Unemployment numbers and foreclosures are up. Bad news for the Novice.

Last March 9, 2009, the Wall Street carried an article that read, in part, "It remains uncertain how successful the administration will be in overcoming one of the biggest problems to forestall private efforts to fix troubled mortgages: the objections of investors who own mortgage-backed securities.

The administration estimates the new plan will cover as many as nine million mortgage holders. It has two main components. . . . "

Editor's notes: nine million homeowners were given hope with the reading of these words a year and a half ago. If true, this plan would have ended the foreclosure threat to our economy. 18 months later, the bad news comes crashing down around us all. Understand that the most recent foreclosure report, last month, recorded 102,134 actual foreclosures. This report records the end of a process that began sometime in March of 2009, about the time Obama was promising the moon to 9 million troubled home owners. His plans of "long ago" have proven to be an abject failure. Of the 9 million targeted, less than 400,000 received any substantial help at all and last months report is a record all time high in American history.

On top of the foreclosure news of the morning, we have a discouraging unemployment report. The number increased from 450,000 to 462,000 in the current weekly summary. The nation has been at this point, 450,000 and above for well over a year. The "recovery" has stalled and, unless the mortgage crisis is thoughtfully dealt with, Midknight Review believes that we are headed for a second recessionary period.

Understand that the official definition for "recession" is two consecutive quarters of minus GDP growth. The GDP rate for all of 2009 was just 1.7% growth over and above 2008.

We are in the second worse employment downturn in history at one end and, at the other end of this debacle, we are experiencing the highest foreclosure rates in American history.

Of course, Obama is not the only one open to blame, but when it comes to Stimulus spending and mortgage bailouts, he is the man. It is far too simple just to say that "spending is the problem." Rather, it is the kind of spending that is off base and counter-productive.

The mortgage bailout did not go to the heart of the problem and many doubt that a bailout, in this case, could have ever been seen as a solution. Bailouts are only temporary. The home owner needed a job. It seems that no one gave that fact much thought in 2009.

And as regard the Stimulus and jobs creation, the part of the stimulus that offered any jobs opportunity at all, infrastructure contracts, constituted a scant 3.5% of the total $890 billion set aside as a result of the Feb 17, 2009 Stimulus. In other words, next to nothing was offered up by this Administration and, now, the truth has become the 800 pound gorilla in the room.