FROM JEROME CORSI'S RED ALERT

Back on Main Street: Foreclosures soar

Millions of middle-class Americans still suffer economic pain

Posted: August 17, 2009
12:56 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and columnist. Subscriptions are $99 a year or $9.95 per month for credit card users. Annual subscribers will receive a free autographed copy of "The Late Great USA," a book about the careful deceptions of a powerful elite who want to undermine our nation's sovereignty.

U.S. home foreclosures have surged nearly 7 percent in July, up 32 percent from the same period last year, producing new evidence the recent buzz that the recession is "over" is largely Wall Street hype, not Main Street reality, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.

Corsi noted that this alarming data has been critical in dampening the bear rally that had fueled the Dow Jones Industrial Average this summer on expectations that gains in second quarter corporate earnings signaled the recession was coming to an end.

"Instead, the July surge in foreclosures underscored the economic pain still being suffered by millions of middle-class individuals, making it unlikely the economy will experience the surge in consumer spending needed for the economy to return to economic growth," Corsi wrote.

RealtyTrac documented more than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes in the United States received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee's sale, last month – the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.

"July marks the third time in the last five months where we've seen a new record set for foreclosure activity," James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac's chief executive said in a statement to Reuters. "Despite continued efforts by the federal government and state governments to patch together a safety net for distressed homeowners, we're seeing significant growth in both the initial notices of default and in the bank repossessions."

The Washington Post reported that banks repossessed 87,000 homes in July, up from about 79,000 homes repossessed in June.

"The July surge in home foreclosure activity also confirms that the Obama administration mortgage modification program has not lived up to expectations," Corsi noted.

The Treasury Department reported that banks have made only approximately 400,000 mortgage modification offers to more than 2.7 million eligible home buyers who are more than two months behind on their payments.

Red Alert noted in June that the Obama administration's much touted mortgage modification program designed to reduce dramatically the rate of home foreclosures has been a failure.

Political commentator Dick Morris lists a number of reasons that exclude a person from qualifying for an Obama administration mortgage modification:

You have lost your job;
You owe more than 5 percent above what your house is worth;
You are already in default;
You have not yet missed at least one payment;
Your lender does not want to participate;
Your mortgage is not one of the half of all mortgages insured or owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac;
The reworked mortgage payment would come to more than 31 percent of your income;
Your mortgage is over $759,000;
The home is not your primary residence.
The Federal Reserve is only half way through the plan to buy $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities in an effort to keep home mortgage rates low, the New York Times reports.

"Still," Corsi wrote, "rising interest rates resulting from $406 billion the Treasury is scheduled to borrow in the third quarter (July-to-September) to support the Obama administration record suggest even more difficulties for those with adjustable-rate mortgages."

Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

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