As home prices fall, more borrowers walk away

When David Martin and his wife bought their north Seattle condo five years ago, they figured they had plenty of time to downsize if they needed to before they retired.Now, with the property worth roughly $60,000 less than the balance of their mortgage, Martin, 68, has been giving serious thought to just walking away, a process lenders call "strategic default."

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As home prices fall, more borrowers walk away

Nation’s debt passes grim milestone

The nation's debt has reached a symbolic milestone. With gross domestic product of roughly $15 trillion and total debt of $15.23 trillion, our total debt is now bigger than our economy, as USA Today noted Monday.

What's more, the Obama administration's projections put our debt at more than $23 trillion by 2020, well in excess of the projected $22.5 trillion GDP. Analysts agree that the rising debt ratio is not good, but they can't agree on just how bad it is, and while there's at least some agreement among economists about how to fix the problem, lawmakers have no such common ground — which is one of the biggest hurdles to actually doing something about the debt dilemma.

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Nation’s debt passes grim milestone