Defaults on Insured Mortgages Increase 30 Percent

Invest in cardboard boxes, folks. You will thank me you did.

Just make sure to be careful what you sell them for and don't take credit cards. And remember, a grocery cart is not good collateral.

More American homeowners are missing mortgage payments, pushing defaults on privately insured home loans up 30 percent last month from year-earlier levels, according to a trade group. Borrowers more than 60 days behind rose to 58,441 in August, Washington-based Mortgage Insurance Companies of America said today on its Web site.

I'm being really flippant about this, but it isn't funny at all. Middle class families will be homeless soon and that's nothing to laugh about.

Via Signs of the Times.

Something has gone terribly wrong

The United States of America is supposed to be the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold. Uh, more likely the streets are paved with despair. Shall we take the tour?

Every night more than 1 million children in America face the dark with no place to call home. They are hungry, anxious and often exposed to violence. They shuttle between shelters and fall behind in school.


A new UNICEF report puts Britain and the United States at the bottom of the table of the best wealthy countries for children.

The number of unemployed persons (7.0 million) and the unemployment rate (4.6 percent) were about unchanged in January [2007].

Mayor Ray Nagin told a Senate committee Monday that the rebuilding of New Orleans is getting shortchanged in light of the billions poured into the war in Iraq, and he suggested racism is part of the explanation...

The United States ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality in 1998...

Five out of every 100 young adults enrolled in high school in October 1999 left school before October 2000 without successfully completing a high school program.

Other programs such as energy programs will get $4.1 billion (huge surprise), while 141 programs that primarily help the poor, children, the elderly, veterans and the handicapped will see their money drastically cut or eliminated.

The Democratic congressman who will investigate the Bush administration's running of the government says there are so many areas of possible wrongdoing, his biggest problem will be deciding which ones to pursue.

To be fair, some of these numbers are improving, but they should never have gotten so bad in the first place.