Economics

Well, apart from those in the illegal drug business themselves, who benefit from the lack of legal competition, it looks like the big winners are government contractors–DynCorp and now Blackwater. Mark (2008-06-16): According to NPR today, various police departments in Texas are profiting very nicely from the war on drugs. Lippard (2008-06-16): Yep, good point--I didn't even make passing reference to the abuse of civil forfeiture in the war on drugs.It's not just Texas! ...

Will Wilkinson gives a long quotation from an argument by Milton Friedman, along with some explication. The basic argument is that free immigration to jobs is a good thing, free immigration to welfare is a bad thing, and in the absence of a separation between legal residency and eligibility for welfare, the best result is achieved by encouraging more illegal immigration: But the important takeaway here is this: Friedman’s view is that a certain kind of unrestricted welfare state makes illegal immigration good, because it severs residency from welfare eligibility. Friedman is unequivocal about the desirability of free migration. Anyone really committed to Friedman’s stated view about welfare and immigration should by no means try to restrict immigration, but instead should try to enable illegal immigration. A devout Friedmanite should stand stoutly against every fence, every border cop, every increase in the INS budget, any proposed database check for a new workers’ legal status, etc. I think it makes more sense to argue first for a guest worker program. But if that is in fact impossible, then Friedman has it right: more illegal immigration is the best we can do.See the fuller discussion at Will Wilkinson’s blog. UPDATE (June 13, 2008): And, of related interest, a discussion of how the benefits of remittances are really the benefits of labor migration, and how Switzerland, despite being difficult to immigrate to, has the highest percentage of foreign-born in its population of any OECD country, also both from Will Wilkinson. The latter provides further evidence for the logical separability of citizenship, residency, work rights, and welfare eligibility. ...

Last night I attended an event at which one of the attendees promoted “Zeitgeist: The Movie.” I was prompted to finally watch this piece of pernicious nonsense back in January when a commenter at this blog made reference to it, and I forced myself to sit through the whole thing. The movie is in three segments–the first is on the origins of Christianity, in which it argues that Jesus was a myth derived from Egyptian myth, based on the work of Acharya S. The second is 9/11 conspiracy theory. The third is an argument that the U.S. Federal Reserve is a scam. It’s almost entirely garbage, dependent on crackpot sources. I posted a series of comments about the movie as I watched it, but I’ll summarize those here and add a bit more. The first part argues that Christianity is derived from Egyptian myth, primarily by pointing out parallels between them. The arguments are apparently derived from the self-published “The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold” by Acharya S (Dorothy M. Murdock) and perhaps also from Tom Harpur’s The Pagan Christ, both works of pseudoscholarship based on the work of other pseudoscholars like 18th century archaeologist Godfrey Higgins, 19th century amateur Egyptologist and poet Gerald Massey, and Alvin Boyd Kuhn, a high school language teacher and promoter of Theosophy) and entirely ignores actual work in Egyptology. For example, the film draws a list of comparisons between Horus and Jesus that is just fabricated–Horus wasn’t born of a virgin, he was the child of Isis and Osiris, though Isis was impregnated by Osiris through some magic after he was dead. There have been parallels drawn between Isis and Mary that are more plausible (especially in iconography), but the movie exaggerates them, too, and fails to note the considerable areas of dissimilarity. A quick look at the Wikipedia entries on Horus and Isis is sufficient to show that the comparison is strained. The significance of a December 25 birthdate is nonexistent–Christianity did acquire attributes of pagan religions later in its history, and it has clearly been a syncretistic religion, but while this is evidence of falsehood in Christian traditions, it is not a clue to its origin. For accurate information about Christianity and the formation of the Christian tradition, virtually any mainstream academic work will be more reliable. There has been a lot discovered since the work of 19th century Theosophists, both in the form of document manuscripts and archaeology, that sheds light on the early history of Christianity. In discussions at the James Randi Educational Foundation Forums, poster GreNME wrote: ...

After I counted up May’s 6416 notices of trustee’s sales in Maricopa county I took a look at the graph for May of 2007 and I just had to laugh. If you’ll recall, May of 2007 was Phoenix’s break-out month for pre-foreclosures. It was the month when the real estate bubble showed us that it wasn’t an also-ran, trouncing the dot bomb’s NTR record by almost 300. Yet here we are a year later and last May’s 2009 notices seem almost like something to pine for. Notice also the Gaussian descriptive statistics I was naïvely including with my posts back then. If we were to take those number seriously - in particular the standard deviation - then we’d be forced to conclude that May 2008’s number should essentially be impossible. Clearly foreclosure statistics are not Gaussian. <img style=“display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;” src="/images/08MayNTR.jpg" border=“0” alt=“Click for large version"id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209193472323903762” />

Will Wilkinson has an interesting post about how his market liberal views are very like the views of Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan, and that the libertarian-conservative alliance against a slippery slope to socialism isn’t justified by what’s actually occurring in the world today. In a subsequent post, he writes about how economic regulation and tax/transfer policies are logically separable, but most people think about them as if they aren’t; a comparison of levels of inequality and poverty across the EU shows that the common thought that less regulation and taxation goes hand-in-hand with higher levels of poverty and inequality (of the sort seen in the U.S. and UK) doesn’t hold. Thus you could have a regime with very low levels of regulation yielding more wealth, combined with more redistribution for a better safety net and less poverty and inequality. And in another post, he calls for greater empirical grounding for proposals in political philosophy, of the sort that has started to yield fruitful results in moral philosophy: But shouldn’t it impossible to take seriously an argument to the effect that, say this or that policy is required in order to secure the conditions for the development of some capacity, in the absence of (a) a well-empirically-grounded theory of the nature of that capacity and its development, and (b) some kind of actual evidence that this or that policy in fact has the kind of effect on it that one hypothesizes? I wouldn’t mind so much if political philosophy arguments were more often in the form of “Hey, here’s a conjecture! I suggest somebody competent to do so try to find out if it’s true.” I would be quite happy if I saw more “Hey, here’s a conjecture, and here’s a my attempt to honestly synthesize the relevant literature in a first pass at getting the answer.” That would be terrific. But usually, the argument aims to establish something substantive with an armchair, a Joe Stiglitz op-ed, and something remembered from the Tuesday Science Times.Let’s hear it for empiricism.

On May 8, 2008, “An end to the economy’s nose dive?", MSN MoneyCentral, Jon Markman suggests that the recession may be over or not a big deal for major company stocks: “If Hyman is right, and StockScouter continues to highlight the right sectors and stocks to play, there is no reason for investors to fear the pressures facing big companies right now. It really may be time to go off high alert."But just two months ago, Markman was saying that you should sell every stock you own and get out of the market, on March 13, 2008, in “Sell stocks while the selling’s good”: “Yet veteran observers are swiftly coming to the conclusion that attempts to regain world financial stability could be doomed due to a stunning crash of commercial-debt financing and lack of trusted leadership, and they now believe private investors should take advantage of any rallies to purge their portfolios of most stocks and nongovernment bonds."My advice: Don’t take stock market advice from Jon Markman. The fact that he’s a “technical analyst”–making predictions based on short-term patterns of stock movement using methodology that has no better support than astrology, tea-leaf reading, or palmistry–is further reason to avoid reading him for any reason other than humor value.

The Arizona Republic reports today that Arizona State University’s director of real estate studies at the Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness has been presenting an unrealistically rosy picture of home resales in Maricopa County by including trustee sales as resales. Trustee’s sales are when banks take possession of a property from a borrower in default. As readers of this blog are aware, trustee’s sales have been going through the roof–Einzige has been reporting notices of trustee’s sales, issued when borrowers fall 90 days past due on their mortgages. The most recent such report was for April. By including trustee’s sales, Butler’s numbers showed home resales up 15 percent in April 2008, year over year, the first uptick for year-over-year resales since July 2005. The Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, on the other hand, showed a 12 percent decrease. Apparently Butler failed to notice–or didn’t see the point in telling–that over a third of his reported resales were trustee’s sales (2,025 of 5,585). The corrected number for actual sales was 3,565 (lower than ARMLS’s number of 4,874). Compare that to April’s notices of trustee’s sales–6,184–and you see the the immediate future prospects are bleak, not rosy. Homes are going on the resale market much faster than they are selling, which means further inventory growth and home prices have farther to fall. Butler has agreed that he made a mistake and will report trustee’s sales separately from now on.

<img style=“display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;” src="/images/08AprNTR.jpg" border=“0” alt=““id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5196577505470399650” />Based on this chart, Ray Kurzweil would undoubtedly predict that in late 2009 or early 2010, Maricopa County will reach its foreclosure singularity - the moment at which all homes will simultaneously be served notices of foreclosure and beyond which it is impossible to predict what will happen. April’s 6184 notices were yet another unprecedented high. Historical Comments Michael Norton (2008-05-05): Perhaps Doug Adams would call it the "trustee sale event horizon"? ...

Click the image for the facts that “Expelled” doesn’t give you. This post is a placeholder to report on “Expelled”’s weekend box office and the accuracy of my five predictions about the film, as well as a few more I’ll add here. My five predictions were that “Expelled” will: (1) be on fewer than 800 screens, (2) will have an initial weekend box office of less than $2 million, with (3) a per-screen take of less than $2,500, (4) won’t break the top ten despite it being a slow opening week, and (5) will make less than $10 million in box office take by the end of 2008 (though it may make more than that through DVD sales).Prediction (1) is already falsified, since it’s opening in 1,052 theaters. Prediction (4) may well be wrong due to how weak this weekend is for new films–it’s pretty clear that #1 and #2 will be “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “The Forbidden Kingdom.” Al Pacino’s “88 Minutes” is also opening in many theaters and has the draw of its star, but it’s getting terrible reviews. C.S. Strowbridge at The-Numbers estimates that “Expelled” will only need a $3 million opening weekend to make the top ten, so my predictions are at least consistent with each other. Looking at the list of top Christian films below, I see that the most recent “Veggie Tales” movie, “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything,” came in at number 6 in January 2008 with an opening weekend of $4.2 million on 1,337 screens. I doubt that “Expelled” will do that well, though I expect (6) it will break the top ten in the Christian films category, probably about to the eighth position. Looking at controversial films, however, I think it’s unlikely to make the top twenty–(7) it will probably end up around 22nd at best, beating “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Documentaries are a bit easier, and it could very well make the top ten, but (8) I wouldn’t expect it to get above the seventh slot. Finally, (9) I expect to see its theater counts drop rapidly starting next week, losing at least 500 theaters by next Friday as its audience sees the film and more popular entries displace it in the new week. UPDATE (April 19, 2008): I expect that predictions (2) and (4) may be falsified; a weekend take of $3-4 million looks likely after Friday’s estimated take of $1,126,000 and its coming in at #8 on Friday. #1-#7 ahead of “Expelled” were: “The Forbidden Kingdom,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Prom Night,” “88 Minutes,” “21,” “Nim’s Island,” and “Street Kings.” Prediction (3) looks like it will easily be proven correct; “Expelled” earned $1,070 per-theater on Friday, making it #5 for per-theater take. UPDATE (April 20, 2008): Prediction (2) has been falsified as the current estimated box office take is $3,152,896. Prediction (4) looks like it will be falsified, with “Expelled” barely cracking the top ten–it has been passed by “Horton Hears a Who” and looks like it will be #9 for the weekend. Prediction (3) looks like it will be false, too, though in my defense I intended to predict a per-screen daily average take rather than a per-theater take for the entire weekend. Saturday’s take was $941/theater, versus Friday’s $1,145, and Sunday looks like it will be lower still (projected to be $911/theater). UPDATE (April 21, 2008): “Expelled”’s weekend take has been revised downward from the estimate, to $2,970,848, or $2,824 per-theater. So my prediction (3), taken the way I said it rather than meant it, was not wrong by much. It also came in at #10 for the weekend (#9 was Leatherheads), so prediction (4) was falsified in the most minimal way possible. Predictions (5)-(9) appear to be on solid ground. Sunday’s take was only $737/theater, and it’s all downhill from here. UPDATE (April 24, 2008): The-Numbers has posted its list of theater counts for the weekend of April 25, 2008, and “Expelled” isn’t on the list. I’d guess this means they just don’t have the information yet, rather than that it’s not appearing in any theater (since none of last week’s openers and only one of this weekend’s openers are yet listed), but we’ll soon find out if my prediction (9) is correct and it is down to 552 or fewer theaters. (If Arizona is an indication, the drop may not occur until next week.) Box Office Mojo is now reporting “Expelled”’s theater count at 1,041 for its second weekend, a drop of 11 theaters, which falsifies prediction (9). It looks like it’s not common for a huge drop in theater counts to occur in the first week, so this was probably a dumb prediction unless the movie was a total bomb, which it hasn’t been. I think a 500-theater drop is much more likely for next week, however–call that prediction (10). For this weekend, I suspect we’ll see each day’s average take in the $500-$700 per-theater range, or $500,000-$700,000 total per day; probably closer to the low end, and thus ending the weekend with a total take of between $5.4M and $6M, and leaving prediction (5) accurate unless it turns out to be popular internationally. It will also probably drop out of the top ten starting today. UPDATE (April 26, 2008): “Expelled” began its second weekend with (The-Numbers’ estimate) a $505,000 take ($485/theater) on Friday, even lower than I guessed yesterday. Box Office Mojo’s estimate is even lower: $450,000 ($432/theater). UPDATE (April 27, 2008): The second weekend’s estimated take is $1,378,867 ($1,325/theater, The-Numbers) or $1,379,000 ($1,324/theater, Box Office Mojo), which will put the total at about $5.2M, below the lower end of my guess on Thursday, with a total of about $5.2M. UPDATE (April 28, 2008): The weekend’s estimated take is now $1,395,000 ($1340/theater), with “Expelled” ranked at #13, according to Box Office Mojo. Looks like it followed the more normal pattern with a Saturday peak ($529,000) and less on Friday ($452,000; The-Numbers estimates $505,000 for Friday) and Sunday ($414,000), all still estimates. Today will probably drop well below $200,000. UPDATE (April 29, 2008): Monday’s take was $157,191 ($151/theater), though the rank went up to #12. UPDATE (May 2, 2008): “Expelled” is staying around longer than I would have imagined, but it has now dropped 386 theaters to 655, and its daily box office take will suffer accordingly. It looks like “Expelled” is going to end up doing about the same amount business as “Megiddo: The Omega Code 2,” and not as well as “The End of the Spear,” two Christian movies that were previously distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures. Prediction (5) looks dead on (less than $10 million in box office by the end of 2008); prediction (6) looks like it was too generous (“Expelled” should easily break into the top ten on Christian films, but it now looks unlikely to reach #9, let alone #8); prediction (7) also looks too generous (hitting #22 on the “controversial” film list; #23 or #24 looks more likely, though Box Office Mojo has decided not to list “Expelled” in that category at all); prediction (8) is easy at this point (it won’t reach #7 on the documentary list; it looks like even breaking into the top 10 is out of reach). So my prediction accuracy was about as good as coin flipping. I was way off on theater count-related predictions, but more accurate on revenue and rank-related predictions. But enough about those predictions. I’ll continue to update this post with the data until it drops completely out of the theaters. Some websites for statistics: “Expelled” box office numbers and rating at The-Numbers: 4/19/2008: “Expelled” came in at #8 for Friday, with an estimated box office take of $1,126,000, and a per-theater take of $1,070 (ranked #5). The-Numbers rating: 3.75/10 (16 votes; 25% rated it 10 and 62.5% rated it 1). 4/20/2008: “Expelled” has dropped to #9 for the weekend, with an estimated box office take of $3,152,896 for the whole weekend, and a per-theater take of $2,997. 4/22/2008: The-Numbers gives different numbers than Box Office Mojo, though their weekend totals agree: Friday: $1,126,000 ($1070/theater), Saturday: $967,000 ($919/theater), Sunday: $878,000 ($835/theater), for an opening weekend total of $2,970,848 ($2,824/theater). Monday: $238,804 ($227/theater). 04/23/2008: Tuesday, April 22: $227,232 ($216/theater). Total: $3,436,884. 04/25/2008: Wednesday, April 23: $234,596 ($223). Thursday, April 24: $231,440 ($220). Friday, April 25: $505,000 ($485), ranked #13. Total: $4,408,000. 4/30/2008: Still no numbers for Saturday or Sunday. Monday, April 28: $157,191 ($151). 5/1/2008: Tuesday, April 29: $162,396 ($156). Wednesday, April 30: $159,273 ($153). 5/2/2008: Thursday, May 1: $158,232 ($152). 5/5/2008: May 2-4 weekend: $683,552 ($1,042/theater). 5/6/2008: Monday, May 5: $66,912 ($102/theater). 5/8/2008: Tuesday, May 6: $74,128 ($113), Wednesday, May 7: $73,472 ($112). 5/9/2008: Thursday, May 8: $78,720 ($120). Total: $6,906,488. 5/12/2008: Friday, May 9-Sunday, May 11: $328,836 ($818). Total: $7,235,324. 5/14/2008: Monday, May 12: $38,994 ($97); Tuesday, May 13: $35,778 ($89). 5/16/2008: Wednesday, May 14: $43,818 ($109), Thursday, May 15: $43,014 ($107). 5/28/2008: Monday, May 26: $16,019 ($193). Total: $7,598,071. Theater counts at The-Numbers: 4/18/2008: 1,052 4/25/2008: 1,041 5/2/2008: 656 5/9/2008: 402 5/16/2008: 210 5/23/2008: 83 “Expelled” ratings at Rotten Tomatoes: 4/18/2008 7:54 a.m. MST: 8% fresh (12 reviews, 11 rotten, 2.9/10 rating) 4/18/2008 11:48 a.m. MST: 7% fresh (14 reviews, 13 rotten, 2.9/10 rating) 4/18/2008 1:35 p.m. MST: 5% fresh (21 reviews, 20 rotten, 2.8/10 rating) 4/18/2008 2:56 p.m. MST: 9% fresh (22 reviews, 20 rotten, 3/10 rating) (Christianity Today review added) 4/19/2008 4:15 p.m. MST: 9% fresh (23 reviews, 21 rotten, 3/10 rating) 4/22/2008 6:23 p.m. MST: 12% fresh (25 reviews, 22 rotten, 3.2/10 rating) 4/24/2008 4:39 p.m. MST: 10% fresh (30 reviews, 27 rotten, 2.9/10 rating) 4/292008 8:08 a.m. MST: 9% fresh (33 reviews, 30 rotten, 3/10 rating) Top Critics: 0% fresh (13 reviews, 13 rotten, 2.6/10 rating) RT Community rating: 50% fresh (377 reviews, 188 rotten, 4.8/10 rating) “Expelled” ratings at IMDB: 4/19/2008 4:15 p.m. MST: Average rating is 3.3/10 with 402 very polarized votes–81 (20.1%) rated the movie a 10, 276 (68.7%) rated it a 1. Females like it more than males, and those under 18 and over 45 like it more than those in between. Average rating for males: 3.1 Average rating for females: 6.3 Average rating for under 18-year-olds: 6.7 (male 6.7, female 10) Average rating for 18-29 year-olds: 3.0 (male 2.5, female 7.7) Average rating for 30-44 year-olds: 3.0 (male 3.1, female 2.0) Average rating for 45+: 4.7 (male 4.5, female 5.5) 4/21/2008 10:36 a.m. MST: Average rating is now 3.6/10 with 659 votes, still highly polarized (22.2% 10, 61.0% 1), but now with a few more 7, 8, and 9 ratings (2.4%, 4.2%, and 4.7%, respectively), and a few more 2 and 3 ratings (2.1% and 1.2%, respectively). Average rating for males: 3.3 Average rating for females: 6.7 Average rating for under 18-year-olds: 6.5 (male 6.3, female 7.8) Average rating for 18-29 year-olds: 3.4 (male 3.0, female 7.7) Average rating for 30-44 year-olds: 3.3 (male 3.3, female 2.4) Average rating for 45+: 4.1 (male 4.0, female 7.7) 4/24/2008 4:41 p.m. MST: Average rating is now 3.6/10 with 2,332 votes (25.4% 10, 57.0% 1; 5.1% 9, 4.0% 8, 2.0% 7, 1.5% 3, 3.1% 2). Average rating for males: 3.4 Average rating for females: 5.4 Average rating for under 18-year-olds: 6.0 (male 5.5, female 7.9) Average rating for 18-29 year-olds: 3.2 (male 3.0, female 5.5) Average rating for 30-44 year-olds: 3.6 (male 3.6, female 3.4) Average rating for 45+: 4.6 (male 4.4, female 6.7) Expelled box office and ratings at Box Office Mojo: 4/19/2008 9:54 a.m. MST: Box Office Mojo readers rate the movie a B, with 110 votes (66.4% A, 3.6% B, 28.2% F). 4/20/2008 12:21 p.m. MST: “Expelled” took in less money on Saturday than on Friday–$990,000, or $941 per theater. Sunday’s projected take is $958,000. 4/21/2008 5:07 p.m. MST: The opening weekend box office take was $2,970,848, a per-theater average of $2,824. Sunday brought in only $775,000, or $737 per theater. 4/22/2008 6:25 p.m. MST: Monday’s box office take was $238,804, another 68.8% drop in daily gross, for a per-theater average of $227. Total take is now $3,209,652. Friday-Sunday have been updated: Friday: $1,208,748 ($1,149), Saturday: $996,244 ($947), Sunday: $765,856 ($728). The weekend total agrees with The-Numbers, but the daily totals do not. 4/23/2008 2:01 p.m. MST: Tuesday: $227,232 ($216); Wednesday: $234,596 ($223). Six-day total: $3,671,480. 4/24/2008 3:04 p.m. MST: Thursday: $231,440 ($220). Seven-day total: $3,902,920. 4/25/2008 6:56 p.m. MST: Friday: $450,000 ($432) (estimate), rank #13. Seven-day total: $4,353,000. 4/30/2008 1:58 p.m. MST: Saturday: $529,000 ($508), Sunday: $414,000 ($398), Monday: $157,191 ($151), Tuesday: $162,396 ($156). Weekend numbers are all still estimates. 5/2/2008 7:04 p.m. MST: Wednesday: $159,273 ($153), Thursday: $158,232 ($152). 5/5/2008 9:20 a.m. PDT: May 2-4 weekend: $684,000 ($1,042). 5/6/2008 7:40 p.m. PDT: Friday, May 2: $216,480 ($330), Saturday, May 3: $270,272 ($412), Sunday, May 4: $191,552 ($292), Monday, May 5: $66,912 ($102), ranked #15. Total: $6,680,168. 5/7/2008 7:53 p.m. PDT: Tuesday, May 6: $74,128 ($113). 5/8/2008 8:29 p.m. PDT: Wednesday, May 7: $73,472 ($112). 5/9/2008 5:17 p.m. PDT: Thursday, May 8: $78,720 ($120). 5/11/2008 4:01 p.m. MST: May 9-11 weekend: $328,836 ($818), in 402 theaters, ranked #21. 5/12/2008 7:39 p.m. MST: Friday, May 9: $100,902 ($251); Saturday, May 10: $120,600 ($300); Sunday, May 11: $107,334 ($267). Total: $7,235,324. 5/13/2008 3:55 p.m. MST: Monday, May 12: $38,994 ($97). 5/14/2008 8:04 p.m. MST: Tuesday, May 13: $35,778 ($89). 5/16/2008 7:40 p.m. MST: Wednesday, May 14: $43,818 ($109); Thursday, May 15: $43,014 ($107). Total: $7,396,927. 5/18/2008 6:13 p.m.: May 16-18 weekend estimate: $89,000 ($423) in 210 theaters. 5/21/2008 11:14 a.m. MST: May 16-18 weekend: $102,690 ($489). Total: $7,499,617. 5/28/2008 12:38 p.m. MST: May 23-26 four-day weekend: $46,314 ($558). (May 23-25: $35,109 ($423).) Total: $7,598,071. All-time top box office for documentaries at Box Office Mojo. All-time top box office for controversial films at Box Office Mojo. All-time top box office for Christian films at Box Office Mojo. ...

Last November, I reported that year-over-year foreclosure rates had doubled and Arizona ranked #7 in the nation for foreclosures. Reuters reports that national foreclosure filings have gone up another 57% for the twelve-month period ending in March 2008. Arizona has been in fourth place for each of the first three months of 2008, despite foreclosures falling by 5% in March, and remains at the #7 position for overall number of foreclosures. The twelve-month total foreclosure rankings: 1. California 2. Florida 3. Ohio 4. Georgia 5. Texas 6. Michigan 7. Arizona 8. Illinois 9. Nevada 10. Colorado The March 2008 foreclosure rankings: 1. Nevada (1 in 139 homes) 2. California (1 in 204 homes) 3. Florida (1 in 282 homes) 4. Arizona (1 in 283 homes) 5. Colorado (1 in 339 homes) 6. Georgia (1 in 351 homes) 7. Ohio (1 in 448 homes) 8. Michigan (1 in 475 homes) 9. Massachusetts (1 in 486 homes) 10. Maryland (1 in 538 homes)