On The Economy

The 8,753,935 workers who took federal disability insurance payments in July exceeded the population of 39 of the 50 states. Only 11 states—California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey—had more people in them than the number of workers on the federal disability insurance rolls in July.

Here's the report where I took that quote:   LINK  Since Obama took office,  Social Security Disability benefit payments have accelerated.  In fact, year-to-date, more people have gone on SS Disability than have taken jobs.  And that's if you believe the Government job calculations.  Here's a statistic that should have everyone grabbing their pitchforks and heading out to behead the Government:

The Social Security System’s Disability Insurance Trust Fund has run deficits in each of the last three fiscal years, meaning the government has needed to borrow money to pay disability benefits to the workers claiming them. In fiscal 2009, the Disability Insurance Trust Fund ran a deficit of $8.5 billion. In fiscal 2010, it ran a deficit of $20.8 billion. And in fiscal 2011, it ran a deficit of $25.3 billion.

Like every other debt-financed "Ponzi" mechanism in our Government, this is clearly unsustainable.  The working taxpayer is getting eaten alive by the people in this country handing out Government benefits like pot at a Grateful Dead concert and by the benefit-addicted people who are consuming them.  This will be a large part of the demise of our system - and Atlas shrugs.

Can we please put any notion of the housing market stabilizing into it's proper grave site?  Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the country paying attention to the mortgage purchase application statistic released by the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly.  I'm for sure the ONLY commenter out there who has been consistently pointing out the fact the purchase applications index has been in a steady decline since February.   And it has been declining nearly every week during the May-now peak home buying season.

So today the MBAA index showed a steep 3% decline in purchase applications:  LINK  How can this possibly be happening if the housing market is stabilizing or trending higher, as the bubblehead financial media would have you believe?  It can't.  What makes the statistic even more shocking is the fact the less people are applying for a mortgage to purchase a home despite record low financing rates.  Refinancing activity is booming, led by Government-subsidized refi programs.  In other words, the mortgage data does not fit the home sale data being released by the National Association of Realtors or the National Association of Homebuilders.

Well today the data released by the industry-biased NAHB finally started to make sense.  New home sales were reported to be 350,000 for June (annualized).  But the Einsteins on Wall Street were looking for the number to be 370,000.  They clearly do not look at data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

So despite record low mortgage rates, Government/taxpayer subsidy programs and the strongest seasonal time of the year for home sales, the housing market continues to flounder.  There will be a huge cliff-dive in housing market activity this fall and into next year, as the market for still-optimistic home buyers - and those falling prey to the "this is great value and the market has bottomed" sales pitch - has been saturated.  Here's a great analysis of the situation from a different angle:  LINK

Not only that, but I can guarantee that the expanding number of people leaving the workforce and going on SS Disablity or other Government welfare programs will absolutely not qualify for a mortgage to purchase a home (contrary to what would have occurred during the bubble years).  The housing market is dying and it will continue to die until we have a complete systemic cleansing and rebuild.  That won't happen in my lifetime.