At least for me, there are not too many questions that would lead me to respond, “For $25 million, no way, but for $50 million I’ll think about it.” Twenty-five million dollars is so much money that it’s hard to think about what you would do with it. It sure would be nice to have the first $25 million. I’m not sure what I would need the second $25 million for.
The U.S. Senate is hoping there are some folks in Afghanistan or Pakistan who don’t see it that way. Frustrated by the failure of the $25 million bounty on Osama Bin Laden to lead to his capture, the Senate voted 97-1 to raise the bounty to $50 million.
At one level, you have to applaud this move by the government. To a Pakistani peasant, $50 million is an unthinkably large amount of money. To the U.S. government, which is spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, $50 million is next to nothing. If one of the major goals of the Iraq war was to get rid of Saddam Hussein, think how much cheaper it would have been to offer a reward of, say, $100 billion to anyone who could get him out of office by whatever means they saw fit. Saddam himself might have graciously accepted the offer and traded the hassles of running a country for a pleasant $100 billion pension and a well-appointed French manor.
Indeed, we have blogged before about the virtues of big prizes to encourage people to work on problems, whether it is curing disease or improving Netflix’s algorithms.
On the other hand, if I can’t tell the difference between $25 million and $50 million, I can’t imagine upping the ante will push a wavering Pakistani over the edge of collaborating with the U.S. government.
Much more important, but harder to do, would be to find a way to make it credible that we will actually pay the bounty. I’m sure there is plenty of discretion in deciding to whom and how much of that bounty gets paid. For instance, if I did some statistical analysis that somehow narrowed down his whereabouts to within 1000 yards, and then the Navy SEALS canvassed that area and found him, would I get the money? I’m not so sure they would give it to me. I’m sure the Pakistani peasant who has some information on Bin Laden probably shares my doubts.
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They really should up the bounty to 10s/100s of billions of dollars – it’s worth it. 25-50 million dollars is not enough to tempt nations or even private companies to do the dirty work, but for a huge reward like that, you’d see a lot of different entities jump in to the Bin Laden hunt.
They really should up the bounty to 10s/100s of billions of dollars – it’s worth it. 25-50 million dollars is not enough to tempt nations or even private companies to do the dirty work, but for a huge reward like that, you’d see a lot of different entities jump in to the Bin Laden hunt.
There must be a difference between 25 million and 50 million for many people, otherwise Scott Boras would be out of a job.
There must be a difference between 25 million and 50 million for many people, otherwise Scott Boras would be out of a job.
The way I see it, the act of doubling the bounty for Bin Laden is important in itself. Newspapers around the world will run stories on the increase, giving the cause free publicity.
On the other side, thinking game theoretically, someone with access to Bin Laden might be now try to bide his time until the bounty doubles again.
The way I see it, the act of doubling the bounty for Bin Laden is important in itself. Newspapers around the world will run stories on the increase, giving the cause free publicity.
On the other side, thinking game theoretically, someone with access to Bin Laden might be now try to bide his time until the bounty doubles again.
Mr Levitt,
I thought it was public knowledge already that S. Hussein had agreed to step down just before the US invasion. In fact he had agreed to pretty much everything that was asked of him.
So much so that Tony Blair had to up the request a few days before the launch of the invasion, by asking such frivolities as having him humiliate himself on TV. What was the point of this request? I mean, I can understand wanting to have him apologize, but the request here was: “either you humiliate yourself or we bomb your country to pieces, no matter what else you do.” He couldn’t just leave. No.
It’s clear the motive was never to have him leave. That’s why there was no bounty on his head, not for a lack of imagination or economic savvy. To put it even more cynically, what would have been the point of a 50 million buck reward for Saddam’s capture, when military contractors had hundreds of billions of incentive to have the invasion proceed?
Mr Levitt,
I thought it was public knowledge already that S. Hussein had agreed to step down just before the US invasion. In fact he had agreed to pretty much everything that was asked of him.
So much so that Tony Blair had to up the request a few days before the launch of the invasion, by asking such frivolities as having him humiliate himself on TV. What was the point of this request? I mean, I can understand wanting to have him apologize, but the request here was: “either you humiliate yourself or we bomb your country to pieces, no matter what else you do.” He couldn’t just leave. No.
It’s clear the motive was never to have him leave. That’s why there was no bounty on his head, not for a lack of imagination or economic savvy. To put it even more cynically, what would have been the point of a 50 million buck reward for Saddam’s capture, when military contractors had hundreds of billions of incentive to have the invasion proceed?