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Excellent summary of the situation. How disgusting it is that people would even attempt make the compairson between the wholesale killing of Jews and the condition of slavery. It is sad that the world did not react at once to both atrocities. The fact that slavery was allowed to exist for as long as it did is an American tragedy, but on a different plane than the Holocaust.

With that said, these banks and insurance companies did nothing illegal

Good point, but even if it were illegal, the time span for legal redress is long past. (Statute of limitations)

Further, the idea of reparations based upon the idea of compensating SURVIVORS

Of course, and the surviving slave owners are gone as well. the idea of paying reparations to decendents is a legal precident that should never be set, even by today's worst activist judges. Because there is not enough money in today's economy to begin to pay for the misdeeds of the past. Who would certify the decendency? What mis-deeds are worthy, in addition to the slaves, we have the American Indians who have a claim- as do the blacks discriminated against after the Civil War. What about women held non eligible for the vote or men's clubs? What about the countless immigrant groups who had to work for years in low wage employment before being granted their rights?

While some Jews received reparations for damage done to their ancestors and property lost, these issues are current and even now the records require careful research to be certain that a claim is valid. The news is full of people today who are sueing for damage done to them in the recent past, their conpensation is a matter for the courts and is proceeding. But we can't look back on the misdeeds of the past and attempt to buy it off today. Money cannot be paid to the decendents of slaves.

BTW, the way the comparison of slavery is made to the Holocaust is remarkably simple ~ they look at the death rate in the transport of slaves from their site of taking to their destination on a plantation.

It was pretty high, and depending on your source and how you do the analysis it looks about as bad as the Holocaust, and actually worse in some areas.

One "bright" exception to the rule occurs in what is now the United States. Remarkably the only slave population ever known to have managed to reproduce itself and grow in numbers was right here. All the other places with slavery required a constant infusion of new captives.

Has something to do with the nature of the slavery and how people were treated.