So many fools live in the 42nd Council District. As you read the below post, you must keep in mind today’s date is April 1st. You’ll understand it better. It's very long but blame that on the subject not the writer. And please...don’t read the below alone. It pretty scary, and may damage you worse than watching Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin.Remind yourself after each paragraph that this is not real, much like these fools thought, so many years ago.

The second mortgage crisis has begun.

Same idea as the first crisis – bad bank loans, weak underwriting, and that risky practice of securitized mortgages – except this time it’s hitting large affordable apartment complexes in New York City.

From the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 15 (and also reported in Crain's): “The owners of the 1,230-unit, rent-controlled Riverton Apartments in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood anticipate defaulting on the property's $225 million mortgage by next month, marking one of the housing bust's largest collapses of a New York City residential development.

There used to be a time in NYC when the life-formula for a working man was simply this: out of the four weeks a month that you worked, one week was to pay your rent. If you don’t believe me, ask some old-timer on your block. The other three weeks of the month, you worked to pay for utilities; other bills of living-like credit cards and higher purchases; food, clothing and entertainment costs; and then you saved a few dollars for a lil vacation somewhere (like to Atlantic City before the casinos came, or to some lil spot on the Jersey Shore during the hot summer); and finally, you put aside a few more dollars for a rainy day. Since it was always pouring for black people in general, you didn’t see too many of us on the Jersey Shore in summer, but you could have glimpsed some of us on the AC boardwalk from time to time.