President Obama Hits the Economic Trifecta!

Let me take a wild guess: it's still Bush's fault.

Foreclosures up for first time in 27 months

Foreclosure starts rose year-over-year in May for the first time in more than two years as banks resumed dealing with distressed properties after a mortgage abuse settlement earlier this year, data firm RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Overall foreclosure activity, which includes default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, affected 205,990 properties in May, a 9.1 percent increase from April.

...Foreclosure starts grew 12 percent from April and 16 percent on an annual basis after 27 straight months of year-over-year declines. Foreclosure starts were filed on 109,051 homes in May, the first month-to-month rise since March.

Bank repossessions increased 7 percent after sinking to a 49-month low in April, with 54,844 homes repossessed in May.

But, wait -- that's not all!

Unexpectedly: Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Rise to 386,000

In the week ending June 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 386,000, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 380,000. The 4-week moving average was 382,000, an increase of 3,500 from the previous week's revised average of 378,500...

...The average has been between 363,000 and 384,000 all year, and this is near the high for the year.

And here is a long term graph of weekly claims:



This was above to the consensus forecast of 375,000.

All of this follows last week's news that the already dire unemployment situation continues to worsen.

Broader Jobless Rate Jumps to 14.8%

The U.S. unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2% in May and a broader measure rose even more to 14.8%...



Meanwhile, the broader unemployment rate, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification by the Labor Department, was up even higher in May. The U-6 figure includes everyone in the official rate plus “marginally attached workers” — those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that’s all they could find.

In May, there were more marginally attached workers and the number of part-time employees who want full-time work also increased.

Despite this trifecta of failure, President Obama visited Cleveland to offer Ohio voters more Obamanomics.

We'll see how that goes over in November.