Activist for the housing market are asking for a foreclosure moratorium. Activists feel that families facing foreclosure should have at least a six-month moratorium to enable them to work out a plan to bring their mortgages current before they are kicked out of their homes.

“The debt is forcing people to take second jobs, sell family possessions, and rent out a second room,” said Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

The problem hit the subprime mortgage market, where people pay more for their home loans because the prime market considers them to be higher risks than other borrowers. Activists told a Wednesday news conference lenders are misleading many borrowers, who are surprised and unable to pay when expensive terms of the loan kick in.

It is not a surprise that so many homeowners are facing foreclosure when you take a look at the loan terms, Josh Nassar of the Center for Responsible Lending told reporters. People are qualified generally just to pay for the initial rate, not the adjusted rate, which includes a payment shock of well over 30 percent.

His group estimates that about 20 percent of the sub-prime loans made in the past two years will go into default and result in families losing their houses.”

The complete article can be found at:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/04/news/economy/foreclosures/index.htm?section=money_email_alert

Pam

Typically, a company facing financial challenges today is able to court suitors in the private equity market (e.g. Chrysler). So it is bad news indeed for Vonage that this option may not be available to it. Specifically, a federal court ruling in a patent case that Vonage can no longer sign up new customers (the ruling was stayed until appeals were exhausted) is making Vonage un-salable, according to some.

""The lawsuit increases the risk and uncertainty around Vonage's story, making a potential sale of the company unlikely," said Clayton Moran, an analyst with Stanford Group, a Boca Raton, Fla., investment bank. "Anyone who was potentially considering partnering or buying the company could take a hard look at Vonage and pass."

The injunction followed a legal victory in March by New York-based Verizon. The court found that Vonage infringed three of Verizon's patents, including patents related to retrieving voicemail and terminating voice calls from someone using an Internet-based telecommunications network to a traditional network. Vonage plans to appeal the ruling, which was issued by Judge Claude Hilton in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.""

Here is the link to the entire article:

http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1176195848471

Mike