Today we’re going to take a break in our series on alternative energy.  I want to go back to June 25 when I wrote on this blog:

“we are facing a ‘ticking time bomb.’ Why?  Because some $1.3 trillion in mortgage loans to commercial properties will come due between now and 2013.”

Now, two months later, Investor’s Business Daily is making the same warning:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=335660380569943

Many people see the recent uptick in the stock market as proof that the economy is coming back.  But listen to what IBD warns:

“But is this daylight at the end of the tunnel or the beam of an oncoming locomotive of commercial real estate insolvency coming down the tracks on a collision course with a shaky economy?”

I’m afraid it still looks like a train from where I am.

The article notes that: “Commercial real estate (CRE), valued at $3.5 trillion in the U.S., has experienced a 39% decline in prices from the peak only two years ago, according to the MIT Center for Real Estate.”

So hold onto your wallets.  We’re not out of the economic woods just yet.  In fact, things might get worse before they get better.