Charles Payne, host of Fox Business News' Making Money, said on Thursday:

I think that there's going to be an official apology from the White House to slavery in America and then a major push to get cash, and I'm talking lots of cash.

Many including those closest to President Obama will push him to make this happen.

About reparations, Scottie Nell Hughes, Tea Party News Network director and a frequent Making Money guest, said:

Sure, slavery was a horrible thing that happened, but this [reparations payments] is not going to help race relations in the United States today.

Payne, who is black, broached the subject after reporting that Chicago will offer compensation to people who can prove they were tortured during the reign of police commander Jon Burge, who "... used electrical shock, burning, and mock executions to elicit confessions from suspects, mostly African-American, from the early 1970s through the early 1990s."

So if Obama and the Progressive/Liberal/Democrat crowd get their way, who is to receive reparations, and how will they be determined?

Is verification of being a descendent of a slave going to be required in order to receive a reparation payment?  Or is skin color alone going to be proof enough?  If so, how "black" does one have to be in order to receive a payment?  Who will judge "blackness"?  Is George Zimmerman, or any Hispanic, black enough?  Will there be an appeal process?  Will self-determination of race, per Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, be enough to receive reparations?  If so, is it too late to change my race declaration?

Will the MSM play a part in this, as when the New York Times said that George Zimmerman is a "white hispanic"?

What happens if I own stock in a company that is ordered to pay reparations?  Am I liable?  What about the people who are to receive reparations who own stock in those companies?  Will they pay reparations to themselves?  What about companies that are no longer viable?

Is there a political component to all of this?  What about conservative blacks who refuse reparations?

What's next?  Are native Americans, such as Cherokees forced onto the "Trail of Tears," eligible for reparations?  Congress approved, in 1988, the payment of $1.25 billion to 60,000 Japanese-American citizens who had been interned in prison camps.  Was that reparations?  Is any repressed group entitled to reparations?

Pursuing the reparations issue will certainly open a Pandora's Box.

Consider this: America is already paying reparations to blacks.  Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to have received food stamps during their lives (31% vs. 15%).  "Additionally, there are Affirmative Action programs and racial set-asides that discriminate against white and Asian Americans to make it easier for black Americans to get jobs and get into college."  Don't forget the "War On Poverty," the 50-plus-year transfer of over $22 trillion (2012 dollars).  In 1966, 41.8% of African-Americans were poor.  By 2012, those African-Americans considered poor had fallen to 27.2%

And consider this: Research by University of Chicago Ph.D. candidate Alison Rauh found that black immigrants tend to be more successful than native-born black Americans.  So, as John Hawkins wrote (emphasis mine):

If there are certain subsets of black Americans who are doing well, that suggests that there is no one universal factor like slavery that can be blamed for the difficulties black Americans face.

It will be interesting to see how Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and other race hustlers justify making payments to people who were never slaves, and at the same time spin away what has gone and is going on.

Dr. Warren Beatty (not the liberal actor) earned a Ph.D. in quantitative management and statistics from Florida State University.  Now retired, he was a (very conservative) university professor.  He is a veteran who served in the U.S. Army.  He blogs at rwno.limewebs.com.