Hooray for America! Now with 90% More Lawsuit Investments!

I swear on my discontinued (limited edition?) BlackBerry Tour that this is from an actual New York Times article and not The Onion or some dystopian Orwell novel:

Large banks, hedge funds and private investors hungry for new and lucrative opportunities are bankrolling other people's lawsuits, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into medical malpractice claims, divorce battles and class actions against corporations — all in the hope of sharing in the potential winnings.

WTF.

Can I own shares of my neighbors' ugly divorce battle in a rollover IRA?  Can I tuck some divorce shares into a 529 plan for their kids?   After all, this thing looks like its gonna scar them good, which is bullish for my holdings!

So to recap, we are now a nation of payday loansharking, currency scamming, pawnbroking, gold buying, strategic defaulting, robosigning, ETF flipping maniacs buying iPads and double XL yoga pants with overdue credit cards while watching Glee and voting for Dina Lohan in televised dance contests.

And now - to top it all off - we are investing in other peoples' lawsuits.  Seriously, legal disputes as an asset class.

To which I say Hooray for America! If only Benjamin Franklin and Nathan Hale could see us now...they'd be proud unto the point of tears.

Source:

Investors Bankroll Lawsuits to Profit from Payouts (NYT)