Pain and suffering created by the greed and reckless lending of this business cycle will plague us for some time to come.

Social service agencies say homeless rates are on the rise not only as families lose their own homes to foreclosure but also as renters are evicted after their landlords default. Financial analysts warn that state and local governments will soon feel the pinch of sharply reduced property tax revenue. And counsellors say divorces and reports of abuse are rising as families burdened by impending foreclosure take their stress out on one another. See Mortgage crisis inflicts collateral damage.

This is the full cost accounting of greed and reckless lending over the past few years. It is not just the staggering financial losses, and the wide-spread contraction that this is bringing to our global economy. It is the emotional and psychological carnage this crisis is inflicting on real life families and our society as a whole. It is a systemic malaise that will over-burden already stretched social agencies and public services for months and years to come, precisely as tax revenues fall off.
   more »