Death Futures

[rich]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/06insurance.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies
that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million
policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person.
Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon,
by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then
resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will
receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return —
______
death panels are bad but death futures are good.

FZ: While we're at it, we have a sort of a cowboy song we'd like to do
for ya. This is a song that deals with the rapidly approaching 200th
birthday of the United States of America, ladies and gentlemen! This
is a song that warns you in advance that next year everybody is gonna
try and sell you things that maybe you shouldn't ought to buy, and not
only that, they've been planning it for years.

rich