THIS IS FRIGGING GREAT!

There are no "death panels" but the financial engineers on Wall Street have something even better - DEATH BONDS. Has anybody on the Street thought about the "optics" of this?

Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance
By JENNY ANDERSON
Published: September 5, 2009
NY Times

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.