The U.S. Conference of Mayors today released a 17-page report titled The Mortgage Crisis: Economic and Fiscal Implications for Metro Areas, and it makes some fairly dire predications for the coming year -- among them, that the growing number of home foreclosures will "result in 524,000 fewer jobs being created next year and a potential loss of $6.6 billion in tax revenues in ten states."
Which is only the tip of what's apparently a rapidly melting iceberg. The report -- which says "the foreclosure crisis will have profound economic effects in 2008" -- also predicts that major metropolitan areas will be hardest hit, losing billions of dollars in economic activity -- or gross metropolitan product. Says the report: "The largest metro, New York, loses over $10 billion in 2008 economic output as a result of the mortgage crisis, followed by Los Angeles ($8.3 billion), Dallas ($4.0 billion), Washington ($4.0 billion), and Chicago ($3.9 billion)."
The good news: The report doesn't project a recession. Nor does it predict an alien invasion. --Robert Wilonsky
