Economics 101 With Boston Daily

We here at Boston Daily aren’t great financial wizards. Nor are we particularly great at math. (Our strengths are listening and making you laugh.)

But we heard some economic news today that even we know is really bad.

The Warren Group released figures today on the number of foreclosures in Massachusetts. As financial types would say, they are sobering.

According to the Warren Group, there were 7,653 foreclosure deeds in 2007, up 148 percent from the 3,086 in 2006, and up 600 percent from 1,092 in 2005, and during the month of December, deeds rose 136.3 percent to 683 from the 289 filed in December 2006.

There are a lot of big numbers in that sentence, so let’s break out the important ones. In the past year, foreclosures increased by 148 percent. Since 2005, foreclosures have increased 600 percent.

We don’t think we’ve seen anything increase by 600 percent. Sure, we’ve had those little sponges that grow dramatically and occasionally we get 50 percent free bottles of beauty products. But a 600 percent increase in foreclosures?

But don’t worry too much. BostonNOW says the economy will probably be fine locally. And if any publication is a bastion of accuracy, it’s BostonNOW.