Yes, as Ellen E. Schultz reports, bank execs, bailed out by taxpayers but frustrated in their attempts to keep paying big bonues to one another, are reaping the rewards of having taken out life insurance policies on hundreds of thousands of workers — with the banks as the beneficiaries.

Sounds like a sequel to Double Indemnity (1944), but it's real, and though it's a "little-known tactic" among the public, it's common on Wall Street. In "Banks Use Life Insurance to Fund Bonuses," Schultz says Bank of America has $17.3 billion worth of life insurance on its employees, for instance.

Her fascinating little piece adds:

Banks can argue that such policies are merely designed to finance employee benefits. Yes, but .... well, here's how Schultz puts it: