Comments on: Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

By: anie

anie — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:21:47 +0000

Sorry for the late comment – I was canning bread and butter pickles all day yesterday. Today it’s peaches. Seriously, if you want to can – and it is great!! – call your local extension office and use laboratory tested recipes. Leave botulism for the wingnuts. The commentariat at BJ is too smart to risk food poisoning.

By: Phoenician in a time of Romans

Phoenician in a time of Romans — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:55:50 +0000

Where the hell is the money coming from for this? It isn’t an investment, drawing off a business profit – if Wall Street “wins”, the insurance companies must “lose”. It’s one set of fat cats gambling against another set – and you damn well know that the ordinary guys caught in the middle will end up holding the bill.

By: jaquestraw

jaquestraw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:57:40 +0000

@ catclub I get it,There can be only one like the highlander

By: jaquestraw

jaquestraw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:53:25 +0000

who will be rolling the dice the erudite gentleman from Mass.Barney Frank

By: arguingwithsignposts

arguingwithsignposts — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:43:52 +0000

But I thought Meagain McArdle was all about how the U.S. heath care system was the reason there was any innovation in pharma? Wonder how that’ll work when wall street is actively rooting for death?

So many suggestions already – wood chippers, guillotines, trebuchets. Hell, I’d just like some vise-like regulations on the whole damned casino.

By: jaquestraw

jaquestraw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:37:56 +0000

@Comrade Darkness who will be the beneficiary,seniors disabled?its a paradox

By: ominira

ominira — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:36:33 +0000

Well, on the bright side, this will spur many new businesses, which is all that really matters isn’t it? Specialized ninja assassins to off grandma if she lives too long, explosives consulting shops to help blow up any pharmaceutical companies that dare come up with cures for cancer and other terminal illnesses, and new lobbying firms that ensure that health care reform is dead on arrival (can’t have people seeing good doctors & getting cured and shit). And as someone pointed out, this time no taxpayer bailout will be needed when things invariably go wrong – just kill everyone over 65 using the ninja assassins and the situation will right itself. Talk about vulture capitalism.

By: Comrade Darkness

Comrade Darkness — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:28:33 +0000

@jaquestraw: How about a rule that if Goldman Sachs is going to deal in viaticals, then their executives and board members must have a viatical policy on them. A nice fat one for 10 mil.

By: jaquestraw

jaquestraw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:24:38 +0000

Goldman Sacks.Now it makes sense why John Corzine would give up his CEO job there and spend 75 million dollars of his own money to run for governor of N.J.

By: jaquestraw

jaquestraw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:18:17 +0000

this along with the cap and trade derivatives market.I’m glad I am not a compulsive gambler.

By: Comrade Darkness

Comrade Darkness — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:05:08 +0000

It is time for everyone to start learning how to garden, hunt, and can food.

Is it all right if I just become vegetarian, except for those times I happen upon fresh road kill? Sounds easier.

By: Steeplejack

Steeplejack — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:37:06 +0000

@catclub: Here's a thought: try @reading the thread.

By: catclub

catclub — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:27:14 +0000

Am I really the only one who thought of that great American
investment opportunity – the Tontine?

Everything old is new again.

Look it up you kids, and get off my lawn.

By: D-Chance.

D-Chance. — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:02:29 +0000

BTW, every time I come to the conclusion that Alex Jones or Sean David Morton are total kooks with their bullshit about a “New World Order” or some cabal planning on “the elimination of 90% of the world’s population”, something like this comes up which makes them look damn near spot on.

But they’re both still kooks…

By: D-Chance.

D-Chance. — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:58:46 +0000

Reading farther into the article, and look who’s in it with both fists.

Goldman Sachs has developed a tradable index of life settlements, enabling investors to bet on whether people will live longer than expected or die sooner than planned.

Ah, yes, good old Goldman Sachs… and, farther along…

To help understand how to manage these risks, Ms. Tillwitz and her colleague Jan Buckler — a mathematics whiz with a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering —

Those “mathematics whizzes”... the same ones who helped develop the CDSs which, in no small part, led to the real estate bubble and the current financial mess we’re current in right now. You’d think they would have learned their lesson (or, at least, you’d hope their potential clients would); but, here they are, less than a year removed from the crash-and-burn, with the same old same-old. And just so you understand where these people are coming from…

The solution? A bond made up of life settlements would ideally have policies from people with a range of diseases — leukemia, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s. That is because if too many people with leukemia are in the securitization portfolio, and a cure is developed, the value of the bond would plummet.

Yes, if we find a cure for leukemia, or AIDS, or breast cancer, or heart disease… that’s bad.

You think this type of investment vehicle may not have a chilling effect on medical decisions? Or research?

With $26 trillion of life insurance policies in force in the United States, the market could be huge.