JackAssets

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As the U.S. economy slowed in 2007, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney saw their assets stay stable, according to financial disclosure reports released by the White House on Thursday.

The reports showed little change for Bush and Cheney even as a collapse in the housing market caused a credit crunch and led the Federal Reserve to rapidly cut interest rates.

Original DVD cover.

Bush and his wife Laura reported assets worth between $7.2 million and $20.2 million last year, nearly matching the $7.5 million to $20 million they reported in 2006.

Cheney, who spent years in the corporate board room, reported significantly higher assets for himself and his wife Lynne, ranging from almost $21 million to $99.3 million, according to his financial disclosure.

The Cheneys’ assets mirror a range of $21 million to around $100 million reported in 2006. Much of his wealth came from his past role as the head of the oil services firm Halliburton Co.

So you can sleep well, my dear Raisinettes. We don’t have to worry about they Chimpy and Deadeye Dick families starving, being homeless, or being without health insurance.

Meanwhile….

From Hartford Business:

In a sign that the mortgage collapse is getting worse, not better, foreclosure filings surged 65 percent in April from April 2007, leading some analysts to warn that the crisis might not end before 2010.

One in every 519 households received a foreclosure filing – the highest such figure since RealtyTrac began issuing foreclosure reports in January 2005. Nationally, 243,353 homes were facing foreclosure last month, RealtyTrac said. That amounts to roughly 2 percent of all homes.

Signs that the crisis is accelerating include sinking home values, rising foreclosures, swelling supplies of homes for sale and tighter lending rules that have shut out some who want to buy homes or refinance their mortgages.

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Congress is working on a bill that would let many borrowers facing foreclosure refinance with federally insured mortgages. The bill’s prospects, though, are uncertain.

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Foreclosure filings in April rose from a year earlier in all but eight states, according to RealtyTrac.

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“It will almost certainly get worse,” Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac said of the foreclosure filings. “Unless the government does something, we’ll probably see this go on. We would expect a spike (in filings) in the third and fourth quarter” of 2008.

Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors says he thinks foreclosures could persist at a high rate into 2010. “Prices are dropping and will continue to fall throughout the year,” Naroff says. “People want to buy, but they can’t get financing.”