Will the mortgage problem deepen next year?

The conventional wisdom is that if housing does not improve, the economy does not improve and the credit crisis does not go away. This may be a case where the consensus is right.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "TransUnion LLC, which analyzed about 27 million consumer records in its database, predicted that the proportion of consumers with mortgages that are 60 days or more past-due will hit 7.17% in the fourth quarter of 2009." That is about double the rate today.

Of all the data coming out about the current economic downturn that news could be the worst. Rising delinquencies mean rising foreclosures, which are likely the result of job losses or lack of access to credit. That, in turn, means that housing prices will continue to fall.

One of the most puzzling things about the current bailout craze which has the federal government throwing money at everything that moves is that there is not a massive, systematic program to help arrest the deepening housing crisis. If that can be done, many of the other troubles in the economy can be fixed.

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners who genuinely need relief are being thrown to the curb in the name of helping big financial services companies. A recovery only works if its goes from the bottom up. The man who owns his house and has mortgage problems is as "bottom" as it can get.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.