So what will this mean when the last moratorium is lifted, the last show-me-the-note lawsuit gets thrown out of court, and the last loan modification has failed? Well by that time you’ll probably be able to buy property on a planet orbiting some nice warm star in Constellation Cygnus. But there could be roughly three times as many homes on the market as there are now. Lawler points to 1,445,000 completed foreclosures and short sales at the end of 2010, compared with 4,296,01 mortgages that are past due by 90 days or more.

Getting a handle on the shadow inventory is more than just a way to fill up the time between Sunday afternoon looky-loos. You should feel for these foreclosed people because they’ve lost their jobs – even though in most cases they haven’t lost their jobs. You should be worried about how foreclosure drives up neighborhood crime – even though it doesn’t. And be afraid, be very afraid of the failure of the Home Affordable Mortgage Program to keep hardworking American working families who work hard in America from losing their homes – even though the HAMP is actually designed to buy time for the banks. And if you really want to drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinal gum, read up on HAMP’s underwhelming numbers, ineffectiveness, and costly efforts to limit redefaults.