Overdue Consumer Debts Highest Since 1992

There are a lot of not very good signs out there - this is one of them:

"Consumers fell behind on car, credit- card and home-equity loans at the highest level in 15 years, another sign the U.S. economy is slowing, according to the American Bankers Association's quarterly survey."

This is another:

"The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance jumped by a seasonally adjusted 38,000 to 407,000 for the week ending March 29. The increase left claims at their highest point since Sept. 17, 2005, following the blows of the devastating Gulf Coast hurricanes."

I get this fleeting feeling sometime that this is as bad as it gets - that all of this money pumping by the Fed and the tax payer assisted rescue of the Robber Barons of our day has started to kick in and will have some soothing effect - but then I remember that we are still in this terrible, three trillion dollar war, that inflation is raging, real wages are falling, gas is pushing $4.00 a gallon, and that people are pretty gloomy about this whole mess - and the feeling goes away.