Reading about: mortgage crisis news, the problems of e-mail,

I admit this post is mostly an attempt to catch up with the news. Some interesting tidbits that I do not think need a full post - especially after a rather long day.

Looks like some lenders are stepping up to the plate and dealing with the subprime mortgage mess.

Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored company that is the second-largest buyer and guarantor of home loans in the country, announced Wednesday that it will buy as much as $20 billion in fixed-rate and adjustable-rate mortgages to help borrowers with high-priced loans keep their homes. The new mortgages, expected to be available by midsummer, will include loans with longer fixed-rate terms.

Fannie Mae, the No. 1 mortgage financer, also is offering new options so that lenders can help subprime borrowers refinance out of high-interest adjustable-rate mortgages or other difficult loans.

And Washington Mutual Inc., one of the country's largest financial institutions, said it will refinance up to $2 billion in subprime mortgages to help borrowers avoid default and foreclosure, allowing them to apply for discounted fixed-rate home loans or other refinancing alternatives. Subprime loans comprise only about 6 percent of Seattle-based Washington Mutual's mortgage holdings, but they dealt a heavy blow to its first-quarter earnings, which slid 20 percent.

If you or someone you know has one of these subprime mortgages, I strongly suggest checking out these offers. The AP article obtusely headlined Lending giant moves indicate cooperation,can be found at this link.

This article, Technology Quiz: How Does E-Mail Disappear?, covers a lot of the territory I wrote about in Electronic discovery - E-mails, Enron, and Karl Rove. The article's style differs a good deal from the article I wrote about and that might make for a more interesting read, but I suggest reading this article only supplements my earlier post and not vice versa.

I get this e-mail newsletter from Lumen Legal. Sometimes they have good articles and sometimes the articles are just okay. Ignorance about e-Discovery No Longer an Excuse falls under the latter category. Nothing in the article explains its conclusion: "[f]ailing to show litigators and regulators how you have tried to preserve data can be as dangerous as not knowing where it is at all...."

I am still pondering why I want to find a Federal Employer Identification Number, but this very short article, Find a Federal Employer Identification Number informs me that there are services out there for finding this information. The article also has three screenshots.

Well, that is all for today.