Amen. The title says enough.

[Horse with no Name]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/mission-shrink-weve-gone_b_217708.html
Mission Shrink: We've Gone From Saving Wall Street in Order to Save Main Street to Just Saving Wall Street

>>>snip

Unemployment, the single most important statistic when it comes to taking the temperature of the real economy, is at a 26-year high. Yes, the number of people filing continuing claims last week dropped for the first time since January, but the number of new people seeking unemployment benefits rose -- as did the number of people receiving benefits under the emergency federal program that extended benefits beyond the 26-week program offered by most states. All told, over 9 million people are getting some form of unemployment compensation. And most economists are expecting unemployment to continue to rise, hitting 10 percent -- some even say 11 percent -- by 2010.

Another indication of the troubled state of the real economy is the record high credit card default rates reported in May. The numbers are staggering. Bank of America's default rate hit 12.5 percent -- up from 10.4 percent in April. Citigroup wrote off over 1-out-of-10 of its credit card loans last month. American Express did the same. If the numbers stay around these levels, credit card issuers stand to lose over $70 billion this year. And it's worth noting that a number of the biggest banks are reporting default rates higher than the "worst-case scenario" numbers from the Treasury's recent stress tests. Tim Geithner's team might need to come up with some new terms: "worst-case -- and this time we really mean it -- scenario"; "even worse than worst-case scenario"; "can't imagine a worse case -- and believe us we tried -- scenario".

On the housing front, in May foreclosures dipped 6 percent from April -- but the 321,480 homes lost was still the third-highest total on record. May was the third consecutive month with over 300,000 foreclosed properties -- the first time that's happened since RealtyTrac began tracking foreclosure numbers. Nevada, California, and Florida were the hardest hit states. In Nevada, one out of every 64 homes received a foreclosure filing last month. Nationwide, one out of every 398 homes received a foreclosure note. That's a whole lot of people looking for some place to live.

And lending -- the increase of which was supposedly the primary reason for the bank bailout -- is also down. "If the banks aren't lending money," Jeffrey Rosen, deputy chairman of Lazard told me, "the economy can't get going." But, according to the Treasury's latest report on lending by the top 21 recipients of government money, consumer and commercial lending fell 7 percent in April -- with nearly 75 percent of the banks reporting a decline in loan originations.

[stopbush]

1. The other reality in those credit card and foreclosure numbers

is that the people who have had debt written off or been foreclosed on now have crappy credit scores, and will have them for some time. While that may have the effect of making said people live within their means, it also means that said people won't be buying any big ticket items like cars or washing machines, that they won't be looking to buy much of anything outside of the necessities, and that they will probably be cutting back on necessities as well.

All of this is a further drag on a listless economy. The more Americans who fall into these situations, the longer it takes the economy to move forward.

[NMDemDist2]

2. bankrupty doesn't make you live within your means

the bottom feeders send CC offers by the scores to the newly bankrupt simply because you CAN'T file another BQ for 7 years.

the scumsuckers LOVE giving an employed person a 'new chance'

bastards :puke:

[stopbush]

3. One need not go bankrupt to have a foreclosure or to have cc debt written off

by a bank.