October 16. 2009

More proof illustrating the economy is still heading in the wrong direction, due to massive spending, surfaced this week, with the news the U.S. dollar is no longer the preferred world currency reserve. Now comes word, foreclosure filings in America have spiked yet again, reaching new record highs.

The U.S. deficit also set another record this week, matching and surpassing Great Depression levels, much like the astounding foreclosure rates.

Once again, the Judiciary Report, would like to emphasize, the solution to the crisis is the government saving money, not spending it.

Deficit Hits $1.4 Trillion, Complicating Stimulus Plans

Published: October 16, 2009 - WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before and the largest shortfall relative to the size of the economy since 1945...

The shortfall for the fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, translates to 10 percent of the economy, according to a joint statement from the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter R. Orszag. For the 2008 fiscal year, the deficit of $459 billion was 3.2 percent of the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.

Economists generally agree that annual deficits should not exceed 3 percent of the G.D.P., and that is the level President Obama had vowed to reach by the end of his first term in 2013.

But subsequent spending and tax cuts to stimulate the economy, and lower-than-expected revenues as the recession deepened before bottoming out, combined to push the administration’s deficit forecast to 4.6 percent of G.D.P. for the fiscal year 2013.

At 10 percent of the gross domestic product, the 2009 deficit is the highest since the end of World War II, when it was 21.5 percent. At that level, it already has become a bigger economic and a political issue than any time since the late 1980s...

http://www.nytimes.com

Why Obama's Housing Rescue Hasn't Prevented Record Foreclosures

Fri Oct 16, 9:53 am ET - After taking withering criticism for the Department-of-Motor-Vehicles pace of its initial efforts to keep struggling borrowers out of foreclosure, the Obama administration proudly announced last week that it had hit its goal of 500,000 trial loan modifications almost a month ahead of schedule. But with the foreclosure rate hitting a new record in the third quarter, the government's ability to put a meaningful dent in the tally of housing-crisis victims faces renewed skepticism.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 937,840 homes in the three-month period, a 23 percent jump from a year earlier, according to a report real estate firm RealtyTrac released Thursday. Home foreclosures in September, meanwhile, decreased 4 percent from August but remained 29 percent higher than a year earlier...

http://news.yahoo.com