriorating financial condition of a bloated government bureaucracy needs alternatives outside of the public sector. We aim to provide a platform for America to once again become a nation ‘Of the People and by the People’,” said Aaron Day, founder of Daylight Network.
The Obama Administration promised to generate websites to help people track how the government is spending their money. “But we do not allow public companies to audit their own books, so why allow the government to do so?” added Day. Daylight provides an independent, third-party alternative for people to audit their government. “Besides seeing how our money is spent, we need to re-examine the ability and necessity of government to address certain problems. We need to consider all options – public, private, and non-profit. Whereas successful private enterprises and non-profits adopted an increasingly flat and more productive organizational structure, the federal government bureaucracy expanded to almost 2 million employees,” said Day.
Daylight Network, which can be found at http://www.daylightnetwork.com, is a free site that allows anyone to audit government performance, take action, and create real change.
- Follow the money through interactive graphs of the entire federal budget.
- Predict what government will do through the Daylight $5,000 Obama Prediction Market, where members can apply their knowledge to predict key developments during President Obama’s first 100 days in office.
For example, some past questions include, ”Will Eric Holder be confirmed as Attorney General?” or “What will the national unemployment rate be at the end of Obama’s first 100 days?” or “What will be the ultimate size of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” or “Will Barack Obama support the Pittsburgh Steelers or Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl?” The possible answers are represented as stocks. Participants can buy and sell shares in these stocks to express what they think is going to happen. Daylight Network provides each user with $5,000 of trading currency (not real money) for making predictions. Participants buy shares if they think the probability is higher and sell shares if they think it is lower. As always, I have no direct or indirect financial interest in Daylight Network, just seems cool.
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