(Side note: hard luck white folks end up in trailers, and hard luck black folks end up in apartment complexes. not sure why, but would not want to live in either of them.)

Funny thing about stereotypes, they come from somewhere. There were two driveby shootings, about a dozen "cops" style raids into apartments a couple street brawls, and yes my place was busted into. Funny thing happens about a year after I am there, the apartment complex hires on a spanish speaking manager. Within a year, the neighborhood changes to 70% hispanic and 30% black (and me and the other two white folk). Why the change? from the black folks who I talked to in the neighborhood, the sentiment was that they did not want to live around mexicans, so they moved out and the hispanics moved in. Is that racist? the neighborhood changed, no more "cops" style raids, no drivebys, yeah, there were 10 people in the 2 bedroom apartment next door. Crime in general went down, or at least underground, there was a definate whorehouse across the street made up of 6 hispanic ladies who would service the predominately male residents, MS13 would run drugs through the complex, but any violence that occered was internal and quiet. All in all, it was a great improvement.

Does this make me racist? Well I would never live in a black neighborhood again, not due to some hereditary bias but from my own experience. As individual people anyone can find commanality and get along, and I view any person of any background with the same respect.

There is a certain incongruity to racism. White folks, in general, will feel that it is wrong to judge anyone based on skin color, and will usually be somewhat ashamed if they do so. The same does not hold true for everyone. Again, this is my own experience, so feel free to refute me, but in general ask a black person how they feel about hispanics, or asians, or indians. Every type of person has thier own hierarchy. Talk to a person from senegal or anywhere in africa about how they feel about amrican born black people. Or a black haitian or jamaican. For some real fun, ask say a chinese person how they feel about japanese vs. thai or filipino. How about asking a Cuban how they view mexicans, or brazilians, or columbians.

My main point is that there is a lot of bias out there, it just seems like most of the guilt for feeling that way is on the white folks.

Great topic for discussion.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but regardless of where the borders are, how is this not just a huge prison camp.

And if you could please clarify for me who is allowed to vote in Israeli elections, are residents in Gaza and the west bank allowed to vote, can you live within the borders of Israel, even be born within those borders, and not be considered a citizen?

Foreclosure is probably illegal in most cases, forclosure law was designed to mediate between a creditor and a debtor, and only the creditor had the power to initiate the foreclosure to recover realestate. The realty is that most loans are not owned by a single creditor, but are instead held by numerous investors in a bond or mortgae backed security. There is provision for a mortgage servicer to begin foreclosure proceedings, this is also the entity you must contact to renegotiate your mortgage, but legally they probably do not have the right to foreclose a property. I say probably because this is in legal limbo at the moment, standard practice allows a servicer to foreclose even thought the law states it does not have that right, however if the courts decide a mortgage servicer does not have a right to foreclose, it would send our current banking system into greater chaos. Think waterboarding and torture, yeah it has been ruled torture, but if the courts say definatively it is torture, they have to come after everyone who autorized it, so instead the legality is kept in limbo.

Second, if we reset mortgages to 4%, while it would lower month to month costs and probably be good short term, there are a lot of problems. One is the breach of contract you would be forcing, and while for fannie-freddie loans the authority rests ultimately with the government, for the privately held mortgages this is a government mandated writedown in income. They would have a problem with that, also if you did not do all mortgages, I know I would be upset. I have never been late and my rate is 5.25%, but I would feel like I deserve the 4% like everyone else.

Third, the problem is in asset loss. Average home prices fell by about 25% since the highs in 2006-2007. So if you take my 300k mortgage at 6% and drop it down to a 300k mortgage at 4%, it does not help the fact that my home is now worth 240k. If I need to sell or move, I am still stuck. Think about this for a sec, the amount of all mortgage debt in the US is about 13 trillion, homes have lost about 25% average in value since the peak, This leaves about a 3 trillion dollar loss that no one wants to take. When you look at the 10 to 1 rule and realize that there is only about 1.3 trillion backing that 13 trillion dollar debt, it gets worse.

I don't mean to knock you, it is jsut that your idea is untenable. Fannie and freddie have it right in the renter idea, keep the homes occupied, let the rental income offset the cost of owning the bad debt. In 10 years those propertiees can be sold at profit.

Financial innovation

Just cold statistics here, but there are about 1.3 billion Muslims, and about 13 million jews. WHy not just bring over the jews in israel into the US and be done with it, it if foolish to pissoff an entire religion with a 100 to 1 advantage.

And comparing it to burnt Iraqi children and "vestiges of slavery", it's a little much isn't it. I watched the video, and I saw a no name comedian get a shot in the spotlight, bomb badly, and the MC try to keep the show going. I am all for the moral to your story, but if this is the example, it is really weak. Get over it, it is a comedy roast, no points for being nice. In the long run, if this humiliation forced this guy out of show business, it might not be a bad thing, because he really was not funny.