But first the good news?

After the storms moved out last night, my wife and I watched the 10 o'clock news on the Atlanta Fox affiliate channel. As they always do, late during the program there's a bumper from the Fox "News" channel with business news. They seemed it newsworthy and point of pride to announce that Countrywide Home Loans had processed 15% more mortgage applications in May 2007 compared to a year ago, and that they were adding roughly 1,500 jobs. Congrats, Countrywide, on a job well done. But wait, doesn't Countrywide specialize in refinancing? Today comes the news that foreclosures are up dramatically over this period last year. With more people applying for and receiving mortgages right now, I have a bad feeling that what Fox was hyping as good news is just the opposite: people are getting mortgages in order to wring whatever equity is left on their property in order to make ends meet. We'll see for certain in a matter of months. And the fact that consumer spending was up in May (along with the foreclosure numbers) only makes it looks like people just said, "Fuck it, I'm losing my house, let's buy that plasma screen t.v. for our new apartment."