CHESSNOID

I know the recession is officially over and that there are green shoots shooting and the stock market is up over 40% from its May low numbers, yet why is the economy still not improving.  I am not referring to elected government officials or bailed out banks and  wall street companies, but to the overall American population.  The source of the recession came from the housing bust and that issue has not been resolved.

Yahoo AP:

With the recession throwing thousands of people out of work daily, more than 13 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage have fallen behind on their payments or are in foreclosure.

The record-high numbers released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association are being driven by borrowers with traditional fixed-rate mortgages, rather than the shady subprime loans with adjustable rates that kicked off the mortgage crisis. As of June, more than 4 percent of all borrowers were in foreclosure, while about 9 percent had missed at least one payment.

And the layoffs keep coming. Lockheed Martin Corp. said this week it’s handing out about 800 pink slips in its space systems division, and audio conferencing company Polycom Inc. said it will cut about 80 positions.

New jobless claims rose last week to a seasonally adjusted 576,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. While the recession, measured by the nation’s total economic output, is likely over, most economists expect layoffs and foreclosures to keep rising for many months as companies remain in cost-cutting mode.

It gets confusing trying to figure out which reports to beleive and what reports are being spun by the major news media in an attempt to cheer lead the economy into a better situation. Unfortunately, those words have fallen short of any effective action.

The worst of the trouble is still concentrated in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida, which accounted for 44 percent of new foreclosures in the country. Nearly 12 percent of all loans in Florida were in foreclosure, the highest in the country, followed by Nevada at 9 percent.

Loan delinquencies among borrowers with prime, fixed-rate mortgages grew from the first quarter to the second in all 50 states, with the biggest jumps in Wisconsin, Illinois, Utah and West Virginia.

President Barack Obama has pledged to fight the problem, but its foreclosure prevention program, known as “Making Home Affordable,” is off to a disappointing start. As of July, only about 10 percent of eligible borrowers had signed up.

The government will not be able to put out effective action plan to fix the problem until they recognize what problems need to be fixed. The Obama administration is focused on fixing a troubled health care system and willing to spend a trillion dollars that will create a bigger deficit, but right now America is having a hard time paying to keep its economy floating. Government fiscal responsibility should be on top of the Obama administration’s agenda.