When Chickens Come Home To Roost

"Mortgage foreclosures in the third quarter of 2021 jumped 32% compared with the second quarter and 67% compared to the third quarter of 2020. There was a high correlation between this surge in foreclosures and the termination of government moratoriums on foreclosures. This means that the economy was weak all along and that government programs in response to the pandemic only papered over the weakness. Now that the programs have ended, the weakness has emerged. This is more than a temporary blip. The foreclosure wave has just begun because many state and local moratoriums were continued even as federal relief ended. One by one those other moratoriums will be ended also, and the foreclosure wave will grow." -- Daily Reckoning, First Down Payment on a Boondoggle. Recently, I've been watching my former banking employer's hi-jinks in the courts via Missouri Casenet. Their filings of breach of contract lawsuits have steadily increased over the past few months and I suspect it will become worse before it gets better. Because of: A) poor underwriting standards that have existed for years. B) the promotion of individuals to positions of authority that have more to do with identity than intelligence and qualifications (diversity and inclusion = favorable treatment for unqualified minorities, particularly women who have dependent children). C) the CDC’s unconstitutional suspension of contract law during the “pandemic”. D) poor leadership in general. Routing excessive volumes of dollars into the economy to compensate those who have been put out of work because of government overreach is one thing. By the way, those dollars were created out of thin air. The Fed’s metaphorical printing press was working at high gear for months and they’ve only recently begun to slow it down. Telling those same unemployed recipient individuals that they will not need to worry about paying their mortgage or landlord because of “Covid” for months on end is going to end badly. The Democrats are largely responsible for this fiasco.