"Bankers to bet on the lives of others"

That was a strange tale by Jenny Anderson of The New York Times that ran on the Nation & World cover of Sunday's Daily News. Strange at least to those of us unschooled in the ways of sophisticated financial instruments.

Investment bankers will buy "life settlements," life insurance policies that old and ill people sell for a cash discount. Then they'll package the policies into bonds and sell them to investors, who hope to profit when the ailing and aged kick off soon enough to end premiums and pay off.

I suppose you could say that it works for the old folks, because they get cash. And maybe it works for the bond buyers, because they make money. Maybe.

Insurance companies are wary. Me? I'm checking on tonight's bus fare.

I'll bet bus fare on this: The life settlement bond packagers and traders are going to make money. And the disturbing part of the story was how this latest Wall Street scheme came about - when the mortgage game went south last year, investment bankers went looking for a new easy-money game to play, and "life settlements" may be it.

And if it blows up? They'll cover it the old-fashioned way. With taxpayers' money. Don't let 'em do it, Uncle Sam. It's one thing to forget the lessons of the 1920s. It's another to forget 2008.