A desperate slashing of interest rates may ease some of the nation’s economic jitters but may not be enough to stave off recession. It also probably won’t provide an immediate fix for a deepening foreclosure crisis that has moved into uncharted territory in California, the Sacramento Bee reports.

As the Federal Reserve announced a key interest-rate cut of three-quarters of a point Tuesday, new statistics showed that foreclosures and defaults during the fourth quarter of 2007 were the highest ever recorded in California. One analyst said it’s likely that foreclosures will continue to climb.

DataQuick Information Systems Inc. said foreclosures in California jumped to 31,676 in the quarter, the most since DataQuick began tracking those numbers in 1988. For the whole year, foreclosures rose sevenfold, to a total of 84,375.

The increase was nearly as bad in the eight-county Sacramento region, where 10,049 homeowners lost their properties to lenders over the course of the year.

Perhaps more troubling was the continued rise in notices of default, issued by lenders after homeowners miss two or three mortgage payments. Defaults often lead to foreclosures.

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