Yes they never learn
http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1677353.html?storylink=MI_emailed
Wall Street sees its next windfall in life insurance
BY JENNY ANDERSON - The New York Times
Published: Sun, Sep. 06, 2009 04:43AM
Modified Sun, Sep. 06, 2009 04:49AM
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, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
