Dept. of “oh, no, not again”

6 September 2009

NYT: “After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one. 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…”

I can’t see how this money-making scheme could possibly go wrong, can you?

• Later: IHTFP but it does have some redeeming social value
• Earlier: Down with Helvetian imperialism!