https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-16/hedge-fund-manager-profited-from-death-arbitrage
"A vital function of the financial system is to shift risk, but that is mostly
a euphemism. Finance can't make risks go away, or even really move them all
that much. When the financial system shifts the risk of X happening from Y to
Z, all that means is that Z gives Y money if X happens. If X was going to
happen to Y, it's still going to happen to Y. But now Y gets money. Death is a
central fact of human existence, the fundamental datum that gives meaning to
life, but it is also a risk -- you never know when it will happen! -- and so
the financial industry has figured out ways to shift it. Not in any
supernatural sense, I mean, but in the regular financial-industry sense: by
giving people money when death happens to them. One cannot know for certain how
much of a consolation that is.""Another vital function of the financial system
is to brutally punish the mispricing of risk through arbitrage. Actually I
don't really know how vital that one is, but people are pretty into it. If
someone under- or overestimates a risk, someone else will find a way to make
them pay for it. That's how markets, even the market for death, stay
efficient.""The normal way to shift the risk of death is life insurance -- you
die, the insurance company gives you money -- but there are other, more
esoteric versions, and they are more susceptible to arbitrage.One version
involves "medium and long-term bonds and certificates of deposit ('CDs') that
contain 'survivor options' or 'death puts.'" Schematically, the idea is that a
financial institution issues a bond that pays back $100 when it matures in 2040
or whatever. But if the buyer of the bond dies, he gets his $100 back
immediately, instead of having to wait until 2040. He's still dead,
though."[end of partial quote]
AP ('Assassination Politics'; https://cryptome.org/ap.htm ) can be
considered to be 'death arbitrage' with a few key differences: The person who
will die isn't part of the agreement, and doesn't profit when the initial deal
is struck, nor later. Jim Bell
