With all of the turmoil in the economy, it should be no surprise to anyone that more companies are filing for bankruptcy protection every day, as consumers change their spending habits and lenders are unable to accommodate more credit expansion.
The entire American economy has been built on consumer spending for decades, with most of the production capacity shipped off to Asia.
Now with a recession almost inevitable, foreclosures, personal bankruptcies, and corporate bankruptcies are on the rise, some of which are already at or near historic levels.
Restaurant chains and retail stores have been hurt the most by reduced spending so far, while holding money in a bank has become much more uncertain by the growing number of failed financial institutions taken over by the government.
Because of all this, homeowners who are already facing a financial hardship will find it much more difficult to recover or supplement their incomes until the crisis is over.
Taking on even a low paying part-time job, one of the most effective ways to avoid falling behind on bills for a few extra months, may no longer be an option for many homeowners.
Seasonal jobs in retail or shift work in restaurants that have filed bankruptcy is certainly not an option, and many local businesses have been pushed out by the large chains.
Even for jobs that seemed steady, hours are being cut throughout the economy and even government workers may have to accept far less in wages.
Although unemployment figures seem to indicate health in the job market, the numbers do not reflect such trends as more people working fewer hours or at jobs that they had to take simply to pay half of their bills every other month and avoid falling much further behind.
And even worse, homeowners' paychecks are getting lighter just as home prices are crashing and food and oil prices are skyrocketing.
Getting any relief seems almost impossible, as all of the money is being taken out of the economy as lenders try to protect against rising defaults.
But tight money means that more people will end up defaulting on car, personal, and home loans, which will cause the banks to tighten lending even further but also end up with the assets of people who could not pay their loans.
Despite a few recent pullbacks in the price of oil and other commodities, the short-term future looks exceedingly grim for the American economy with higher inflation and lower housing prices.
Even homeowners who are able to stop foreclosure may find themselves holding a piece of severely price-depressed real estate in a neighborhood targeted by crime and full of empty houses with an incompetent government starved for public funds.
Unfortunately, the trend in the economy seems to point towards more insolvency and fewer loans, and it might be best for homeowners to join with their favorite stores in filing bankruptcy to escape huge debt burdens.
Although the banks will line up to receive more inflated Federal Reserve bailout money, the less people support such a system of financial slavery, the more power communities will have to generate real wealth for their neighborhoods that can not be stolen by unelected federal bureaucrats.