[geormiet]

I share a lot of the same views as you so I'm interested to see how this thread turns out.

Regarding prosper, I don't think it's a good choice. I've got about 6k in there and thought i was doing great, until I realized that the ROI's prosper advertises and displays aren't really accurate at all. There are sites out there that will show you the real numbers (e.g. prosperlenders.com has a lot of links) and the overall avg return is something like 4%. I myself am averaging under 3% roi.