More Foreclosure ... I thought there was a recovery.

I have been following the legal notices for some time now. A year ago I was astounded how many foreclosures there were in the paper of record for Gwinnett County (suburban Atlanta) where I live. Last Thursday was this month's posting. Still more than 150 nine column pages of foreclosure notices. I found myself wondering how many there actually were, but I am too lazy to count. Fortunately, WSB news counted for me and broadcast the news as I was driving to one of my schools. 2100 foreclosures this month. Last year at this time I computed the count of column inches as 28,000. This years there are almost exactly the same number of pages with exactly the same number of columns, 9 per page, for a total again of 28,000 inches - 10 inches per listing. Only one problem the ones I see are not 10 inches long. I think they have under-reported the number of foreclosures. Could that be deliberate?

The Fed Chairman Bernanke Says the Recession Is Over!

But the newspaper says something different. This is the Gwinnett County, Georgia's local newspaper's current monthly legal paper-of-record posting. This month the paper is one hundred sixty-eight pages of nine columns each. Pages one through seven are the usual legal fare, divorces, name changes, applications for liquor licenses, probate. Page eight is tax sales. And page nine through one hundred sixty-eight? All foreclosures. Don't even expect me to count how many foreclosures are on 28,800 column inches. I think we got trouble.