But I think it actually looks like a giant Pteranodon.
I'm talking about so-called "death derivatives."
The Lowdown on "Death Derivatives"
After betting trillions on everything from liar loans to mortgages that never should have been issued in the first place, the big banks are back and they're betting on death - yours and mine. It seems that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) and others now want to help securitize "longevity risk" through a newly created derivatives market.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Here's the deal. The banks want to collect billions in fees from pension funds and other institutions by issuing insurance that will manage the risks associated with living longer than the financial planners planned.
What Wall Street is proposing is to package up the fees from these instruments into bonds that are then securitized and sold to investors via a secondary marketplace the banks themselves will effectively create - a "death derivatives" market.
You might think this is farfetched, but the idea is actually far enough along that several financial institutions have already created mortality -rate indices that will be used to price and trade these death instruments.
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