RISK MANAGEMENT. The bad mortgage outbreak is concentrated in a few states.

More than half of the nation's foreclosures last year took place in 35 counties, a sign that the financial crisis devastating the national economy may have begun with collapsing home loans in only a few corners of the country.

Those corners are notorious subsidy recipients.

A few of the 35 counties leading the foreclosure boom are in already-distressed areas around Detroit and Cleveland. But most are clustered in places such as Southern California, Las Vegas, Phoenix, South Florida and Washington, where home values shot up dramatically in the first half of the decade, then began to crumble.

Let us count the ways: subsidized water projects protecting southwesterners from any reason to conserve water, or not develop a desert in the first place; generous public pensions that make retirement to sunny places feasible; years of protectionism for heavy industries.

The knock-on effects will be widespread.

The Obama administration on Wednesday detailed a $75 billion plan to keep more homeowners from slipping into foreclosure by helping them refinance loans or reduce their monthly payments. But that effort could face political challenges because most of the foreclosure problem has been so concentrated in a few areas, says Brookings Institution researcher Alan Mallach.

Perhaps public awareness that a few are attempting to use the state as an attempt to live at the expense of many informs those tea party protests.