A Few Statistics On That Pesky Recovery

1) (850 KOA Radio News) The unemployment rate here in Colorado rose three tenths of a percent in the last month.

2) (Federal Reserve) Americans lost $1.5 Trillion in household net worth in Q2 2010, which is the most recent data available.

3) (CNN) One in seven mortgages in America is at least delinquent if not in foreclosure.

4) (various) The residential foreclosure rate in August 2010 was 25% higher than in August 2009

5) (FDIC) Through August 2010, the annual bank failure rate is nearly 50% higher than it was in 2009 through August.

6) (AP) 2009 saw the highest increase in the poverty rate in America in the 50 years that the statistic has been tracked.

7) (US Gov) The number of Americans on food stamps has risen more than 50% in the last three years, to 41 million.

8) (NAR) There are 4 million homes currently listed for sale - a 12.5 month inventory.

9) (Moody's) Another 2 million homes will be seized by lenders between now and the end of 2011.

10) (Me) Boomers reaching retirement age at the rate of 4 million per year starting in 2011 will seek to downsize and simplify, adding far more high-end homes to inventory. That is, they will if they can get their damn kids to move out.

11) (Morgan Stanley) Nearly 8 million bank owned and foreclosure bound homes have yet to hit the market.

12) (Bloomberg) As of July 2010, sales of new and existing homes fell to the level on record.

13) (Me) The massive student loan debt of recent college grads, combined with limited job prospects, will prevent marriages, families and home purchases for years to come.

14) (Various) The problems in commercial real estate are far from over.

15) (Shedlock) There is little reason to hang onto an underwater home, and no reason at all to buy one right now.

16) (Me) Retiring boomers will begin to liquidate the stock that remains in their qualified plans, putting significant downward pressure on markets.

17) (Me) With younger Americans drowning in debt, the likely buyers for those stocks are furriners - Chinese and Arabs saddled with trillions of our declining dollars. Most American companies that aren't already foreign owned will be within 10 years.

18) (Me) Expect downward pressure on employment, wages, home prices, stocks and consumer spending for years - with luck a decade, much longer without.

19) (Me) Expect rising food/commodity prices and taxes during the same period.

20) (Me) There will be no recovery. Never. The burden of government debt guarantees that. You'll never again live in a period remotely resembling the last two decades of economic activity.

21) (Me) For those finding hope and change to be of low caloric value, I suggest stocking up on food, seeds, precious metals and ammo - pronto. This mess is just unfolding, and I suspect our only way out is forward through a collapse.