The United States economy is currently not looking very good. Over the past couple of months the economy has taken a turn for the worst and we could be headed into a recession in the coming months or years. The biggest problems are in the real estate and mortgage markets. In 1999, housing prices rose at huge rates and lenders began offering riskier mortgages, which caused homeowners to keep piling up huge debts. People were taking out loans and balloon mortgage payments that they really could not afford. The problem began in late 2007, when housing prices began to fall and the system fell apart causing huge numbers of defaults on home loans and foreclosures. Currently, 5.6% of mortgages are delinquent, the highest rate in 21 years, and 2.5% of mortgages are in foreclosure, the highest rate ever (Fox 2). This has caused banks to lose huge amounts of money and as a result credit is becoming more difficult to get for consumers and businesses. With credit harder to get, consumers......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 966
Approximate Pages: 4 (260 words per double-spaced page) |