I saw some links which were really surprising, and I thought I’d share them with the readers of this blog as these links belie the reports of any economic recovery. The first link below reports that 11% of all US housing units are now unoccupied! That is a very large number! Presumably, this would include both residences and apartment units. This report indicates that there is scarcely any reason for any new housing to be built in the USA with such a huge backlog of unoccupied properties already available. Does anyone else think that there is something really wrong in our society when 11% of all housing units are empty, but we have growing ranks of homeless Americans due to high unemployment?
The second link reports that approximately 600,000 banker-owned (i.e. “foreclosed”) homes have not even been placed on the market yet by the banks or lenders which seized them from previous owners who could not meet their mortgage obligations. This is a tremendous overhang of banker-owned housing units which has to be sold into the market before the housing market can recover to normalcy. However, the third link notes that few banker-owned units are being placed on the market as there is insufficient demand for them. If they were dumped on the market all at once, the prices of home sales would plummet due to the oversupply which would also damage the balance sheets of the banks, who would have to write off extensive losses on properties sold at prices well-below their original value.
It gets ever worse! The fourth link reports that of the American homes that are occupied and which have mortgages, a full 23% of those mortgages are “under-water.” This means that the mortgage payers owe more on the home mortgage than the home is actually worth! This could lead to another wave of foreclosures or it could result in many mortgage holders simply walking away from their homes and mortgages and mailing their keys to the banks which hold the mortgages. This is a growing phenomenon and the term “jingle mail” has been coined to describe the number of homeowners simply walking away from their homes and mortgages and mailing the keys to the banks.
Does this sound like American’s recession is over? Hardly! However, it gets worse yet. The fifth link includes a broad list of statistical profiles about the economy that have changed for good or bad over Obama’s first two years. Most of the changes have been for the worse. Especially noteworthy is that the increase in the PPI inflation rate for all commodities is up 11.3% This is a harbinger of food price increases to come.
I can’t resist giving you an example of how statistics can be used to deceive the masses. The “official” statistics report very low inflation rates in America and an unemployment rate of around 9.4% or so. The “official” core inflation report, essentially shows no increase in inflation. The “core inflation rate” is likely the most useless piece if data compiled by the government as it is irrelevant to any living human being. All living souls consume a lot of energy and food so the real “core inflation rate” ought to include the energy and food costs, not exclude them! How many people get by without consuming any food or energy? Obviously, no one! The final link takes you to the home page of shadowstats.com, where the inflation and unemployment number are calculated “honestly” without the statistical shell-games long used in the calculation of the “official” statistics. The site shows the real inflation rate is about 5% and the real unemployment rate is about 23%. A 23% unemployment rate sounds close to a depression-level statistic to me.
Do you think the recession is over? I’m sure many of you do not. The truth is that the American economy is still on shaky ground, indeed. Revelation 17-18 prophesies that the global economic/monetary system called “Babylon the Great” will at some point collapse during the latter days of our age. Babylon the Great’s current global system is based on the US dollar, the world’s global reserve currency, which is being created in profligate amounts by the Federal Reserve Board. The prophecy in Revelation 17-18 reveals that when our current global financial/monetary system comes down, it will be replaced by the new global monetary/economic system of the beast power. I don’t set dates, but it is clear that the current global system is continuing to steadily weaken so we are getting closer to that prophesied collapse. I wonder how much time we have left before Revelation 17-18 are fulfilled?
For an in-depth discussion of Revelation 17-18’s prophecy, I invite you to read the articles, Is Babylon the Great about to Fall…Ushering in a New Beast System? and Should Christians Prepare for Coming Hard Times? If you want to see why the Bible calls our modern, banking-based economic system is called “Babylon the Great,” the answer is found in my article, What Kind of Captivity?
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-02-12-vacancy12_N.htm
http://www.thetruthaboutmortgage.com/estimated-600000-bank-owned-properties-not-on-the-market/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/07/MNL516UG90.DTL
http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/24/real_estate/mortgages_underwater/index.htm
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/report_card_on_obamas_first_tw.html
