This week’s business leader survey is based upon the recently scrapped plans for a Pentagon-created Policy Analysis Market (PAM). PAM would have allowed investors to buy and sell futures contracts based on the likelihood of future world events, for example the odds of an overthrow of the King of Jordan. COMPAS asked Canadian business leaders how much they would be hypothetically willing to spend on 6 different possible futures contracts.

Even in hypothetical scenarios business leaders are conservative investors. But they do believe that Saddam Hussein’s capture by Halloween is four times more likely to occur than Prime Minister Paul Martin nominating Jean Chretien as Governor General. These are the key findings from the Financial Post/COMPAS survey of business leaders and CEOs.

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