Financial and Investment News

From cities as diverse to one another as Miami and Seattle, the subprime fiasco contines to get more and more interesting, if in a negative and chaotic way…… According to a wonderful story by elite journalist Mark jewell of the respected AP,
various Regulators are doing their best to punish the stock market powers that be for their part in the mortgage finance practices which contributed to the subprime mess as it were while at the same time dramatically increasing house ownership while spreading the pertinent risk to many new players in the real estate/investment market.
A few state securities regulators as well as two different foreclosure-affected urban areas have fired the opening shots of this new battle via lawsuits trying to prove that investment banks and the other similiar lenders are in fact guilty of more than just poor or incompetent business decisions as a whole. And some regulators even insist that
severe greed  combined with fraud caused much of the subprime mortgage confusion which have spread so quickly and mercilessly across the broader mortgage market, causing a plethera of foreclosures in an appalling fashion.
Yet in addition to these substantial civil cases, no less than the Federal Burue of investigation is even conteplating potential criminal action, and more specifically, which particular Wall Street companies actually were aware of the relative risks of mortgage securities backed by these rather flimsy subprime loans, plus whether or not they hid these same risks from the poor investors. I hope they have a good attorney.
Speaking of attorneys and criminal cases, if you are in Seattle or the greater Puget Sound are and you require a competent Seattle criminal attorney then take a good look at the offices of Kirk c. Davis
His legal firm also covers drunk driving, personal injury cases, Reckless Driving  and related criminal cases in the city of Seattle as well as the greater Puget Sound area.
Some legal cases in question could indeed turn up evidence which will finally force Wall Street to defend itself as authorities attempt to ease subprime-related financial pressures on some bond insurers. Furthermore, these actions may actually prompt other investors to file additional lawsuits than the ones that they have brought to bear up to this point in time.
There certainly were a lot of resources wasted, that is for sure. All of those foreclosed homes sitting vacant due to the rampant speculation that went on.
Even though some cities have indeed sued to try to recover damages from the “big bad” mortgage lenders in question, the majority of the cases filed up to this point are from the official regulators who are alleging violations of the state securities laws.
At a minimum they wish to show which specific banks did not properly disclose the risks involved to the investors who purchased mortgage-related securities and were not up front about the various conflicts of interests that were actually involved in this whole mess.
This thing sort of has the same ring to it as the Savings & Loan disaster of 1986 and 1987 which really lasted into the 1990’s if you measure it’s fill impact.
It used to be that unds from stock market banks extended increasing quantities of credit to low &  middle-income people who were possibly lured into the real estate market at the wrong time.. Wow, what a tangled web we weave!
But now that prices are dropping, those players are hurting. The losses have truly been staggering for some of the concerned parties.
At this early point in time, the raw number of these types of cases filed fast outpacing the rate of litigation which emerged from the S&L meltdown that was mentioned earlier, the story went on to say. And Criminal action is also a definate possibility in some of these cases, according to statements made by the FBI.
All in all,  there is indeed a plethera of blame to go around here (and i agree,it is a variety of causes really, and not all of them are really criminal in scope)
Those causes include (but are not limited to) investors purchasing mortgage-related investments and not fully comprehending the risks

News reports persist that there may be changes in store for iPod owners and those who plan to buy iPods. The Apple corporation is in discussions in regards to making the favorite download website known as iTunes at least partially free for the general iPod using public. However, instead of paying at the iTunes online E-store, iPod users will instead be paying more for the particular model of iPod they choose to specifically purchase at the store.

   While this has not been decided as final, at least officially, the Apple Corporation as well as EMI, Sony BMG plus Warner Music would not make comments about this as late as the end of last week, but I would expect an official final decision on this topic very soon..

   Meanwhile, in official statements made by David Pakman, who happens to be the Chief Executive Officer of eMusic, which is a competitor of the online music website iTunes, stated that his concern lies primarily with the fact that the Apple Corporation might attempt to take advantage of the monopoly it currently enjoys in the digital player market in general.

   As it stands, for example, the various IPod lines (which are fairly numerous, relatively speaking) represent around eighty five percent or so of the digital music market online as of the time of this writing. Having nearly ninety percent of any such market is quite staggering, but if this particular plan which has been leaked in some competitors thoughts, if it is for example bundled with music from iTune downloads then that would be grounds to be considered anti-competitive, according to staements made by David Pakman.

In other related news, the online technology magazine called ‘MAcWorld UK’ has reported that the Apple Corp. has Registered an ”iPod Air” Domain Name as well as a Web Site and this has led them to think that there are probably more wireless iPod technologies coming down the research and development pipeline and into the production stage. All in all, in fact, The patents filed would seem to suggest that the iPod touch has been a fairly big success in general. It seems as if the firm has been releasing new products and accessories of this line quite regularly, not to mention the iPhone as well,

so I expect more announcements very soon.

Fortune magazine writer Phil DeWitt has has said that Apple has delivered a definate blow to many potential iPhone and iPod touch developers. He also said that move will probably send a message to the develpoment community in no uncertain terms that could be harmful to Apple, one that says ”Keep on developing for Jailbroken iPhones guys!” Speaking of the Apple Corporation, here is the latest  headlines for you: he globe’s costliest iPod which has been donated to a charity auction that was held in London, England. It is being labeled the iDiamond iPod and it was made by a jeweler from Norway/European Union, one Tom Heterdahl. By the way, the iPod plus earplugs have been made of solid white and pink 18 karat gold, along with the coating of more than four hundred diamonds which includes 118 diamonds on the earplugs. Hererdahl stated that he would not design another of this one of a kind iDiamond iPod and feels that it would be quite a different situation if it were to be produced commerically. This design according to the jeweler was designed with the Apple iPod Shuffle in mind.  That is pretty cool indeed, don’t you think?. By the way, additional iPod, iPhone as well as Apple headlines may be found at the iPod Touch Blog so take a look over there if you find the time.

According to statements made during a recent event named Apollo and now is referred to as Adobe Air, announced by Adobe Systems that it will come in a platform later in the year for use with Linux. CEO Kevin Lynch has released this information at the companies Engage Event that took place in

This program that is a runtime and enables rich Internet applications is at this time a windows only based program. According to the statements made by Lynch they are seeking Linux users to test the Linux version that is in an alpha format prior to placing it on the market. Along with this they are striving to have Air on mobile devices very soon…..

  A question asked during this statement as to if the time will come when this program (and it’s particular applications) will be found on iPhones, Lynch referred it over to Apple, however the goal is to Air everywhere was the stated slogan by CEO Shantanu Narayen.

 This all comes at a point in time from the remote attacks which were associated with Firefox browser security vulnerabilities.

   Adobe’s reply to this is that they have implemented a sandbox background, however there is evidence that there is less security with this and that could give some developers a false sense of security when using this program.

   One of the features of these program applications is that the have to be digitally signed as this can be done by anyone it leaves users vulnerable in the situation that they are apt to run un-trusted applications. Without heed to the warnings, leaving them susceptible to remote attackers.

   To explore and educate users in security when using these applications Adobe has links to several articles, however for users to protect them selves and to be aware of this situation they need to know the articles are there for them to read, understand and educate themselves against remote attackers. Ignoring this information can leave these vulnerabilities open for anyone using these applications.