Most American families are really struggling in this economy and they see most of the families around them really struggling, but they don’t have any hard numbers to back up the feelings of economic despair that they are experiencing. Well, below you will find 22 statistics that prove that American families are broke and getting broker. Today, the financial condition of most middle class families is rapidly deteriorating. The number of good jobs is declining, incomes are down, debt loads are up and bankruptcies and foreclosures just continue to increase. If you step back and really examine the statistics, it becomes really hard to deny that American families are getting poorer. Well, the wealthiest 5 percent are still thriving, but everyone else is really having a tough time. The truth is that a large percentage of the U.S. middle class is slowly but surely going broke. Unfortunately, this is being caused by long-term economic trends that simply are not going to be fixed overnight. (Read More...)
Foreclosures
27 Amazing Statistics About The Real Estate Crash That Never Seems To End: More Foreclosures, More Underwater Mortgages And More Home Price Declines
The real estate crash that never seems to end appears to be getting even worse. Home prices continue to go down, the number of underwater mortgages is soaring and the number of foreclosures set an all-time record in 2010. The peak of the housing market was in 2005 and the subprime mortgage crisis erupted in 2008. Shouldn’t things be getting better by now? How many years is this real estate crash going to go on for? Home builders and those that work in the construction industry are deeply suffering because new home sales continue to hover around record lows. Mortgage professionals are having a really hard time because very few people are seeking home loans and many of those that are seeking loans cannot get approved. Real estate agents all over the country are pulling their hair out in frustration and large numbers of them have left the industry completely. The United States has never had such a prolonged real estate slump in the post-World War 2 era. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of indications that the real estate crash is going to get even worse. (Read More...)
Mortgage Investors To Bank Of America: We’re Pissed And We Want Our 47 Billion Dollars Back
Everyone knew that the foreclosure fraud crisis was going to spawn a festival of lawsuits, and now it looks like it is already beginning. The New York Federal Reserve Bank is part of a consortium of eight large institutional investment firms that has launched an effort to force Bank of America to repurchase $47 billion worth of mortgages packaged into bonds by its Countrywide Financial unit. It turns out that most mortgage bond contracts explicitly require the repurchase of loans when the quality of the loans falls short of promises made by the sellers. As most of us know by now, many of these mortgages that were packaged together into “AAA rated” securities were actually a bunch of junk. But this is just the beginning. There are going to be hordes of lawsuits stemming from this crisis and it is going to take years and years for this thing to work through the legal system. All of the big players in the U.S. mortgage industry are going to be paralyzed for an extended period of time by this crisis, and that means that buying a home and achieving the American Dream is going to become a lot harder for millions of Americans. Not only that, if mortgage lending institutions end up being forced to take back gigantic mountains of bad mortgages it could end up sinking a whole lot of them. The implications for the U.S. financial system would be staggering. (Read More...)
16 New Records That The American Economy Has Set During The Past 12 Months – And They Are All Bad
Over the past twelve months, the U.S. economy has continued to come apart like a 20 dollar suit. During that time it seems like more bad economic news has been coming out nearly every single day. Instead of getting better, the problems facing the U.S. economy only seem to be multiplying. The U.S. government and the U.S. financial system continue to absolutely drown in debt. Factories, jobs and massive amounts of wealth continue to fly out of the United States every month at an astounding pace. Meanwhile, the number of Americans enrolled in anti-poverty programs continues to shatter records and the U.S. housing industry continues to set records for futility. The truth is that less Americans are living the American Dream today than were living it twelve months ago. The U.S. economy is in a serious state of decline, and it is time for all of us to wake up and admit the truth. (Read More...)
Bank Of America, JPMorgan Chase And GMAC Suspend Foreclosures Due To Serious Concerns About Foreclosure Procedures
In an absolutely stunning development, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and GMAC Mortgage have all suspended foreclosures in many U.S. states due to serious concerns about foreclosure procedures. There has been an absolutely massive tsunami of foreclosures in recent years and it turns out that mortgage company officials dealing with foreclosure paperwork have not always taken the time to process each foreclosure properly. Things have gotten so bad that a number of U.S. states have actually opened up official investigations that are looking into some of these foreclosure practices. But what did everyone expect? There has been such a dramatic surge in foreclosures over the past several years that it was almost inevitable that shortcuts would start to be taken. Back in 2005, there were only about 100,000 home repossessions in the United States. Last year there were about 1 million home repossessions in the U.S. and RealtyTrac is projecting that there will be a record 1.2 million home repossessions this year. Needless to say, this has created a paperwork headache for mortgage companies of unprecedented magnitude. (Read More...)
Median Household Income Is Falling In Almost Every Single Major American City
Median household income is falling in the vast majority of U.S. states and in virtually every single major U.S. city. According to the Census Bureau’s annual survey of income and poverty in the United States, of the 52 largest metro areas in the nation, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income in 2009. Needless to say, that is not good news. If incomes are falling from coast to coast, then how in the world can anyone claim that we are experiencing a “recovery”? The truth is that we are not in the middle of an economic recovery. What we are in the middle of is a long-term economic decline. Incomes are going down and middle class American families find themselves squeezed like never before. Meanwhile, unemployment has skyrocketed in recent years and it has become much harder to get a good job. Less Americans than ever are able to achieve anything even close to resembling the American Dream. Things are getting really tough out there, and as more jobs and factories leave the United States, as the U.S. government goes into even more debt and as the economy continues to implode things are going to get even worse. (Read More...)
10 Reasons Why Barack Obama’s “It’s Not A Stimulus” Package Is A Cruel Joke On The American People
As election season 2010 draws near, the Obama administration has finally realized that the Democrats could actually lose both the House and the Senate in November. Suddenly all Obama wants to talk about is his wonderful new plan for the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, what he is suggesting is far too little and far too late. Anything Obama is proposing now will not be passed by Congress before the upcoming elections, and that is bad news for the Democrats. The American people tend to vote based on their wallets, and right now the American people are not happy. They desperately want someone to “fix” what is wrong with the economy. Obama is running around the country trying to convince people that he is the man to restore the American Dream, but at this point the American people have less faith in his economic policies than ever. The White House is insisting that Obama’s new economic plan is not a new “stimulus package”, and that is actually true. Obama’s new plan will not stimulate much of anything. The truth is that Obama’s new economic plan is really just a cruel joke on those who are willing to have faith in Obama’s ability to somehow turn the dying U.S. economy around. Unfortunately, throwing several hundred billion more dollars at the problem is not going to do anything to fix the foundational problems that are destroying our economic system. (Read More...)
The ABC’s Of The Great American Housing Crisis
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a horrific housing crisis in unfolding right in front of our eyes. Yesterday it was announced that existing home sales plummeted 27 percent in the month of July. Today it was announced that new homes sales dropped to the lowest level ever recorded in July. But why is this happening? Why is the American Dream still dying for millions of American families? Wasn’t the recession supposed to be over by now? Weren’t home prices supposed to be moving back up by this time? Well, in this article we will attempt to succinctly break down the ABC’s of the Great American Housing Crisis. Hopefully this will help people understand why all of this is happening. (Read More...)