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So the wife and I are ready to investigate our distant past and discover all sorts of unsettling things about our ancestors. Anyone care to recommend any particular genealogical DNA testing outfit? I know of the Genographic Project and a few others, but I don’t know how full or accurate a profile they offer.

You stand and gaze at the ocean of new things filling your home and shake your head. Despite the fact that you were determined to keep Christmas low key and commercial this year, the three gifts each and one group gift you got your children have morphed into around 30 gifts each as each relative stopped by with just  a few gifts for each child. How are you supposed to organize all of the stuff filling your home? Here are a few tips that work for us:

• Ask children to sort through toys and clothing for things that they don’t want anymore. After getting so many new things, they’ll probably be willing to part with things they haven’t used in awhile. You can donate some of the items and take the others to your consignment shop.
• Set up a storage bin for each child so they can fill the bins with toys they don’t want to get rid of, but don’t plan to play with for awhile. You can stick the bins in storage, making room for their new toys.
• Set up bins for yourself, too. Label them with store, toss and donate. As you take down holiday decorations over the next week or so, put each decoration immediately into one of the bins. You can then go through the store bin and organize the decorations you are keeping into storage containers with like items. (If you’re an ornamentaholic like me, sorting the two thousand Shiny Brite ornaments you seem to have acquired into the right containers is essential for staying sane while putting decorations up the next year.)
• If you have a lot of decorations, but still plan to hit the after Christmas sales to stock up on new decorations for next year, consider deciding to donate or sell one old decoration for every new decoration you bring home.

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

After Christmas Organizing Tips

In 2007, just prior to its launch, I was absolutely positive I wasn’t going to buy an iPhone. My rationale was that I didn’t even like using a cellphone, so why would I want a $600 one? What I wanted was a touch screen iPod — basically, an iPhone without the phone. In other words, I wanted an iPod touch, but that didn’t exist yet, so I would sit back and wait, I told myself. Then came iPhone launch day: June 29, 2007. Curiosity about the launch day hoopla drove me to an Apple store. There was a line around the block just to get in. So again, there was no way I was getting an iPhone. But then I started to wonder why so many people were lined up for this device — what was I missing? A few hours later I returned to the Apple Store. I waited in a much shorter line to get in. I walked up to the iPhones out on display, picked one up, played with it for all of 10 seconds. I left the Apple store $600 poorer.

My point in telling that story is that all signs indicate that we’re closing in on another new Apple product, a tablet computer. And the hype around it is already palpable. But so is the skepticism among many — skepticism similar to what I felt with the iPhone. “Why would anyone want a tablet computer?” “It will be way too expensive, no one will buy it.” “This is all just nonsense Apple hype.” Those are a few of the more common reactions against the still-mysterious device. But I’m not going to be tricked again. Conventional wisdom suggests that Apple will not be able to succeed where so many others have failed. But Apple makes billions defying conventional wisdom.

The truth is that most of us don’t understand the allure of a tablet computer because they’ve all sucked up until now. It’s the exact same reason that I didn’t understand the iPhone at first. My cellphones leading up to the iPhone ranged from “okay” to “junk.” The idea of getting one with such a high price tag was insanity to me. But within seconds of using the iPhone, I was able to tell that Apple had made something completely different. It wasn’t a cellphone as I had known them. It redefined the category. And while there are no sure things in the tech world, I would bet that Apple’s tablet will do the same.

If an outsider were to look at the tech news coverage of the past few days, they’d think there is an oddly disproportionate amount of Apple tablet talk. Why is that? The lazy answer is that everyone is a bunch of Apple fanboys. But the reality is that it’s dozens of blogs and all the mainstream media sites covering this news about a product which no one is even 100% sure exists. Everyone is covering it because there is a huge amount of interest about the device among each site’s readership. And it goes far beyond that. People outside the tech world, those who don’t ever read tech blogs, have been asking me about it recently. And Apple’s stock is at an all-time high based on the rumors of this device.

Part of it is that Apple has a sterling record with consumer-oriented products. Sure, there are some duds, like the Mighty Mouse. And yes, there are some slip-ups, like my new iLemon. But overall, Apple commands attention in the consumer space because more often than not, they nail it. Going deeper, Apple is not afraid to step outside of the traditional comfort zones to try to create a new product — even if others have failed there before, as is the case with tablets. While this stirs skepticism in some, in many more people, it creates a sense of wonder. What if Apple can do it right this time? It’s exciting partially because it’s no sure thing. It’s exciting because the payoff is potentially huge. By this time next year, we may have a whole new genre of computing. It’s an undiscovered country.

But it’s also familiar. There’s a quote from the first season of Mad Men that I think applies in this regard. “But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent,” Don Draper says leading up to his Kodak Carousel presentation. The core idea of a tablet is interesting to people on a fundamental level. At least as far back as Moses with the Ten Commandments, it has been a part of the human psyche. It’s something that couldn’t be simpler. It’s a slate that displays information. It’s not a computer with a mess of peripherals and/or physical buttons. If a media and web-centric computer were being designed today with no thought to what the computing norms of the past were, it would be a tablet.

It also points to the future of interacting with computers. The mouse and keyboard will one day die and everything will be touch and gesture-based. We’ll be living in a future with Minority Report, Star Trek, and Avatar interactive technology. To many of us, few things are more exciting. To others, that concept is foreign and as such, scary. Regardless, it will happen and the tablet computer is the latest, and perhaps most important step in a line of technology taking us there.

I think a lot of people understand that, even if they don’t realize it. That’s why we saw so much interest in the CrunchPad. It was to be a simple, touchscreen device that you could surf the web on. For many people, that’s more than enough of a computer.

And the truth is that Apple has already proven the concept. The iPhone is a tablet computer, just smaller. Recently, a former Apple employee was quoted in the New York Times as saying that much of the early work on the tablet exists today in the iPhone. The iPhone is the computer I use the most now day in and day out. And again, I never thought I’d want one. So while the immediate use of the tablet in our homes already riddled with computer may not be apparent just yet, I have no doubt that it will prove itself to be very useful.

I have no idea what the tablet will be called (Robin lays out a comprehensive tale of why it may be the “iSlate”), what its specs will be, or how much it will cost. But I’m not going to make the mistake of dismissing it like I did with the iPhone simply because its practicality isn’t immediately apparent. If it succeeds, it will likely redefine the role of computing in our lives just as the iPhone has. That’s exciting. And that’s why we care so much about it.

[images: 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures]

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A month ago we ran a contest giving to give away a 7-day adventure trek for two to the ancient Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. As we wrote back then:

. . . the winner will be climbing a mountain in Peru to the fabled Inca city of Machu Picchu. Well, you and a guest will actually be on horseback most of the way, and staying in WiFi-equipped luxury eco-lodges. But you can walk part of the way just to say you hiked the Inca trail.

This 7-day adventure for two, which is worth about $7,000, is being donated by the tour operator Mountain Lodges of Peru in conjunction with ekoVenture, a marketplace for “experience travel” (read our recent post on them).

And we have a winner, reader Meagan Donahue. Merry Christmas.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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We wanted to let you know that we’ll be taking a day off today to celebrate the Holidays with our families. We should be back tomorrow with some new content. Happy Holidays from everyone here at egmCarTech. Drive home safe from wherever you’re driving from.

While you’re here – check out one of our favorite videos of a drunk Santa getting pulled over. Also, let us know what you found under the tree this morning in the comments section after the jump.

– By: Omar Rana

Filed under: Humor, Software, Odds and ends, iPhone

Here’s a nice post-Christmas mind bender for you — it’s created by a company named Ogmento (they specialize in augmented reality applications — get it?) and is an iPhone app that creates an augmented reality version of the iPhone. In other words, they put an iPhone in your iPhone so you can iPhone while you iPhone. Dawg.

Why did they do this? Apparently it’s a promotion for the iPhone launch by Orange Telecom in Israel. But it’s pretty crazy — the iPhone inside the app even runs apps, though they’re just still pictures. And it’s a little disappointing that you interact with the fake iPhone via the real iPhone’s touchscreen. If it really was an augmented reality demonstration, wouldn’t you interact with the augmented reality iPhone just by moving your hand in the air where it should be?

Maybe that’s too mind-melting after a relaxing Christmas day. At any rate, enjoy the crazy video above. This isn’t anything we’ll see coming to the App Store any time soon, we’re sure, but it’s just the kind of thing to get your mind up and running again after all that egg nog and holiday cheer.

TUAWiPhone … in an iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As healthcare reform hits a historical turning point (for better or worse), Jim Edwards at BNET Pharma reminisces about some of the most screwed up drug companies’ in 2009.

They’re a nice reminder of how dangerous investing in drug companies can be. You really never know what kind of huge, random disaster is going to pop up.

Such as this:

BNET Pharma:

Genzyme (GENZ) – Your company holds a monopoly on a drug for Gaucher’s disease. It’s a license to print money. How do you screw this up? Do what what Genzyme did: Introduce a bunch of garbage — literally bits of rubber and metal — into your drugs. Have this come after one of your sites was infected with a virus. Get two new drugs rejected by the FDA and have a third one dropped during R&D. Meanwhile, make sure your CEO spends the year enriching himself with a $10 million stock sale on top of $50 million in compensation over the previous three years. That’s why Genzyme ended the year with Genzyme’s founder calling for CEO Henri Termeer to resign.

Continue reading the five worst drug companies at BNET Pharma >>

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Drug Prices Don’t Fall Because Medicare Isn’t Allowed To Bargain
• Drug Advertising Is Completely Broken
• Pharma Exec Convicted Of Pushing Alternative Uses For Drug

Filed under: Audi, GM, Volkswagen, Design/Style

GM designer Sang Yup Lee has left for the enormous and vast wilds of the VW empire. Lee was the exterior designer of the 2010 Camaro, 50th Anniversary Stingray Concept, Buick Velite, and he worked on the C6 Corvette. Having spent time with him on a few occasions, we can also say he’s an all-around great guy.

His new position, as chief exterior designer at the Volkswagen/Audi Advanced studio in California, will begin next month. Lee will report to Executive Design Director Jens Manske, and is apparently is charged with ‘inspiring’ the merged design divisions. We look forward to a future of brawny, haunchy, badass VWs, even if only in concept form.

[Source: Car Design News]

Camaro exterior designer Sang Yup Lee moves to VW/Audi originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An embargo is something that tech companies use to set a time when their product will launch and the press can publish their reviews of it. Embargoes aren’t as simple as they sound and they aren’t uncontroversial, either.

We believe they can be a good idea, though. Below we discuss why and share thoughts about how we think an embargo can be run well. If you’ve got comments to share, don’t be shy, that’s what the comments section of a blog is for.

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Editor’s note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we’ll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year – and ahead to what next year holds – we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It’s not just a best-of list, it’s also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

Why Embargoes?

Not every announcement needs to be embargoed, but complicated ones involving new technology can benefit from such an exercise. Tech blogging is really competitive, some blogs won’t write later about something discovered by one of their competitors. None of us like to, we don’t want to give our readers the impression that we’re slow on the news or have people skip our posts because they already read about something elsewhere.

Here’s why embargoes can be good.

• They give multiple blogs a chance to review a technology in depth, instead of making it a race.
• This means readers get to read multiple perspectives on an interesting topic. Different bloggers have different strengths and ways of looking at things.
• Embargoes lead to more total coverage than exclusives. If you’re someone for whom the only thing that mattered in high school was to win the approval of the most popular kid in school and you want to extend that philosophy into your work life as an adult – then the richness and breadth of your work and life experience will suffer accordingly. Exclusives are the tactic of people with weak products and of reporters who compete better in bullying than in writing.

How to Run an Embargo

This is one way to do it, but we think it’s a good way.

Ask Writers if They Want Pre-release Info Under Embargo.

Sending an email briefly describing what’s being launched and asking if a writer wants more pre-release info under embargo is a good way to entice people into engaging in conversation and to receive an explicit reply accepting the embargo.

A lot of people have been sending emails lately with all the information in them and asserting that it’s embargoed until a particular time. Apparently accepting the embargo is assumed, but it seems a stretch to hold someone responsible for something they haven’t agreed to.

Additionally, having a conversation is much more effective than shooting out one complete email and crossing your fingers.

Right: From ICanHazCheeseBurger, a blog you can always trust with an embargo.

Make Sure The Subject of the Embargo is…Embargoed

There is no sense in telling writers they can’t write about something that’s publicly available on the front of your website until a later date. An embargo involves an agreement hold off writing until a given time – in exchange for a chance to take a look at something before it’s publicly available. If it’s live and easily found – then anyone could find it. Thus anyone could write about it and it’s fair game at any time.

Reach Out to Bloggers Large and Not so Large

A handful of top blogs in any niche are used to receiving press inquiries. Medium sized, up and coming blogs, usually only get spam or press releases for unexciting things. Offering to include an up and coming blog in an embargoed release is a sign of respect that will be appreciated. It will lead to more coverage, more links, and more perspectives. Readers don’t read every post on the big blogs, many people will discover you through a post on a smaller blog or they will take the time to read about you after noticing that a number of people have written about your launch.

There’s a sprawling network of tech blogs online and ideally your release would hit big and medium ones with such compelling news that an even larger number of smaller blogs would follow up with posts of their own. Blogging is a long tail world – choosing instead to put all your eggs in one basket (with an “exclusive,” for example) isn’t necessary or necessarily in your best interest.

That said, the only incentive bloggers have to respect embargoes is that they want to receive more embargoed information again in the future. It’s serious or aspiring news-type blogs that have that incentive.

Send the Info and Offer to Talk

Some companies refuse to send launch info unless a blogger agrees to talk to their CEO on the phone. Co-incidentally, those CEOs are often particularly obnoxious. The best PR agents will accept a request to just send out a release and other pertinent info – along with an offer to talk. Many times it won’t be necessary.

What is much more helpful is to make yourself available in the days and hours leading up to the embargo to answer any questions that come up. Providing a phone number, email and IM contact info for someone who can answer questions promptly is a big help.

Then, Lift the Embargo!

At the agreed upon time, push whatever you’re launching live and go check out your blog coverage. Best practices for engaging with that coverage are subject enough for several other blog posts.

Questions

Will Bloggers Respect My Embargo?

If you do it right, they most likely will. At least 95% of the embargoes we see get respected by all the blogs that were included. Some are better than others, a few are downright awful. You can figure it out. Most are great, at least in our field.

What Do I do If A Blogger Breaks My Embargo?

There’s a number of ways you can handle it but here’s one option. Leave a matter of fact comment on the post (”This was embargoed until 4 hours from now and I would have appreciated it if you could have respected that.”) and then let the other blogs you’d reached out to know that the embargo has been broken. You probably don’t need to tell them by who, they’ll check and find out on their own. Then they’ll either run their story about you, or if they hadn’t written it yet then they may not cover you at all.

Then ask yourself honestly if this was actually your own fault due to unclear or inconsistent communication. All serious news bloggers try to respect embargoes because that’s part of the business. Sometimes they are thick headed, though, and that’s how it goes.

How Much Lead Time Should I Give an Embargo and What Day of the Week Should It Lift?

It’s up to you but we’d recommend three days lead time, lifting Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday – depending on an honest assessment of how exciting your product is. It’s a crap shoot.

That’s How We See it, How About You?

The above is just one take on embargoes in tech blogging. We know there are lots of other ways to look at it. See, for example, Louis Gray’s excellent post this month where he makes similar arguments in more detail or pro-journalist Mathew Ingram’s contrary post Embargoes: Thanks but No Thanks.

Thoughts? Feelings? Suggestions? Leave them in comments, because that’s one of the things that makes blogging such a great form of media.

Title image: Untitled, CC from Flickr user Lauren.

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DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort may be enjoying the spoils right now, but the world’s most popular port may just give ‘em a run for their collective dollars by the end of next year. DisplayLink, which enables monitors to receive signals via USB instead of through one of the more conventional cables, has been mildly successful with USB 2.0 at the helm, but a whole new world is about to open up with the introduction of USB 3.0. As you’ve no doubt seen by now, the third iteration offers up over ten times the bandwidth of v2.0, which would obviously allow for great resolution support when channeling video. In reality, USB 3.0 is the first USB protocol that could support a legitimate high-def video stream, and it’s expected that a prototype device will be shown at CES next month transmitting content at up to 4.8 gigabits per second. In theory, at least, USB 3.0-enabled DisplayLink would allow vast 30-inch panels to be connected to netbooks via USB without having to rely on a sub-native resolution, but then again, said netbooks will probably need a GPU with a bit more oomph than the current Ion can provide. Not like that’ll be an issue for long, though.

USB 3.0-infused DisplayLink products coming in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If there’s one characteristic that defines a good internet marketer, it’s adaptability. The online marketing world moves so fast — faster than any other industry around — and those that make their fortunes online always move faster than anyone else. From the arbitrage heydays to the modern era of CPA affiliate products, top internet marketers are always looking a step ahead, and are always looking for the ultimate advantage.

There’s one aspect of internet marketing that attracts its fair share of controversy and discussion. It’s link cloaking, of course, and the discussion is around whether it’s really necessary for affiliates. For those who don’t know, link cloaking is simply a visual disguising of affiliate links, leading the URL to appear as an in-site page, when in reality it’s an outbound link. Why is this so important to affiliates? Well, let’s have a look.

To begin with, link cloaking is important for affiliates that make most of their sales through blogs and personal recommendations. A large portion of affiliates, particularly those who operate large scale online companies, keep a personal or professional blog. While it’s rarely their major income source, most affiliates occasionally use promotional links on their blog. The problem is that many readers are instantly skeptical of what they view as paid recommendations. Whenever they mouse over a link’s anchor text and see an affiliate code, they back away and don’t make a sale.

This is where link cloaking can help with a direct sale. Rather than having readers shy away from a great product, link cloaking can help marketers direct reader to the product. When they see an inbound link with a domain that they trust, they’re sold. All that’s standing between them and the sale is the quality of the product itself.

Secondly, link cloaking is essential for certain marketing channels. While Google Adwords has often been a favorite for affiliates, they’ve recently changed their policies and appear to be taking a harder stance on affiliate products, particularly those with unclear conditions and slightly misleading terms. While this isn’t a problem for most affiliates — the majority of whom promote products that fall well inside the terms and conditions — some affiliates are having trouble getting their PPC ads to show, after being struck with a poor quality score.

This is where link cloaking can again save the day. Rather than having a direct link leading to an affiliate page, direct-to-offer PPC advertisers can cloak their links and have them redirect through their own server. This isn’t just perfect for avoiding the infamous Google slap, but also for adding tracking data and inter-offer landing pages.

There’s a third, top secret, advantage to using link cloaking. While most affiliate websites offer long-term cookies, few will cover multiple products. With the right strategy, you could incorporate multiple affiliate links into a single cloaking redirect, leaving you with the potential to earn twice as many commissions per clicker. Alongside the other great benefits of link cloaking, this really sweetens the deal, and makes link cloaking an absolutely essential practice for serious affiliates, full-time internet marketers, and dedicated online entrepreneurs.

To learn more about link cloaking, check out the free Cloak & Dagger Affiliate Secrets report. Feel free to distribute this article in any form as long as you include this resource box. You can also include your affiliate link if you sign up at Phantom Link Cloaker.

Becoming a top affiliate marketer is hard, especially when you’ve got endless competition snooping in on your methods. The affiliate marketing industry is tough, and without guarding your secrets it’s easy to see them spill out for everyone to apply, mastermind, and earn from. There’s nothing more disappointing than seeing your hard work pay out for someone else, which is why it’s absolutely essential to clock all of your affiliate links.

While cloaking sounds like an ultra-difficult procedure, it’s really pretty simple. By using some intuitive link-cloaking software, you can have all your affiliate links pointing right at their targets, without your buyers even knowing. If you’re still not sold on link cloaking, these five reasons should have you begging for a simple cloaking solution.

1. Cautious buyers can smell an affiliate link from miles away.
It’s true. We’ve read so many blogs, seen so many recommendation pages, and viewed so many ‘review’ websites that we’ve become cautious of affiliate links. It’s just the nature of recommendations; while some people trust personal recommendations, others back away from a sale when it looks like a paid commission. With link cloaking, every one of your affiliate links is disguised, so buyers won’t be worrying about buying from a commission-generating source.

2. Affiliate managers love to steal commission data.
Data theft is a sad truth of the affiliate world. As helpful as most affiliate managers are, there are always bad apples who scrub sales, steal data, and milk your campaigns for their own commissions. Affiliate networks need to know that you’re not sending fraudulent traffic, but they don’t need to know exactly where your traffic is coming from. Link cloaking can help you avoid the potential theft of your traffic sources, and minimize the chances of your commissions going missing.

3. Without cloaking, hackers can steal affiliate information.
Did you know that there are pop-ups out there designed to do nothing other than detect affiliate links and substitute one account number for another? That way, whenever a sale is made, you’re not getting credit. Instead, the commission credit goes to a hacker, who carefully planted adware on a user’s computer. Since cloaking takes your affiliate link out of the URL bar, hackers can’t access the data, and automated scripts like this are powerless when it comes to stealing your commissions.

4. Cloaking is essential for good affiliate monitoring.
You are tracking your data, aren’t you? If you’re using self-hosted tracking software such as 202, you need to be cloaking your links too. Whether you’re running traffic through a landing page or directly to the affiliate page, setting up tracking alongside your cloaking makes it easier to monitor user behavior, track conversion rates and EPC data, and split test different types of linking and landing pages.

5. Cloaking can help with SEO.
We’ve all experienced Google’s recent crackdown on affiliate products. When your pages are indexed, any affiliate links could be hurting your ranking. It’s a little unfair, that’s for sure, but it’s the rules that we’ve got to play by. By cloaking your links, search engines are powerless to detect any affiliate products, and you could end up getting a better ranking, or for PPC users, a better quality score.

To learn more about link cloaking, check out the free Cloak & Dagger Affiliate Secrets report. Feel free to distribute this article in any form as long as you include this resource box. You can also include your affiliate link if you sign up at Phantom Link Cloaker.

In my earlier review of Chapura’s PocketMirror program, I noted that while memos had been added to the data types that the program could synchronize between the Pre/Pixi and Microsoft Outlook, tasks were still only a promised upgrade. There were also some performance issues I noted.

Recently, version 2.0.0 of PocketMirror hit the App Catalog and, along with the latest version of the Windows desktop portion (which can be downloaded here), the program now syncs tasks as well as memos, calendar events and contacts. As with memos/notes, PocketMirror’s syncing maintains categories across the two platforms, and can also support timed notifications (which work on the Pre even when the program’s card is not open). Also as with memos, though, Chapura provides/requires its own standalone application for tasks, which is understandable, given the limits of the Pre’s own native Tasks and Memos programs.

In my brief look at the new version, it appears that the memo application has been improved as well. The noticeable delay between the app launching and the memos being displayed is essentially gone, and the synchronization of memos seems speedier. The program still lacks sorting capabilities beyond categories (I would like to be able to sort by date created, not just alphabetically), but hopefully that will appear in a future release. There is also still no way to put a separate icon for Chapura Memos and Tasks on the launcher screen, but the Preferences menu does allow you to choose which element (Memos, Tasks or Sync) will appear when the program is first launched, with the others easily accessible via icons at the bottom of the screen.

Unfortunately, with the new tasks feature set comes an increase in price, from the former $29.95 to $39.95 (although the upgrade is free for purchasers of the earlier versions.) While it is certainly pricier than most standalone Pre apps, it is comparable to other desktop utility software, or to similar synchronization packages such as Mark/Space’s The Missing Sync, and likely reflects the greater complexity and support burden of a desktop/smartphone combination software product.

Even at its higher new price, PocketMirror remains an extremely useful addition to webOS for users of notes (and now tasks) in Microsoft Outlook, as it adds the synchronization features for those elements that Palm failed to provide for the Pre and Pixi. For previous purchasers, the upgrade is both free and quite welcome.

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reading the BOLD RED TYPE pretty much sums it up.

A pretty nifty move as no congressional support is needed. – BC

special Christmas day posting by David Kotok: Government by Stealth: the GSE affair continues – David Kotok – … We didn’t plan on writing today but are doing so to be sure our clients and readers and the especially the 300 worldwide journalists on our list see the action just taken by the Treasury Department under Secretary Geithner.  It was clearly designed to minimize the press coverage of the changes in the GSEs.  This item was released after the closure of the healthcare debate and after the extension of the debt limit passed and after the president left for his Hawaii trip.   Sent out on Thursday afternoon, Christmas Eve, the press release outlines the many changes that Treasury is making because of the worsening conditions of Fannie and Freddie.  And it paves the way for the recognition of losses in the hundreds of billions in the GSE mortgage pools where the face amounts of the mortgages exceed the property market values or foreclosure amounts. … – Cumberland Advisors

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US Tsy Unveils Changes to Programs Supporting Fannie,Freddie – The U.S. Treasury waited until markets closed Christmas Eve to announce a series of changes to its support of the housing-related government sponsored enterprises, which it says will ensure stability of the secondary mortgage market without increasing expected taxpayer exposure. … But they said it should give current and future investors in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by GSEs and GSE debt assurance they can continue to purchase that debt with confidence in the solvency of the institutions. … – iMarketNews.com

————

U.S. promises unlimited financial assistance to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac – By Zachary A. Goldfarb – The Obama administration pledged Thursday to provide unlimited financial assistance to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an eleventh-hour move that allows the government to exceed the current $400 billion cap on emergency aid without seeking permission from a bailout-weary Congress.  The Christmas Eve announcement by the Treasury Department means that it can continue to run the companies, which were seized last year, as arms of the government for the rest of President Obama’s current term.  – Washington Post

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US removes $400b cap on aid to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac – By J.W. Elphinstone – … So far, taxpayers have shelled out $111 billion to the pair.  Yesterday, Treasury officials said the cap would be replaced with a flexible formula. The goal is to ensure the two agencies can stand behind the billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities they sell to investors. .. – AP Boston Globe