RC JOURNAL: US Foreclosures and the Tactics of Delay

2 Questions, 15 Seconds, 45 Days to Get Out; 'What's to Talk About?' 

Judge Charlie Green of Lee County Florida.

"...stay in your homes — if the American people, anybody out there, is being foreclosed, don’t leave." 

Congresswoman Marcy Kapture on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

 NOTE: I'm probably about a year or so early on this.  Enjoy.

The rapid onset of this century's global Depression (D2), is destroying US communities via a tsunami of foreclosures (the 'formerly' high rate of home ownership in the US makes it particularly vulnerable to a debt-deflation crisis).  Double digit levels of foreclosures can turn a viable community into a desolate place bereft of government services and commercial activity.  

Worse, given the deep corruption (sorry, it's impossible to argue that getting multi-million dollar bonuses for incompetence and costless public bailouts that pay off huge  gambling debts is anything else) of the current US elites, we won't see any meaningful effort to mitigate this torrent in the short term.  By early 2010, as the real depth and duration of D2 becomes evident, it may already be too late to save many US communities from dissolution.  The US may quickly become swiss cheese, with ungoverned gaps (temporary autonomous zones, TAZs) emerging from sea to sea, formed from formerly functional/viable communities.  Once that happens, an organic process of criminal insurgency on a national level would naturally follow, akin to what we are seeing in Mexico -- as in, rot begets rot.

However, there are peaceful options that may help preserve communities in the short term.  Think of these methods as a tactic of delay rather than reversal until one of the following events occur:

1. The economic status quo ante returns.  If so, you can apologize.
2. D2 becomes reality and the federal government belatedly moves to reduce/eliminate mortgage debt to preserve stability (unlikely due to corruption/confusion).  
3. D2 becomes reality and no meaningful federal help is on the way. 

What are these methods?  One method is civil disobedience, although early efforts are small.  One good sign is that these efforts are using decentralized networking:

Through phone trees, Web pages and text-messaging networks, the effort will connect families facing eviction with volunteers who will stand at their side as officers arrive, even if it means risking arrest. 

Another is to co-opt law enforcement to categorically halt or slow evictions (starving the eviction enforcement of resources is another way):

In Wayne County in Michigan, Sheriff Warren C. Evans, suspended all evictions starting Feb. 2 until the federal government implements a plan to help homeowners facing foreclosures.

I suspect that most communities won't follow either of these approaches and will suffer horribly from the result.  Why?  For once a community passes a foreclosure tipping point, it is likely irretrievable, and efforts to build a resilient community will be for naught.