Pat Buchanan thinks things are bad. Basically, the economy is ruined, and we are hopelessly in debt, on the verge of economic collapse, and there is no hope:

With the dollar sinking, oil surging to $100 a barrel, the Dow having its worst January in memory, foreclosures mounting, credit card debt going rotten, and consumers and businesses unable or unwilling to borrow, we appear headed into recession.

We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called "isolationism."

And the chickens of globalism are coming home to roost.

It's all the fault of a self-indulgent generation which is hopelessly in debt:

This self-indulgent generation has borrowed itself into unpayable debt. Now the folks from whom we borrowed to buy all that oil and all those cars, electronics and clothes are coming to buy the country we inherited. We are prodigal sons, and the day of reckoning approaches.

An entire generation has borrowed itself into unpayable debt? Well, the piece is called "Subprime Nation," so apparently that's his argument.

Let's start with the definition of subprime mortage:

A subprime mortgage, is a type of loan that is offered at a rate above prime to individuals who do not qualify for prime rate loans due to less-than-perfect credit history. Lenders charge a higher interest rate to compensate for potential losses from customers who may run into trouble or default.

Subprime mortgages are designed for borrowers with credit scores under 620. Most consumer have a credit score in the 600s and 700s. Someone who is constantly late paying bills, especially by 30 or 60 or 90 days or more, will have a lower credit score. If the FICO score falls below 620, that consumer is in subprime mortgage territory.

There is no denying that foreclosures are at record highs. But I wonder how many of the people who read Buchanan's condemnation of an entire generation know the actual percentages of foreclosures. This has become such a political football that it might surprise people to know that most homes are not in fact facing foreclosure. Far from it. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the new foreclosure rate is slightly over a half of one percent:

New foreclosures for prime and subprime borrowers combined hit record highs. They rose to 0.58 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, compared with 0.54 percent in the previous quarter and 0.41 percent a year earlier.

The high translates into about 254,591 mortgages, or one in 172 loans, the association said.

The problems weren't uniformly spread around the country. Doug Duncan, chief economist for the mortgage bankers group, said the rate of new foreclosures would have dropped had it not been for big jumps in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona. He said high rates in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana also drove up the overall percentage of loans in foreclosure.

USA Today looked at the total percentage of loans in foreclosure:

The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process rose to 1.69% of loans outstanding, up 0.29 percentage point from the prior quarter and up 0.64 from a year earlier.

About 994,000 U.S. households are in the process of foreclosure, said Doug Duncan, the MBA's chief economist.

"Not all of them will lose their house, but that's how many are currently at serious risk of losing their house," he said.

The rate of loans entering the foreclosure process rose to a seasonally adjusted 0.78% in the third quarter, up 0.13 percentage point from the prior quarter and up 0.32 point from a year earlier.

Clearly, there were a lot of irresponsible loans made to irresponsible people. I'd even go along with Buchanan that such people are self-indulgent as he claims.

But since when does a self-indulgent 2% become a generation?

Don't the other 98% count?

Sigh.

(I guess I should be glad Buchanan didn't apply his communitarian math to human sexuality, or he'd say we've all become subprime homos.)