How is the “death industry” doing these days? That whole funeral home, flowers, Jell-O-and-ham potluck, casket and cemetery plot thing that Americans used to do when there were still a few crumpled dollar bills left in the “rainy day jar” for a dignified burial? No, we mean that “other” death industry, the one where Rick Perry makes millions of dollars allowing mutant humanoid speculators to place bets amongst themselves about when retired Texas school teachers would croak, and then give Rick Perry a cut of the “winnings” for the privilege. That one, apparently, was Rick Perry’s one-time brilliant plan to make the state of Texas a pile of cash. Sure, that sounds fool-proof. So what do educators get out of this death rewards program? “Just death, and maybe a pair of shoes to wear to the dump where their bodies will be left to rot.” Read on for the gory details!
The Huffington Post reports on the science fiction scenario Rick Perry tried to sell to Texas teacher groups:
All they had to do was convince retirees to let UBS buy life insurance policies on them. When the retirees died, those policies would pay out benefits to Wall Street speculators, and the state, supposedly, would get paid for arranging the bets. The families of the deceased former teachers would get nothing.
The meeting notes offer the most direct evidence that the Perry administration was not only intimately involved with the insurance scheme, but a leading driver of the plan.
However, “nothing” in exchange for your soul did not sound so good to the teachers. So Rick Perry decided to throw in a pair of shoes:
The governor’s office was even prepared to put down a little cash up front. If retirees balked at the notion of the state profiting from their deaths, Perry’s budget men suggested they could be persuaded for the cost of a pair of shoes, according to the meeting notes. If a retiree signed a contract allowing the state’s teacher pension fund to buy life insurance on them, the governor was prepared to give them between $50 and $100.
“Precious little for what they were giving up,” said the meeting attendee.
The notes make clear that the governor’s proposal deliberately targeted the elderly. The state was only seeking to take out life insurance on people between the ages of 75 and 90. At a separate meeting five days later, the plan’s proponents discussed the “mental capacity” of these retirees to grant consent as one of three major technical obstacles to the plan, according to notes from that meeting.
Or, we could sell the virus-ridden alien pilot program to destroy Earth named Rick Perry back to space for the price of freedom from Rick Perry. Jesus Christ. [HuffPo]







{ 145 comments }
Jesus Christ, what an asshole. I can't even think of a joke.
Yeah, really. This is kind of sick and the creep factor alone should disqualify him. But it won't.
good thing he isn't running for president of texas. or is it…
No, it will just endear him to the Small Gubbamint crowd. You know, the folks who don't think THEIR state getting money through the exploitation of public workers amounts to "redistribution of wealth." Only if it benefits the poor, and it happens somewhere besides Tex-Ass.
When I was getting my license renewed about a decade ago at the Sunnyvale, CA DMV one of those angry white women was yelling at a DMV employee, " I own you, I pay for you "
It was a black woman and she was laughing so hard the white woman looked like she was going to pop like a meat bubble of high pressure blood and bile.
Wait, why didn't Perry try and get them to sign agreements to donate their bodies to science and let the state get a kick back on that too? I mean it's not like they were going to be using them anymore…
What is this "science" of which you speak? Rick Perry is not familiar with this word.
Ain't them those L. Ron Hubbardy folks?
Too old for xplants, but I'm sure it was given serious consideration.
Barbecue science could always use more test subjects. Maybe they could find something to do with all those wasted sweetmeats and giblets.
I would hope this would finish him.
But it won't.
(I am trying to think of something funny, but my nausea keeps getting in the way.)
Be interesting to know how much he has invested personally in this ghastly little scheme.
Have one on me: … And the next step was to make teaching science a capital crime.
Wow! Li'l Ricky Perry had his own little death pool for profit thing going….can I take a policy out on….hmmm….Lindsay Lohan?
or Dick Cheney with a bonus clause for "getting to pull the plug".
Getting to insert the fire hydrant sized butt plug.
FTFY.
Glenn Campbell?
OT – but I don't want to create a cartoon of myself, but I'd sure like to know who the hottie in the bikini is…YOWZA!
Brought to you by "Law and Order: Texas Ugly".
Maybe we can start our own dead pool on Texas politicians? Waddaya suppose this jerkwad's life is worth?
About two cents – IMHO
Careful, hagajim, let's not turn this into some kind of tulip craze.
"Perry’s budget men suggested they could be persuaded for the cost of a pair of shoes, according to the meeting notes. "
Retiree skin cowboy boots?
a.k.a. "re-treads."
Not sure I have words for this brand dickishness.
Insurance fraud?
Quick! Someone give this fucktard an enema so he'll disappear.
You have to give the Texas State Government credit for being on the cutting edge of disgusting death-related activities for over 35 years!
Other states benchmark against their outstanding performance.
I am just waiting to hear of an orphan or juvenile detention organ harvesting racket.
They already have 60% of their juveniles in custody sexually assaulted. I'm sure a lot of Mark Foleyesque characters are sent emails of the fresh child meat directly by the facilities for a modest fee. Because hard working folk deserve a little child rape, its the Texas way.
To roughly quote another Wonketteer (I think it was baconzgood):
FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING PIECE OF FUCK! DIE FUCKFACE!
(Feeling a *little* better now…)
Didn't the economy used to run – I know it was a long time ago – on people actually making tangible things that other people bought because they needed them?
I heard of that too. A long time ago, in the long long ago. Some say it's myth; others say it's legend.
Me, I ONLY buy what I "need," because, on account of the being underemployed, I don't really do or make anything "tangible." (Of course, by my definition, beer is a need because it's a staple food, and it's very tangible.)
You mean back in the before time?
The deregulation of the financial markets which got really started during the Reagan area has made about 1 in 3 dollars of our GDP just paper like securitized debt holdings, insurance on said debt holdings or even stranger stuff.
People think Eve Online is the world's largest virtual economy, its not, it is the US.
Death panels, anyone?
How many quatloos for the ape-like creature with the cowboy boots and the hair?
He should've done this with Texas death row inmates. Win-win.
Premiums on those policies skyrocketed when Ricky started snuffing 'em so fast.
The state of Texas web site used to actually post the "last meal" menus for each executed inmate, just for laffs – and probably because they thought they could pull in some ad revenue.
Now, with the budget cuts they have to eat hair clippings and used swiffer pads.
Walmart has been doing this for years. I wonder if they're prepared to pay out a pair of shoes ($23.87) if you bump off one of their employees?
Although, come to think of it, if this life insurance were made available to Rick Perry, not to mention Reeps everywhere, it might not be such a bad thing…
Go ahead, Governor Perry, put your money where your mouth is and sign up…
I wonder if he took any policies out in the names of prison inmates. Makes it easier to decide who to pardon or not.
Or execute.
already taken care of.
Just what this carnival freak show of a nation needs is another illiterate Texas gubbener as preznit. Clearly, jesus does not exist.
Rick Perry as First Dude is on par with when Caligula appointed his horse to the Senate.
Yep.
Kill. Me. Now.
Did he at least make it a pair of orthopedic shoes, so the poor bastards could walk straight for once before they died?
The way the poors are treated these days, kneepads would be a better investment.
Hey, everybody knows that teachers' unions did 9/11, and shit.
I'm gonna take out an insurance policy on Rick Parry's balls… and then, every time I kick him in the nads I can get money… Woo Hoo!! 'Merica!!
Between $50 – $100? Bosh. Ferragamo or GTFO.
Manolo FTW.
Clearly no Louboutins. Maybe a pair of Louboutomies, instead.
I swear I saw a story a few years back about this same thing, but it involved the military. Anyone else remember that?
See, and people say we don't think about the troops often enough.
Rick Perry: "Troops, we see ya there."
Employers have been known to use what's called dead peasant insurance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_peasant_insuran...
Army was supplying office space, access to troops for selected Agents to sell Life Insurance of questionable value to active duty servicemen. Prolly still going on. Payroll deduction, etc.
Perry should get a deal going where we get to insure an elderly person that doesn't have A/C in this Texas heatwave. Sure to make some money on that.
Or insuring the kids of rightjob nutwing mothers that konk them in the head with rocks in the name of Jesus.
Um, you do know that he did steal the money that was legally set aside to go to elderly and poor people to help them with A/C, right? He took it away from them so that he could claim a "budget surplus". Seriously, he did.
"Or, we could sell the virus-ridden alien pilot program to destroy Earth named Rick Perry back to space for the price of freedom from Rick Perry."
How about we let Matt Damon blow his nards off in the next Bourne movie. That way some money will be made from watching Tricky Rick suffer, even if it is only make-believe. Then Matt Damon gives his portion of the profits to teachers and everyone wins.
dress rick up as a coyote first.
We're bettin' that you old folks are gonna die soon. And we control the state's services to the elderly.
No, it doesn't think like there's anything ghoulish are all there, no siree.
Didn't Alan Grayson mention something to this effect? Whatever happened to him?
Not dickish enough. Perry needed to figure out a way to securitirize those policies, have S&P rate them AAA and then sell them back to the pension fund. And when they turn out to be worthless get the federal government to buy them at full value.
Soylent greenbacks?
One step at a time.
The Huffington Post reports? Hmm. Learn something new every day.
You're obviously not paying attention to their wall-to-wall Kardashian Koverage. It's journo-tastic!
And their health section, with instructions on how to cure your cancer with magical crystals and shit like that.
And the massive state cups to education will hasten those deaths! Sheer brilliance.
The best part is that this was cooked up by Phil "It's an imaginary recession" Gramm and his cronies at UBS to make themselves rich. Not on speculating, of course — that's for idiots — but on fees paid by speculators to play. The insurance policies were going to be bundled and sold off as investment vehicles, kinda like that great idea investment had with Americans' mortgages.
Essentially these speculators would be paying insurance premiums hoping the payoff at the end would be bigger than what they put into the plan. I don't know about you, but anyone who bets against an insurance company and its army of actuaries is a damn fool, even before you figure the appalling nature of treating human lives as vehicles for speculation.
In a fair and just world, Phil Gramm would have been tried for treason.
There really is no lower limit.
Nope, unbounded from below.
As James Baldwin said in "Another Country": "You can always fall farther." (or something to that effect).
Trust me, Rick Perry is like water trying to find a level it hasn't yet. Hopefully, his moral deficiency is revealed to be so dense that his presidential campaign collapses on itself like a neutron star.
Literally, one of the many skeletons in Ricky Retardo's closet.
What a fine idea. Shoot the old teachers and make them pay for the bullets. But why just the old ones? See, I can think like a Texan, too.
This doesn't make sense. How is Texas going to kill all those teachers and make it look like an accident? Offer free trips on Pan-Russia-Uruguay Airlines? Rustic safari vacation in Rwanda? Luxury cruise off the Somali coast?
Texas BBQ, Dairy Queen Blizzards and Russian Roulette (but with automatic pistols.)
Send on an annual trip to Galveston, or some other unprotected Texas barrier island, during hurricane season, every year, of course.
Either that or book their annual teacher's conference in Juarez or Nuevo Laredo.
In the old school casino, after the game they'd stick your head in a vise and crank it if you didn't pay your debts.
in the new age casino, your existence, debt and death is a betting chip.
Um, I don't think his evil plan would work– insurance companies are a whole lot brighter and greedier than Rick Perry. They have platoons of actuaries that can compute how long those teachers would stay upright and not smell. Insurance companies make their money by getting MORE in premiums from you, on average, plus accrued interest, than they have to pay out. They're not in it for their health.
It doesn't have to work. You just have to convince some investors that it will work, collect the brokerage fee, and walk away. If despondent investors start knocking off old teachers, that's nothing to do with you.
Rick is dumb, but it's obvious that this is a sweetheart deal to make some friends in insurance industry rich. It's not supposed to make sense for the State of Texas. He doesn't give a fuck about the State of Texas.
At a separate meeting five days later, the plan’s proponents discussed the “mental capacity” of these retirees
No discussion is need to judge the mental capacity of Texans who voted for Rick Perry.
And here I thought Texas hasn't been able to profit on peoples lives since 1865? Silly me.
Next up: Rick argues that any dead teachers' gold fillings are property of the state, and shows up at funerals to rip them out of the corpses.
Aren't hip replacement parts titanium?
How do you think they're building the new F-35 fighter jet?
He could use retired-but-not-dead-yet teachers as a kind of sonderkommando to perform that useful service for the state. With luck, it'll hasten their deaths and enrich the state some more. Thus is the Perry circle of death.
A little known codicil to this plan was that any teacher promoting the unproven Theory of Evolution would be beaten, urinated on, chained by their ankles to a pickup truck, and dragged for three miles.
That being an improvement over the current, being turned over the Dick Cheney for waterboarding practice, THEN beaten, urinated on . . . etc.
Back when a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS meant an early death, many AIDS victims took advantage of insurance policies they had through employment or other means. It worked for them because they were young and generally didn't have dependents and they were able to sell at a discount the right to collect the death benefit from the insurance company. It is known as a viatical settlement
However, the companies that purchased them from policy holders packaged them and resold them to individual investors. Salespeople were paid large commissions to push the settlements.
http://www.viatical-web.org/
Sarah Palin's father was a teacher. Let's see if she goes on Fox news to speak of these death panels. Nope, I don't think that she will.
Miss Death Panels 2009 really does need to be asked about this.
It's the Texas version of: http://deadpeasantinsurance.com
The only good peasant.
The list of companies believed to have done so:
http://deadpeasantinsurance.com/which-employers-b...
A sure money maker and AIG isn't involved? Sounds suspicious.
They're there — they just didn't make page 1:
The plan was to have UBS buy the life insurance policies with mega-insurer AIG, then bundle those policies into securities, and sell them off to a small group of investors. By keeping the investor group small, Gramm could avoid the public and regulatory scrutiny required by standard public securities sales. He wouldn't even have to disclose details of the scheme to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Don't go bringing "facts" into a political argument!
"Where the hell are we going to find an insurance company crazy enough to write life insurance policies on 90-year-old people?"
"I know just the place…"
Sadly Faux News, The Tea Party and others won't give a damn. They'd still rather have a man who would broker a deal to let investors make money from the death of teachers, than that dirty Obama and his God damned Obamacare.
The details are even worse sounding than the joke lead in. What a dirtbag.
Tejas involved in another scam involving old people? Color me shocked campers. The people that get involved in politics down there are just amazing. It goes so far past asshole, what on earth can you call someone like that? Pard'ner?
The shoes are a nice touch. They are calling this program "Soles for Souls".
Dead Soles.
Rick Perry wouldn't know a soul if it came up and kicked him in the shins.
I know a great way to make Texas a ton of money. It'll just take one strong guy, a sledgehammer and a warrant to enter the premises.
But what if you believe in an invisible friend and have eternal life?
Does the insurance payout go to a counter party, such as The Devil?
Hey! I may be deeply involved here, but I'm not in it for the money.
Rick Scott as Voldemort and Rick Perry as a Death Eater.
Wal Mart has been doing this with their employees. Buy life insurance policies on employees, if one should die, Wal Mart keeps the benefits. Perry is just following the lead of the class of the private sector.
Yeah! This is like that "Running government like a business" business I hear so much about. Verily, Texas is the WalMart of the public sector.
He should suck seed.
Oh, I totally trust Wall Street not to hasten my death to collect a payout faster. Totally.
Walmart was caught doing the same thing, surreptitiously taking out insurance polices on their own terminally ill employees, first I've heard that a state would try the same odious thing…
Fuck, read the whole Huffpost story. Perry, Phil Gramm, UBS and AIG wanted to do the exact same thing that caused the '08 crisis, only betting on old people instead of mortgages.
Hi Baby, you sound good and fierce after your days off from the Wonkette.
With a cherished photo hidden inside my helmet, I am ready to storm Normandy!
Then you will recognize me when you storm the Gestapo prison at 11, Rue de Saussaies, in the 8th Arondissement, won't you?
World War Woo.
You're back!
Yay!!!
Couldn't stay away from the cocktail party.
oh hell, he stole this idea from Wal Mart.
This is the kind of stuff that even in the Unionized Soviets wouldn't think about. Very creative indeedy!!
Could I innerest yew in some Juvenile Delinquent Pregnancy Insurance Derivative Futures? We're runnin' a pilot program up in Wassila, Alaska.
Damn. And I always like Night of the Living Dead as a movie.
nice avatar.
Wait, what? No seriously, what? Am I reading this right? This isn't the plot to a Mike Judge film?
King of the Kill.
This is an evil to surpass even that of santorum.
Rick Perry: Death Panel Chairman, Harvester of Souls, The Dim Reaper.
I looked into it, down at his hometown in Texas! His mother, who died in childbirth, was a jacka—AAAAAHHHHGGHGHH!!!
OK, I've figured out that the Perry bumper sticker is the Mark Of The Beast that the Scriptures foretold, but Ol' Triple-6 is innovating in Eschatology with this sell-your-soul-as-insurance thing.
This is just ghastly.
I don't see how UBS would have an insurable interest in the lives of random Texas school teachers.
And what life company would write the policies? How could UBS make money on this?
On the other hand, insurance companies are regulated by each state. So the Texas insurance commission (whatever the correct name is) would have to approve the pricing of these policies.
On a more practical note, instead of a pair of shoes UBS should have offered to give each teacher a Ford Pinto. With Firestone tires.
What the fuck is it with the name Rick? Perry, Santorum, Scott. Never met one, I'm thinking if I do, I'll skip the hand-shake and just move along.
I get it — this is like that part of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" where you have to guess the fake news. I'm not guessing this one. It's too obviously made up.
So, some Wall Street speculator stands to profit from your early demise? What could possibly go wrong?
In the industry it's called "dead peasant insurance" and lots of companies do it, usually without the employee's knowledge. Does YOURS?
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