Mark Whitehouse writes at the Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics Blog July 3:

355,000: The number of people who defaulted on their mortgages in the first half of 2009, even though they could pay.

To the various clouds gathering over the economic recovery, add a new one: The U.S. will eventually run out of people willing to walk away from their mortgages.

Throughout the recovery, the economy has received a boost from an unlikely source: So-called strategic defaulters, who renege on their mortgages even though they can pay. The practice raises moral questions, can be tough on families, precipitates losses for banks and adds to the country’s growing stockpile of foreclosed homes. But it also frees up a lot of cash that the defaulters can spend on other things, adding to the consumer spending that tends to account for the lion’s share of economic growth.

To read more, click this link: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/07/03/number-of-the-week-could-walk-away-stimulus-be-waning/