With articles like this coming out of Time magazine, it is inevitable that in the immediate future, the United States will be split into two partisan camps. However, this will not be the traditional schism of republicans vs. democrats, contrary to Mr. Barney Frank's attempt to start ideological partisan warfare. The real split will be of naive, easily-manipulated, small-time mom and pop investors, who only care about looking at their daily yahoo finance screens and 401(k) statements, seeing more black than red, and only focusing on what happened in the immediate past, and the forward looking taxpayers, who see the upcoming budget deficit fiasco, the social security ponzi scheme, the Medicare/Medicaid debacle, the ridiculous underfunding in public and corporate pension funds, the rising state taxes, the shuttering factories, the rising unemployment, the plummeting American production base, the "seasonally" upward-adjusted economic data coupled with consistently downward revised prior economic releases, the increasing savings rate and the multi trillion discrepancy in consumer purchasing power. The taxpayers are becoming angrier and angrier at the net present value destruction of future opportunities of being a U.S. citizen, while investors cheer every piece of information (whether or not supported by facts) that provides a push to their current net worth, ignorant of what this may mean for the future. There will come a point where this schism reaches a boiling point, in the meantime, the paradox is that so many of the taxpayers are also investors, who are caught in a tug of war with themselves on what the proper response to the crisis should be: happy as a result of bear market rallies, or sad when they put the facts into perspective.

Speaking of facts, Time contributing author Douglas McIntyre, may have considered presenting some to justify his thesis that the "the great banking crisis of 2008 is over." Pointless regurgitation of secondary viewpoints serves no purpose in the mainstream media, especially not in formerly reputable mainstream media such as Time (Zero Hedge's subscription is running out with no plans for renewal). It is even worse when the MSM represents as "facts" the disinformation by banks, who claim that the downward inflection point has been reached and ignore the full context: a much weaker mark-to-market methodology, the FDIC and SEC aiding and abetting wholesale "pennies on the dollar" blue light specials of bankrupt banks such as Wachovia and Washington Mutual, taxpayer funnels such as AIG being used to pad the top and bottom line, a financial system balance sheet which has over 70% of its assets guaranteed by the Fed and the Treasury, and lastly, a spike in commercial real estate deterioration to unprecedented levels. Mr. McIntyre's article is childish and unsubstantiated to the point of generating derisive laughter from his readers. Then again, a casual glance of his self-description in Seeking Alpha is enough to put his opinion into perspective: Mr. McIntyre "knows technology cold, has a sharp understanding of what's priced-in to (sic) stocks, and writes extremely well (as you'd expect)." How a self-ascribed technology specialist (who writes "so well" that he makes grammatical mistakes in the very same sentence making that claim) ends up stating "the financial crisis is over" is beyond Zero Hedge's meager attempts at comprehension. What Zero Hedge is not beyond, however, is presenting the facts and not perpetuating the disinformation fallacy.

The cold facts - "When you stare at the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."

Why is everyone so afraid to stare at the proverbial abyss? Readers of Zero Hedge know all too well, about my fascination with the economic fundamentals, and my desire to expose the real abyss in all its deep glory.

I dare anyone: McIntyre, Kudlow, Geithner, Obama, to look at the chart below and tell me we are in a V shaped recession. Yes, ISM may be bottoming (at record low levels which is not indicative of much), and unemployment may soon be bottoming (it has not, yet somehow the market believes it is just a matter of time), however one look at the chart of accelerating commercial real estate delinquencies and what they mean for the multi-trillion commercial real estate market should stop any V-recovery fans dead in their tracks.

I will present some more factual glances of the abyss, compliments to the good folk at Realpoint.

Through the February 2009 reporting period, the delinquent unpaid balance for CMBS increased by a substantial $1.2 billion, up to a trailing 12-month high of $11.99 billion. Overall, the delinquent unpaid balance grew for the sixth straight month, up over 244% from one-year ago (only $3.48 billion in February 2008) and now over five times the low point of $2.21 billion in March of 2007. While a slight decline was noted in the 30-day and 60-day delinquent loan categories, the distressed 90+-day, Foreclosure and REO categories grew for the 15th straight month – up over 216% in the past year. This increase took place despite another $53.9 million in loan workouts and liquidations reported for February 2009 across 20 loans. Ten of these loans at $19.1 million, however, experienced a loss severity near or below 1%, most likely related to workout fees, while the remaining 10 loans at $34.8 million experienced an average loss severity near 46%. As additional pressures are placed on special servicers to maximize returns in today’s market, loss severities are expected to increase while liquidation activity is expected to slow further as fewer transactions occur. This would be the result of reduced or distressed asset pricing, lower availability of funds, and increased extensions of balloon defaults through the end of 2009 and into 2010.

The total unpaid balance for all CMBS pools under review by Realpoint was $837.78 billion in February 2009, down from $842.8 billion in January.