Nationally, in August, 115,292 new properties were listed on the database of online foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac, a 24 percent increase over the level in July. More significantly, RealtyTrac currently lists 650,000 properties nationwide in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure, up from 75,600 just one year earlier, when the Gulf Coast was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The volume of bank seizures is immense. Foreclosure.com, another online tracker of distressed properties, currently lists more than 1.27 million properties in some stage of foreclosure, bankruptcy, or bank auction. Approximately 5,000 properties are added to the listings each day.Getting behind in mortgage payments is one thing, called default. It's estimated that nearly 20 percent of homeowners in default earlier in the year lost their homes to foreclosure in the third quarter. That's a more than a three-fold increase over last year, when the default-to-foreclosure rate was only 6%. Meaning: People are having a harder time coming up with cash to cover mortgage debt. Guess Bush has not heard about this.
Are things going to get worse? You better believe it. Industry forecasters recently estimated that more than $200 billion worth of adjustable rate mortgages will "reset" at higher rates in 2006 and more than $1 trillion will reset in 2007. This situation, compounded by the expected slowing of the economy and the down housing market, which includes a growing inventory of unsold homes, will almost certainly push more homeowners into the foreclosure process. Despite a lot of talk about the mortgage issue and warnings, Americans are still diving in. Are they falling for the economic hype coming out of the White House? Incredibly, 39 percent of new mortgages in the first half of this year were non-traditional, high risk mortgages compared to an average 2 percent over the last decade.
Consumer debt burden is ballooning. Statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that the personal savings rate has been running in the red for 16 months. Additionally, the Federal Reserve recently found that consumer debt has outpaced, by 18.7 percent, the amount of income left after the payment of bills each month, meaning that for millions of families the cost of living is substantially higher than their monthly incomes can accommodate. Guess Bush has not heard about this.
An enormous portion of the total personal debt is mortgage debt. Since 2000, mortgage debt in America has doubled, approaching $9 trillion. This year, $400 billion of this debt is coming due in the form of mortgage readjustments. Research firm LoanPerformance forecasts another $1 trillion in mortgage debt will come due next year as the rates on millions more loans reset, sending individual monthly mortgage payments hundreds of dollars higher, or even worse.
In one, not unusual, case in the Washington, D.C. area, a family started with a "teaser rate," just $1,700 a month. They thought it was fixed, but it wasn't. Rising interest rates and deferred interest have now ballooned that payment to $3,700 a month. They can't pay it, and they're not alone. They will lose their home. Credit counselors say they're getting 10 times the concerned calls they used to.
Greedy Elites Conned Us
How has this come about? Clever elites running and ruing our country discovered all kinds of ingenious ways to sell mortgages to Americans still believing in the American dream. They had help from the Federal Reserve. So called unconventional or exotic mortgages were crafted to lure people in and make billions of dollars for the financial sector. The whole trick was to get home buyers to pay as little as possible initially. No cash down, no payments toward the principal and low adjustable interest rates were the main ways to pump up the housing market (the bubble) and, therefore, the whole economy. Yet another gambit was to give mortgages to people that really could not afford them, making them pay higher interest. These "sub-prime" mortgages create a debt to income ratio that is out of whack, which means mortgage payments that take too big a chunk of income. When interest rates rise and other costs of living creep up, people quickly sink and drown in debt.
The maximum percentage for household debt which would include a mortgage, credit cards and car payments is supposed to be around 36%. But now many homeowners find themselves paying most of their income – more than 50 percent – to their mortgage, especially after those monthly payments increase sharply. And they are going up because of rising interest rates, which is happening as wages are at best stagnant and other costs of living are rising. Once, homeowners in a hot housing market could refinance and take money out. In fact, from 2001 to 2005, they took out $500 billion in cash from their home ATMs. This propped up consumer spending as wage incomes stagnated, keeping the economy looking good. Now, with home values declining, they can find themselves forced to pay a lot more or lose their home.
Look at the larger picture. In 1980 household debt, including mortgages, car loans and other borrowing, was $1.4 trillion. Guess what it was in 2005? It had skyrocketed some 745 percent to $11.8 trillion. In 1980 credit card debt totaled $69 billion. Guess what it was in 2005? It had mushroomed to an amazing $1.8 trillion - a 2,500 percent increase! In 1980 credit card debt was just 5 percent of household debt; by 2005 it had jumped to 15 percent. This has happened when people also got suckered into risky mortgages.
Maintaining consumer spending has been the chief economic goal of the plutocracy. And to keep it growing it required Americans to be convinced that they should borrow more and go into greater debt. What kind of political leaders would want to do this to their citizens? The worst kind: Democraps and Republicrooks. Corrupt politicians care more about making corporations profitable and the rich richer. Economic inequality is like a cancer. They are willing to destroy the middle class on behalf of elites and the Upper Class.
Last Episode
What is the next installment in Foreclosure USA? Our enormous national debt owned in large measure by foreign interests can foreclose whenever they wish. Just as we the people lost our sovereign control of our nation, so too will our corrupt government lose sovereign control. With globalization, so heralded and hyped by New York Times elitist and plutocrat Tom Friedman, moving forward, American sovereignty will surely be foreclosed. Thus ending the Foreclosure USA saga.
What can we do to stop Foreclosure USA? Will electing Democraps do it? I doubt it. We the people must take back our ownership of our democracy. With too little political choice, our votes will not do the job. Our money is more powerful. We must politicize consumer spending. We must have some radical, dissent-driven leadership from true progressives to send signals to the tens of millions of disgruntled Americans to cut their discretionary spending to achieve specific' political reforms.
Money and greed have ruined our country. Money and citizen re-engagement can save it.
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Since I wrote this article I became convinced that constructive actions needed to restore American democracy must include: convening the first Article V convention (check out www.foavc.org) to rally the nation behind constitutional amendments to reform our corrupt political system, boycotting the federal 2008 elections to remove the legitimacy and credibility of the rigged political system, and unearthing 9/11 truth to dramatically reveal the extent of government corruption.
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government (www.delusionaldemocracy.com). His current political writings have been greatly influenced by working as a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress and for the National Governors Association. He advocates a Second American Revolution, beginning with an Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments. He is Chair of the Independent Party of Maryland.
how good things could be, if our govt, economy and natural resources were managed in service to the People, to promote the General Welfare, and not manipulated in service to the small-minded, selfish interests of an illegitimate and corrupt elite class. The economy and real wealth is created by people who invent products, services and businesses or trade their labor for wages, not those elites who rig our markets and political process and invest their ill-gotten gains in further manipulation.
This looming economic disaster has within it the seeds for constructive change- the Web has exposed large numbers of people to perspectives based in reality, and people are realizing the TV just feeds corporate-approved lies and distortions intended to manipulate. Even if it were shut down or regulated, as seems intended by S 1959, the "Thought Crime" Bill, the paradigm of millions of Americans has already been permanently expanded- more people suffering means more people will be demanding truth and justice, and embracing and participating in real alternatives and solutions.
I support the call for an Article 5 Convention, and I support abolishing the privately-owned Federal Reserve System; the Constitution authorizes Congress to coin money- why should we pay interest to private banks for the use of fiat money, when We the People can create and own the supply?
Quotes on banking and tyranny, from former Presidents.
“Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations.”
“If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.”
-Andrew Jackson
“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles… the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.”
-Abraham Lincoln
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.“ -Thomas Jefferson
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy”
-James Madison
by
Better World Order (4 articles, 444 quicklinks, 31 diaries, 970 comments)
on Sunday, December 9, 2007 at 3:19:13 PM
You suggest that our downfall began after WW-II. It certainly picked up steam at that point, but have you ever considered that the basis for our economy is exponential growth in a finite world? And that all of the gerrymandering was nothing more than an attempt to keep a mathematically challenged system alive for 4 years at a time?
I agree whole heartedly with your observations of what has happened, but I see the root cause was adopting an economic model that was never sustainable nor mathematically possible long term. Please comment on this if you would.
by
Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments)
on Monday, December 10, 2007 at 10:33:03 AM
2 comments
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