Studies keep showing what we have known for a long time: Fighting foreclosures is a futile — and counter-productive — use of resources. New studies by John Burns Real Estate Consulting and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services conclude that loan mod efforts only serve to delay the inevitable, resulting in future foreclosures. The credit bubble allowed home buyers to get in over their heads, to buy more house than they could afford. Once prices came down and the refi pipeline closed down, it was game over for many of these buyers.