November 17, 2008 (LPAC)--Four of the world's largest insurance companies have gotten the go-ahead to purchase small savings-and-loans deemed ``unsafe and unsound'' by the Office of Thrift Supervision--so that the insurance giants can then call themselves S&L's, and qualify for billions of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's bailout thievery.

Lincoln National Corp. in Philadelphia will take over Newton County Loan & Savings, which has three full-time employees and $7.3 million of assets. Lincoln, relabeled as an S&L, will then be set to get $3 billion of the Paulson Troubled Asset Relief Program fund. Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. is getting a Sanford, Fla. S&L for $10 million, then will be entitled to $3.4 billion from the bailout fund. The other insurers involved in the scam are Genworth Financial Inc., and Transamerica Corp. owner Aegon NV, which, on Oct. 28 received a three billion euro bailout from the Dutch government, according to a company release.

``It's perverse,'' said Jason Arnold, a San Francisco-based analyst at RBC Capital Markets. ``Almost anyone can buy a thrift. At a certain point, regulators will have to put a stop to it.''

The insurance companies' schemes were announced Nov. 14 by the OTS, reports Bloomberg News.

``Look, Henry, I'm a bank. I'm a bank. I'm a bank.''