Per the Washington Post, the real estate crash has broken new ground:

But interviews and a Washington Post analysis of available data show that the foreclosure crisis knows no class or income boundaries. Many borrowers ensnared in the evolving mortgage mess do not fit neatly into the stereotypes that surfaced by early 2007 when delinquency rates shot up. They don’t have subprime loans, the lending industry’s jargon for the higher-rate mortgages made to borrowers with shaky credit or without enough cash for a down payment.

The wave of subprime delinquencies appears to have crested. But in October, for the first time, the number of prime mortgages in delinquency exceeded the subprime loans in danger of default, according to The Post’s analysis.

This trend shows up most acutely in California and other high-growth regions, such as Arizona, Nevada, Florida and pockets of the Washington region, most notably in Prince William and Prince George’s counties.

The recession has made it tougher for people to pay their mortgages, and crashing home prices have left many borrowers underwater, unable to sell or refinance their way out of trouble. One of every five mortgage holders now has a home worth less than the mortgage on it, according to First American CoreLogic, a firm that tracks mortgages and provided data for The Post’s analysis.

Of the 20 Zip codes with the highest share of underwater loans, seven are in California and four are in Riverside County, the vast exurb southeast of Los Angeles where the Bohnens live. Riverside’s unemployment rate has zoomed to 10 percent, well above the national average of 7.2 percent. About 94,200 people in the county are looking for work, many of them formerly employed in the real estate, banking and construction industries, according to the county’s economic development agency.

I’ve previously mentioned Option ARM and Alt A mortgages as the greater wave tsunami of foreclosures pending. Conceivably, political leaders are aware that this new wave will crest in the next 30 months and maybe they’ll take steps in advance this time to divert it from dropping our economy far below where it currently slumps.

Unless they aren’t aware.

Yep, after spending a couple of trillion in bailout funds, it’s likely many lawmakers still don’t have a clue that there’s a bigger trainwreck ahead.

They can cite anecdotes about welfare queens and families that can become too dependent on the state. They can make minimum wage earners wait a decade for a raise in their paltry incomes, just because lobbyists tell them to. But while keeping the poor away from a miserly increase, they can steamshovel hundreds of billions out to businesses that were misled by people and boards that now prove stupid or corrupt.

Not many extreme capitalists like to have these facts exposed because it gets in the way of their game.

Excuse me now; I have to go outsource your job to Indonesia.