An underwater home mortgage doesn't offer have options, but new federal programs can offer some flexibility. Flickr photo.

Nationwide, CNN reports that about one in four home mortgages are underwater. An incredible 25 percent of borrowers owe more than their houses are worth. The Federal government has been trying to stop the bleeding with many new financing programs. There’s always mortgage loan restructuring, but what if you just want to get out of the house instead of sinking money into it?

Caught in a mortgage bubble

Many families who financed a mortgage a few years ago, before the real estate bubble burst, had double incomes from good jobs. A high monthly payment on an adjustable rate mortgage seemed affordable at the time, especially if refinancing later would result in an appraisal worth more than the selling price of the home. But the real estate bubble did burst, and prices have fallen an average of 26 percent nationwide. About 10 million people lost their jobs.

New federal refinancing program

With a home mortgage underwater and lower income, mortgage loan restructuring may be better than selling for a loss, even if you could close a deal. Moody’s economy.com reports that prices in 61 percent of American cities won’t return to pre-recession levels until 2015. But a new federal program that refinances existing loans into smaller FHA loans could lower monthly payments. People who haven’t fallen behind on payments can qualify — if their lenders say it’s OK.

Shortsale or foreclosure?

Free advice about underwater home mortgages is available at makinghomesaffordable.com. If a property does undergo a short sale, this website may be able to learn whether or not the lender can come after you for the difference down the road. An expert can also show you how to make sure that a short sale doesn’t damage your credit like a foreclosure would. Foreclosure should always be a last resort because it stays on your credit report for seven years.

Another option for an underwater home mortgage is to make a case to your lender that you are so broke you could just walk away. A cleaner option may be to ask your lender for a short sale, in which it would accept less than the loan amount. A breed of real estate agent called a distressed property specialist makes a living twisting the arms of reluctant bankers.

If you're looking for a pop quiz fix, should you visit Sporkle or Sporcle? Image from Flickr.

So, you’re looking for somewhere online to spend some time – so should you be spending that time on Sporkle or Sporcle? Yes, Sporkle and Sporcle are different websites, and while they will both very effectively eat up time, they are far from the same. While you’re waiting a few minutes for your online payday loans application to go through, which one should you visit? Sporkle offers free games for web play and downloading. Sporcle, on the other hand, is quiz central.

Sporkle online games

Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, Sporkle is a “one stop online entertainment service.” The Sporkle website has addicting games like SugarRush and Mad Lab Cow as well as familiar-looking games such as the Tetris-like “Tris.” Several multiplayer games allow you to compete with others. Sporkle also offers two downloadable games that can be played online or offline. Finally, Sporkle has “Drawback,” an online drawing and painting program where anyone can save drawings and send them to someone else. In short, Sporkle lets you play games and draw things – all for free. Owned by Space Time Foam, a company that was founded in April of 2008, Sporkle serves as the portfolio and front for game-development and web site development services.

Sporcle online quizzes

In contrast to Sporkle, Sporcle is a trivia and quiz website that has been around since July of 2007. Sporcle gives users a set time limit and a set of questions to answer – your basic quiz-show format. With 15 categories and more than 3,000 quizzes, Sporcle is very popular among trivia lovers and students. Unlike Sporkle, Sporcle is available as a standalone iPhone app. Sporcle also allows users to create their own quizzes – although they are edited by the Sporcle crew.

Sporkle or Sporcle?

So which site should you use – Sporkle or Sporcle? The answer really depends on what type of time-eating entertainment you are looking for. After extensive testing while waiting on several hours of hold for mortgage loan restructuring, the only definite answer I am able to provide is, well, both. Despite their all-too-similar sounding names, Sporkle and Sporcle are two entirely different websites, but both have a home on my bookmarks list.

The National Broadband Plan hopes to provide universal broadband access by 2020. Image from Flickr.

It wasn’t long ago that connecting to the internet meant dialing into your Internet Service Provider and listening to the hissing and pops of your internet connecting. Since then, though, broadband internet has become the norm — for most. The cost (which practically requires installment loans), a lack of “digital literacy” and concerns about privacy all hamper access. Today’s National Broadband Plan report from the FCC takes the general federal goal of expanding internet access and breaks it down into a Broadband Plan that should increase both the speed and availability of internet access for all residents of the United States.

National Broadband Plan addresses connectivity

As reported by PBS News Hour (video below), the U.S. ranks 15th in the nation in broadband access. About one-third of Americans have chosen to not be connected to a broadband internet connection, while another 4 percent of the population does not have the option of connecting to broadband internet because it is not available in their area. Some areas of the nation that are connected to broadband internet have relatively slow connections. In the United States, 10 megabits per second is considered a relatively fast connection. In other countries, such as South Korea, one gigabit (1024 megabit) per second connections are common.

The cost of broadband is another concern, as most Americans who choose not to connect to broadband at home do so because they cannot or do not want to pay the $50 a month or higher bill, choosing instead to focus on issues like mortgage loan restructuring. Finally, the availability and health of wireless internet networks in America is relatively low, compared to other countries. With the internet being increasingly accessed from mobile devices, the high cost and low coverage of powerful wireless internet is seen to hamper economic development.

The Goals of the National Broadband Plan

The six goals of the National Broadband Plan, as stated on the FCC’s broadband.gov web site, are as follows:

• Goal 1: At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.
• Goal 2: The United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.
• Goal 3: Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.
• Goal 4: Every community should have affordable access to at least 1 Gbps broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.
• Goal 5: To ensure the safety of Americans, every first responder should have access to a nationwide public safety wireless network.
• Goal 6: To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

A large portion of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan is based on the Brookings Institution report that estimates that expanding broadband access to 90 percent (the National Broadband Plan goal) would create an additional $2,400 a year of income for each person in the country.

Funding the National Broadband Plan

The goals of the National Broadband Plan are very extensive – but the FCC lays out a plan of how it hopes to meet these goals in just 10 years. First, the FCC proposes auctioning off 500MHz of wireless spectrum within 10 years – that’s the airwave licenses that TV, radio, phone and wireless carriers share. This would have the dual effect of funding many of the National Broadband Plan proposals while also opening up airwaves for high-speed wireless internet. As Wireless Week reports, this airspace for wireless internet would be auctioned off with the condition that low-cost or free broadband access be offered to low-income subscribers.

Secondarily, as CNet News reported, the National Broadband Plan proposes redirecting almost $8 billion from the Universal Service Fund – a fund that has used a surcharge on phone bills to subsidize telephone access in rural areas. This money would instead go to subsidize rural access to high-speed internet access.

National Broadband Plan suggests partnering with private industry

Far from taking over broadband internet and internet access, the National Broadband plan instead calls for partnering with private industry. By offering tax incentives, subsidies, and expanded wireless network airspace, the government would encourage private providers to upgrade networks. However, the National Broadband Plan does also call for a $12 billion to $16 billion investment over 10 years from the government — to be spent mostly on building a national public safety wireless network and helping “anchor institutions” get gigabit connections.

Reactions to the National Broadband Plan

Not everyone is happy about the prospect of bringing nearly universal access to high-speed internet access with the National Broadband Plan. Computerworld asked for reactions from a wide variety of telecommunications industry leaders. Some of those reactions included:

Rey Ramsey, president and CEO of trade group TechNet: “This roadmap for broadband can truly represent the ‘north star’ for future American innovation leadership. … Simply put, wider adoption of broadband is one of the best fiscal stimulus policies we can make as a nation as new industries, companies and jobs are created as a result.”

“We believe in the transformative potential of widespread, high-quality, affordable broadband,” said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. “To lead in competitiveness, innovation and job creation in the 21st century, our country must plan ahead. This means investing in next-generation wireless and wireline infrastructure, increasing home broadband adoption, and enabling commercial spectrum to flow to uses that the market values most.”

“The plan takes a critical first step toward making universal broadband a reality for every American, by recognizing the integral role of USF reform in ensuring a viable broadband infrastructure for the future,” said NTCA CEO Michael Brunner. “But to truly achieve the goal of universal broadband, the plan must accurately account for all of the costs associated with providing high-quality, affordable broadband to rural and remote areas throughout the country. Put simply, the plan fails to do this right now.”

See the PBS Report on the National Broadband Plan

Don't let this happen to you on daylight saving time

Daylight saving time begins this weekend, so move your clocks forward one hour on Sunday, March 14, 2010, at 2:00am. For practical purposes – and with time slipping away, who can bother with anything other than practicalities? — that’s all you really need to know about daylight saving time.

If you live in Arizona, Hawaii, or the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, or American Samoa, you don’t even need to know that much. You’re off the hook entirely.

The rest of you, however, have work to do on Sunday, and one fewer hour to do it in.  Of course, even with daylight saving time fast approaching, everyone still has time to apply for instant payday loans.

Daylight-saving-time traditions

For some reason that no one, apparently, has ever had time to figure out, the onset of daylight saving time is the traditional time to do all these things:

• Check emergency supplies
• Stock up on batteries, flashlights, and first-aid kits
• Check smoke alarms
• Change smoke-alarm batteries
• Update emergency phone numbers
• Review home evacuation plans

Extra work for Madison residents

If you live in Madison, the above checklist may not be all you have to do. In Madison, a city ordinance passed in 2009 requires all homeowners to install either hard-wired electric-powered alarms or alarms with 10-year batteries. August 15, 2010, is the compliance deadline, and according to The Cap Times, the onset of daylight saving time is the right time to get the work done.

For residents of Madison and everyone else in Wisconsin, Doug Higgins of Fox11online.com has an important reminder about daylight saving time at http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/good_day_wi/daylight-saving-time-reminder. With daylight saving time and all its attendant chores fast approaching, however, there’s no time to watch the videos — which may well contain an important reminder — but click on his name and you’ll be reminded that Doug Higgins is the meteorologist for Good Day Wisconsin and that he “enjoys golf, skiing, scary movies, and of course, the weather.”

Extra considerations for Los Angeles residents

This may or may not have special relevance to residents of Los Angeles, but the Los Angeles Times warns that the start of daylight saving time is a dangerous time for health and finances.

• The incidence of serious heart attacks increases by 6% to 10% during the first three workdays after the onset of daylight saving time;
• Suicides among men are more likely in the first few weeks of daylight saving time than at any other time of year;
• The number of traffic accidents spikes on the first Monday after daylight saving time beings;
• Traders tend to produce “large negative returns on financial-market indices” during the first week of daylight saving time.

Extra reasons to get cash now

Even if you don’t live in Los Angeles — but especially if you live in Madison — right now is the time to consider mortgage loan restructuring and to apply for quick personal loans. Unless you live in Arizona, Hawaii, or one of those other non-conforming places where the weather is already warm (or in the case of Guam and American Samoa, hot!), you need to buy things today so you can get your work done on Sunday.

Haven’t we been through this before, with MySpace? There are ads out there begging people to click on them and download FacebookAgent. Supposedly FacebookAgent is free software that allows you to view people’s private Facebook pages.

Of course, we all know better than this. FacebookAgent is just another scam. By now, all of us have learned that “It can’t hurt just to click on it and see what it is” is a fallacy. It can hurt, and it will. I don’t know whether FacebookAgent is trying to steal your identity or give your computer a virus, but I do know that I’m not falling for it. Just like the need for mortgage loan restructuring spawned all kinds of financing scams, Facebook has been at the root of a lot of online scams.

Facebook pros and cons

Clearly, millions of people love Facebook, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a fast, easy form of communication for many. Finding friends from way back, staying in touch with people all over the world and playing games are just a few of the reasons people think Facebook is fabulous.

Unfortunately, there’s always someone out there who wants to ruin everyone’s good time. Facebook phishing scams try to steal people’s login information, and I’ve known a lot of people who have fallen prey to these. Usually it results in spam messages being sent out from their Facebook pages. However, the consequences can be much worse if you use the same password for your Facebook account and, say, your bank account.

Is FacebookAgent a blessing in disguise?

You know, I am a big fan of finding silver linings, and I suppose some good could come of this FacebookAgent business. The idea is to con people into downloading malware by offering them software that lets them look at people’s Facebook pages even if the owners of those Facebook pages don’t want them to. So probably a lot of online stalkers and other such creepy types have gotten their computers infected, which teaches us an important lesson: Don’t be an online stalker.

Sure, there are probably plenty of people out there who had innocent intentions when clicking on FacebookAgent. After all, we’ve all run into the scenario when we think we might know someone on Facebook but can’t tell by the picture and name alone. However, for those who wanted to use Facebook to pry into people’s lives without permission, FacebookAgent might give them what they deserve.

Always good advice

Of course, this FacebookAgent issue brings up an excellent point that can’t be reiterated enough: Don’t put anything on Facebook that you don’t want the whole world to see. Sure, you can control who you are friends with, you can set your page to private and hope that your boss doesn’t see you complaining about your job online, but why risk it?

A good rule of thumb is to assume that nothing online is private or anonymous. We’ve all read stories in the newspaper about why we shouldn’t put anything we don’t want potential employers, teachers or our parents to read. If you want to keep your private life private, just setting your Facebook page to “private” isn’t enough. Take a lesson from FacebookAgent and don’t put private information online.

Cass Sunstein, the man who would replace Van Jones and could have been the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs if Republican senators had listened to all the information. (Photo: commons.wikimedia.org)

So much of what the right-wing media has to say about President Obama’s collection of personal advisers – “czars” – tends to take on an attack mentality. Countless talking heads from Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to the FOX News speaker of the moment compares each and every one of them to the tyrannical autocrats of Russia’s past, making sure to hammer home just how much Obama is supposedly acting like Stalin, Chairman Mao, etc. (expanding the questionable metaphor). A smear campaign that Glenn Beck takes responsibility for pushed former green jobs czar Van Jones to resign. That may not necessarily be a bad thing for Jones and the Obama administration, however. The Huffington Post suggests that Beck may have done Obama and the country a favor, in that he can better serve out in the field rather than being behind a desk.

But what’s the czar fascination? Did Obama invent this thing?

Hardly. The use of “czars” dates back to President Nixon, who appointed John Love and William Simon to serve as his energy czars. They have been used by each president since then, whether that president has been Republican or Democrat. There’s even a czar that has had a hand in overseeing mortgage loan restructuring. Interestingly, the president who created the largest number of “czar” posts was not in fact President Obama, but President George W. Bush. They aren’t appointed by Congress and they aren’t unconstitutional, no matter how much Glenn Beck cries. “Czar” is more of a nickname used for matters of convenience. Let’s say you had to give the actual title of the border czar. That would be the “Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary For International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs.” Quite a mouthful, huh? I’ll take czar and ignore the clowns who blaze Russian marches and other military music whenever the term is invoked. Here’s some more info about America’s czars, thanks to Rachel Maddow:

Now Cass Sunstein is under fire

According to the Washington Independent, Cass Sunstein was picked by President Obama to run the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. A Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Cass Sunstein specializes in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law and law and behavioral economics. Thus, it would appear that he is very qualified for the position. The nomination was back in January, but he still hasn’t passed through Senate approval because Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) object to Sunstein’s stance against hunting.

This points to the major objections that have been voiced against Cass Sunstein, but many of them have been taken out of context. For an accurate depiction of Sunstein’s stance on hunting, gun rights and animal rights, see the video at the end of this article and listen to him say it himself. However, a Web site called StopSunstein.com is working hard to keep the misinformation train going. Banning guns, outlawing hunting and allowing animals to bring suit against abusers (with humans to represent them) were taken out of a larger context. Much of this material was torn from his book “Nudge,” which investigates the possibilities for libertarian paternalism as opposed to government control of systems in America. Basically, good behavior is what is encouraged.

The right decries big government… but they don’t like Cass Sunstein?

Yes, Cass Sunstein was praised by law professor Glenn Reynolds for being a man who could “show that the Obama Administration is perhaps willing to look at new and less intrusive approaches to regulation.” But apparently that isn’t good enough for Republican senators on Sunstein’s approval committee. Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey wrote that he didn’t think Sunstein “presents a good target for Republicans to attack.”

George Mason law professor Ilya Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy has acknowledged Cass Sunstein’s qualifications and states that while he doesn’t agree with the ideas Sunstein presents in the book “Nudge,” he’d be more comfortable with Sunstein in the post that the likely more liberal candidates who would apply for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Animals suing humans in court

That’s where Cass Sunstein is going to hear the most grief. Yet he wrote in a letter to Sen. Cornyn this past July 31 that “If confirmed, I certainly would not use my position at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to promote animal standing in civil litigation.” So Michael Vick can rest easy, but David Martosko of the Center for Consumer Freedom cannot. Martosko drew up a hypothetical example where Sunstein could decide that the government could no longer buy eggs obtained from caged hens. While cage-free is certainly more humane, such regulation would rock that industry and possibly hamper government’s ability to meet demand.

Should hunting be banned? Should animals have more rights?

Cass Sunstein’s comments to his hearing committee indicate he actually doesn’t plan to ban hunting. But if he did ban sport hunting, what would be hurt but that industry itself and those who will have to find something else to do with their leisure time? And as far as animal rights and equating animal cruelty and death to perpetrating the same act upon humans, I say bring it on. Then maybe NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would have had the stones to keep Michael Vick out of the NFL. Then he could work at being a good citizen in real life, where people don’t kill dogs for sport and need help from mortgage loan restructuring once in a while.

Related Video:

Is there room in the market for another print publication? Image from Flikr.com.

Did I just read this New York Times commentary correctly? It says a new quarterly magazine called National Affairs started yesterday (Monday). David Brooks says that National Affairs magazine is meant to continue the work of The Public Interest, a magazine that shut down in 2005.

Brooks writes that National Affairs magazine aims to occupy “the bloody crossroads where social science and public policy meet matters of morality, culture and virtue.” Whew, I am glad they are not in this to make money. The newspaper, magazine and general printed publication industry has been steadily tanking for years — that is, until the recession began, when it took a sharp nosedive.

The one that came before

Apparently mortgage loan restructuring was not an option for The Public Interest, which lasted 40 years, from 1965 to 2005. The Public Interest Closed when the last of the original editors retired. Brooks writes:

Their idea was that the great ideological clashes between socialism and capitalism were in the past. In the age of consensus what was needed was a policy journal that would pragmatically weigh costs and benefits.

It really is a lovely, peaceful idea. Unfortunately, I think humans have shown that they will always be politically polarized. Politicians will always use disdain for the opposing party as a unifying element. But the people running National Affairs magazine have more faith than I do, apparently.

What is at this crossroads?

According to Brooks, the first essay in National Affairs magazine focuses on how we can tackle the recession. Brooks writes:

Creating a new and sustainable middle-class social contract isn’t only an accounting matter. It’s also a question of responsibility.

He says this essay states that the nation’s leaders have made a series of “lavishly unaffordable promises.” Brooks also points out the flaw in logic behind the first essay in National Affairs magazine. The essay says the nation’s leaders should skip special interests and hand power directly to the people. However, Brooks points out this strategy was implemented in California, and now that state’s budget is a total disaster.

Thoughts on National Affairs magazine

With newspapers and magazines shutting down at alarming rates, I think it’s a very bold move for editor Yuval Levin and his colleagues to give National Affairs magazine a shot. Perhaps they should get one of those motivational posters that says “you never fail until you stop trying.”

After all, its predecessor, The Public Interest, didn’t seem to make a whole lot of progress in shaping public policy. In its 20th anniversary edition, James Q. Wilson wrote:

At root, in almost every area of public concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants to public assistance, would-be lawbreakers, or voters and public officials.

Is there no way to control spending?

Brooks points out that we’re not at a point, as a country, where we can decide whether we should control spending, we must decide how to control spending. After explaining all of the catastrophes that resulted from direct democracy in California, Brooks says concentrating power among public-policy professionals doesn’t work either.

So what’s the answer, Mr. Brooks? Apparently, he says, National Affairs magazine’s job is to figure this out. Good luck!