Business: Insurance
Racist Derivatives   (+1, -2)  [vote for, against]
Commoditise and Trade Racist attitudes for health and profit.

There is a tradable financial product called a Credit Default Swap. Essentially, it's a bet that someone does/doesn't default on a particular line of credit.

In particular, it allows a legal entity to hedge its exposure to another legal entity's behaviour and attitude towards debt.

In a similar vein then, the Racist Lapse Contract is a tradable contract that pays out on a legal entity's ability to act in a racist/non-racist manner. Such contracts can be drawn up by third parties and traded over the counter (subject to local regulation) to help mitigate volatile amounts of racism cropping up every now and then.
-- zen_tom, Aug 20 2014

The problem is that racist is in the eye of the beholder. There would be endless squabbles as to whether a given action met the terms of the contract. Squabbles, I tells you. Squabbling.
-- bungston, Aug 20 2014


Good point, some kind of index needs to be maintained - or a set of clear and measurable conditions defined in order for this to work - but - that shouldn't pose too great a challenge - ok, the result may be an inexact science - but once people have some money invested, it ought to stimulate tighter controls and more accurate measurement - by commoditising racism (and anti-racism) we might be able to better control it. i.e. by making it a commercial, rather than a moral concern, we might be able to sort it out more efficiently than we seem to be doing at the moment.
-- zen_tom, Aug 20 2014


Would these be built by OCP?
-- RayfordSteele, Aug 20 2014


Or more frighteningly, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation...
-- 8th of 7, Aug 20 2014


//more frighteningly, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation//

Frightening, them?

Can't even build drones you can't defeat with a towel.

Besides, I'm fearless... <beats chest heroically>, as long as I can have Zaphods glasses, & a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.
-- Skewed, Aug 20 2014


This is exactly the kind of idea that I'd expect your sort of people to come up with!
-- DrBob, Aug 20 2014


Not sure how the squabbling would be any different to the squabbling that goes on in re both whether something constitutes an Event of Default or whether something is racially aggravating. All you need is lawyers and you'll get to a solution soo^H^H^H eventua^H^H^H^H^H^H^H if you're lucky.
-- calum, Aug 20 2014


[DrBob] made me laugh.
-- blissmiss, Aug 20 2014


You can add sex , age, religious, weight and height, various handicap contracts.

If someone is crass enough to make a joke about an elder underweight overtall Jewish Asian transvestite with cerebral palsy, then your covered.

If you bought the right contracts, durations and biases.
-- popbottle, Aug 21 2014


what [blissmiss] said
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 21 2014



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