Treasury Secratery Henry Paulson also said that 1.5 million homes went into foreclosure last year and that 2.5 million homeowners will be tossed out on their fannies in 2008. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that "Federal policy makers have concluded that the turmoil plaguing the housing and financial markets is likely to spill deep into 2009."

Gee, ya think?!

Like some form of black comedy, this chatter helped set the stage for some stark realities that defy comprehension. Like the news that nearly two years into the subprime and foreclosure crises, the Fed will finally be introducing new measures to address abusive lending, a half a year after it first floated a reform proposal and began soliciting comments from the public. And then there is Congress, that can't seem to move foreclosure prevention legislation out of the Senate, legislation that many feel will have a limited impact on foreclosures anyway.

The most maddening comments came for Paulson who declared that "many of today's unusually high number of foreclosures are not preventable." Indeed.

The Times editorial page, which should be recognized for consistently holding Congress and the Bush administration for their inaction and tone deafness on the subprime foreclosure crisis, had this to say:

It has been about two years since the junk lending of the housing bubble years peaked. Twenty percent of the $3 trillion dollars in mortgage loans made in 2006 were subprime, and another 15 percent were just above that lowest rung on the credit ladder. Since then, millions of all-too-predictable defaults — and the fear of more to come — have metastasized into the worst financial crisis since the Depression and into what is shaping up to be the second recession of the decade.

While the path to and out of foreclosure is most often a complicated and difficult one, its easy to see that had federal policy makers originally responded to the foreclosure crisis as though the lives and financial security of working class Americans mattered, far less people would be losing their homes today.