i was thinking the same. someone's going to have the bullseye on their back. seemed, last week, that BAC was setting up. the insurers are something i'm trying to get my arms around, too. you look at the losses in their portfolios and think about some of the products that have been sold the past few years; hard to see how they're not in trouble, esp. when commercial real estate goes south. a friend of mine from my old broker days has made close to $1mm/year the past 10 years mainly selling the variables with guaranteed returns. not sure how the insurers are going to make good on that. one thing's for sure: if we get a major calamity- ie: norcal 7.5+ earthquake (fyi: i can literally throw a baseball farther than a major fault line is from my house- no shit), they're fucked.