Reverse American Dream

Things are going well:

Nearly 9% of all U.S. mortgages--or 4.8 million loans--are past due or in some stage of foreclosure.

Comments

[Gunnar Peterson]

A lot of the gloom and doom you read in the old media is actually driven by their realization that they are toast, and not related to the real economy.

"But newspaper people are human, too. And it would be human to extrapolate the layoffs and downsizing in their midst to the overall coverage, and shape coverage and commentary around it.
...
Rosenstiel compared what's going on in newsrooms to the difference between voters in Ohio and North Carolina. Ohioans, whose economy is worse than that of North Carolinians, might be understandably more negative about the country's direction and the economy as a whole, Rosenstiel said.

Similarly, "people in newsrooms are feeling gloomier about the economy and the future than people might be in Silicon Valley," he said."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/raasch/2008-06-20-newpolitics_N.htm?csp=34

I don't hear too much whinging out of Google. Do you?

[John Robb]

LOL. Google? The Versaille on the 101? No, not much gloom there.

The beneficiaries of the global hype machine are never in want.

[John Robb]

Hey, I do think there is much more economic fear out there than the coverage indicates. There is a tendency not to cover it due to a worry that it will exacerbate the situation.

[TM Lutas]

Since the non-profit system of housing counselors existed long before the crisis, it would have been valuable context to have the same figure from say a year before the current housing peak. No context needed here!

The banks that most failed to be prudent should go under and the high foreclosure rate will probably clean out a lot of deadwood. It will be painful. We got through the RTC years and we'll get through this.