Readers suggested a topic around the growing number of foreclosures. "Let’s talk about squatters The societal implications of having this in your family history. The financial implications of being one. The moral implications. The physical ones (no lawn mowing?). The emotional implications. The implications for neighbors of squatters. What about squatters with nice paid-for vehicles? Would there be a backlash from others who have high mortgages?"

One posted, "I have a friend who said his extended family used to pack into one apartment during the depression, get a free month of rent deal, and vamoose to a new apartment every month."

"One day an uncle came home and the family had left without leaving (for obvious reasons) a forwarding address. He had to hang out outside the building until someone came to pick him up. Cell phones might solve that problem."

Another said, "This is a major problem in the Philippines. My wife has this quaint notion that you are protected if you have title to the land, and squatting only happens when title is unclear for some reason. I’ll give her the gist of that, but expect there are a lot of cases that are solved by gangs of hired thugs well before any government officials would have gotten enough bribes to get involved."

"They also have several careers we could consider for use here. (Some squatters also make their money by digging through trash dumps as manual recyclers.)"

One noted, "I heard that in the Netherlands, if you leave a living unit empty for some amount of time (I don’t know how long) that anyone may legally squat there."

A reply, "There are no squatters rights in the U.S. There is a process called adverse possession."

Another expanded, "Not only talk about squatters, let’s look at the history of squatters. Squatters are nothing new. I believe some parts of our country were settled by squatters."

The Associated Press. "Some Nevadans who fall behind on their mortgages and face foreclosure are trashing the homes as they move out, a legislative study panel was told."

"Gail Burks of the Las Vegas-based Nevada Fair Housing Center said there's an increase in southern Nevada borrowers who are giving up when faced with foreclosure and 'are taking things out of the property, they're putting cement down the plumbing.'"

"Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, the study subcommittee chairman, said the destruction to homes shows a loss of hope among people who figure there's no way they can refinance their loans so that they can stay in their homes."

"'It's bad behavior compounded by more bad behavior,' said Assemblyman Tom Grady, a subcommittee member."

"'It's not a new phenomenon,' Conklin said after the hearing. 'People are upset that they're losing their homes and on their way out say, 'Heck, burn it down.'"

"Michele Johnson of Las Vegas-based Consumer Credit Counseling Service, told the panel that 6.5 percent of about 574,000 home loans serviced in the state in the last quarter of 2007 were past due, up about 16 percent from the previous quarter. She added that foreclosure 'starts' were up about 34 percent in the same period."

"In the case of subprime loans, Johnson said that of about 101,000 serviced in the last quarter of 2007 nearly 17 percent were past due, and foreclosure starts were up about 43 percent."

"Conklin said the statistics show how bad the crisis is in Nevada, which has the nation's worst foreclosure rate. He added that when the reports come out on the January-March 2008 period 'I suspect that the first quarter will be worse.'"

The Enquirer. "Many of us only know about the Great Depression through news accounts, history books or stories passed down from our older relatives. While we may understand that there was real hardship during that time, it may be tough for us to imagine the depth of the anger that many also felt."

"Unless, of course, you think of what is happening currently. Right now, the level of anger at the economic downturn in this country is mimicking what many Americans experienced more than 70 years ago when homes, businesses and jobs were lost, says a business professor."

"'What we're hearing is similar to the time of the Great Depression in that people feel ripped off; that the representatives of financial institutions and banks have done this to us. People are angry - they want to know where the government and the regulators were when all this was happening,' says Dave Logan, a professor at the University of Southern California."

"But unlike the dotcom bubble where Americans adopted a 'we learned our lesson' attitude, this housing bubble bust, coupled with rising prices and top executives earning billions while their companies lay off workers, has led to a 'bone-chilling tone' that has 'people feeling like this is going to be long-lasting,' Logan says."