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NPR's Planet Money traces how viatical settlements, deals letting AIDS patients sell life insurance policies for cash in the early 1990s, evolved into a multi-billion-dollar Wall Street market where investors buy bundled policies from healthy retirees and bet on aggregate mortality.
The SEC's proposal to let companies report financials twice a year instead of quarterly drew a record ~221,000 public comments, with more than 99% opposed — individual investors, institutional investors, former SEC officials, and academics all argued that quarterly 10-Qs are essential to how they price and track companies.
Business History podcast episode on Jay Gould, a 19th-century 'Robber Baron' who built his fortune through stock manipulation and bribery rather than producing goods or services, prompting reforms aimed at preventing similar figures from gaining power.