It’s pretty scary, really. According to recent reports, delinquencies are now over the 7-million level. In December, the various tracking firms announced that delinquencies were at about the 5.28 million level; now they are saying the actual number is much higher. By the same token, the lenders and the government are proudly announcing that they have “modified” about 150,000 loans. Do the math.  They have modified 2.14% of the delinquent loans. This has taken over a year (the program was announced in about March of 2009). I have not spoken to ANY person who got a modification that really meant anything–some are happy to get a temporary reduction in interest rate (often coupled with a promise to pay the accrued interest back over time), others believe they got a good deal because they got a “fixed” rate loan–of course, the rate is much higher than the rate they would be paying today if  they simply refinanced. Which the lender will not let them do, of course. The most recent information indicates that some lenders may be wavering in their commitment to take every property back that they can…B of A is even considering a principal reduction program (which they’ve structured so it doesn’t help the borrower much), and the Obama administration has indicated that it wants to “incentivize” servicers to do principal reductions…which makes about as much sense as giving them implied guarantees and free money and then insurance and support for the “poor suffering lenders…”  and a giant bailout and then gold everywhere for all the Wall Street execs (not that they should not have it if they deserve it, but if they get it from the taxpayers, that’s different) it’s amazing.  ”Too big to fail?” Not so much that as protection for the “politicians’ friends.” The real problem is that the only people who lose in this are the “little’s”–the people who have homes they can’t keep.  True, they bought them at inflated prices–but those were prices artificially inflated by easy credit, provided by the support of lenders who now want the money back twice–once from the taxpayer, and once from the govt.