If tontines per se are not legal, what is the closest thing. Is there a possible financial agreement that pays off to the last 10% of surviving subscribers?

For example 1000 45 year olds put in $10,000 each, and 20 years later whatever money is in the fund is divided up equally among the people still alive, or perhaps the fund stays intact until it can be divided equally between the last 100 people who are still alive.

I ask this question because the Medicare Trust has just been shattered by a radical Marxist President, who wants to convert that money to be used for Community Health Centers, to patch up gang bangers, and people on the run, and wanted felons, and illegal aliens. OK beautiful -- the transvaluation of all values, break all promises, breach all trusts, make the government a giant Pinata for Posada, and let the illegals, and the Southside bangers have the cash.

I figure the Social Security Trust Fund is next. The guy still has three years on his first term. He took the Medicare Trust Fund without breaking a sweat. Social security is dead meat. Maybe they could send that Trust Fund to the Katrina victims, or the gangs in East LA, or North Philly.

So, people are going to want to have some insurance gainst being very old and very poor. The government is no longer credible, and it's almost insolvent, and it's ready to commit every breach of trust, break every promise, shatter every expectation based on 40 years of paying in to the system.

OK, I get it, the transvaluation of all values -- upside downism -- back to frontism -- so the function will have to be taken over by private enterprise, maybe in USA, maybe in Switzerland, and maybe is Leightenstein, or Canada, or Bermuda.

What I want to know is are tontines OK under US law. If not what is the closest thing?

My desire is to serve the people, not to steal from them. To assist their welfare, not shatter it to bits. To proceed lawfully and in accordance with custom, not to have a revolution that disrupts every life. I need the legal beagles to lend me your wits just for a moment.

The author is a retired Navy JAG (lawyer), decorated, service overseas, holds an MBA with honors. You can talk legal, you can talk finance, I will be able to follow what you tell me.