Let’s add these guys to the long list of people and organizations who’s opinions and forecasts are absolutely worthless.

Obama – ( Taps teleprompter ) is this thing on, ok great. My fellow Americans our Economy is strong. Thank you, and go shopping. Press corp: Mr. President! Mr. President! Mr. President! Mr. President! ( Obama fades off behind the curtain ) From Calculated Risk Comment Threads…

The well paying goods producing jobs are never coming back. American manufacturing jobs have been shifted overseas for more than two decades by corporate America. Now those jobs have become more sophisticated, like semiconductors, software and even medical and finance. The American middle class is relegated to being McDonalds fry cooks, Wal-Mart greeters, and temp workers. What has happened to the American middle class was not an accident. The wealth of the country has been pillaged by an elite group at the very top of the economic food chain, who were able to reap the rewards of globalization (outsourcing American jobs), manipulate the debt based financial system through synthetic fraud products, and avoid taxes by hiring thousands of lawyers, accountants and tax consultants. When you hear that the rich need lower taxes, corporate taxes are too high and increased productivity is great for America, remember what they have done to the country since 1970. If corporate America and its leaders continue to reap obscene profits while the middle class falls further into the abyss, societal unrest will beckon.

As you can see, a very small portion — just 15% — think that the recovery will occur by next year. This implies that housing market sentiment will be quite weak throughout 2011.

Giving borrowers a pass is not the answer. No matter how you cloak it, any bailout that does not have the borrower endure the consequences of their mistakes is going to result in moral hazard and continued bad behavior among borrowers and bankers.