Current Events in September 2012

Finding seniors reluctant to retire in the post-pension era, AARP has unveiled a new Ready for Retirement website featuring a new Social Security Question and Answer (Q&A) interactive tool providing answers to the more than 11,000 questions AARP has received on the issue.  

Sixty-five percent of respondents to an August AARP survey said they worry they won't have enough to retire, and 72 percent believe they will have to delay retirement. The new website offers a simple five-step approach featuring calculators, quizzes, interactive seminars, articles and tips. 

“As pensions disappear for many American families, preparing for a successful retirement has become increasingly important, and AARP wants to ensure people have the tools they need to save for their futures,” said Jean Setzfand, AARP Vice President for Financial Security.  “The new Ready for Retirement site shows people the actions they need to take to plan out the retirement they want.”

The AARP.org Ready for Retirement site walks users through the planning process step-by-step, from setting their retirement goals, determining how to maximize their Social Security income, and budgeting and generating enough lifetime income to meet the rest of their needs.

How it works

Social Security provides the backbone for most Americans’ retirement planning, but studies have shown that most Americans have a limited understanding of how the program works. The AARP Social Security Q&A Tool aims to clear up some of that confusion by providing instant answers to the 11,000 Social Security-related questions that have been submitted to AARP’s financial security experts through phone calls, letters, emails and live “ask-the-experts” webinars.

The tool is free, but requires users to register on the AARP.org website.  If users of the tool have a question not included, they can ask AARP for an answer and AARP says they will receive a timely response.   

Alcohol marketers have lately adopted the slogan “drink responsibly,” which is a little vague but is generally assumed to mean to drink in moderation.

The long history of alcoholic beverages has revealed the many unfortunate things that can happen when people drink too much. But the problems may be greater than getting into an accident or a fight or damaging your liver.

New research at the University of North Carolina (UNC) shows that heavy alcohol use actually rewires brain circuitry, making it harder for alcoholics to recover psychologically following a traumatic experience.

“There’s a whole spectrum to how people react to a traumatic event,” said study author Thomas Kash, an assistant professor of pharmacology at UNC. “It’s the recovery that we’re looking at -- the ability to say ‘this is not dangerous anymore.’ Basically, our research shows that chronic exposure to alcohol can cause a deficit with regard to how our cognitive brain centers control our emotional brain centers.”

Irrational fear

It's normal to be fearful in a dangerous situation. But once there is no longer any danger, it's normal not to be afraid. When that fear persists, it's often diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The scientists believe alcohol plays a role in that irrational fear.

“A history of heavy alcohol abuse could impair a critical mechanism for recovering from a trauma, and in doing so put people at greater risk for PTSD,” said Andrew Holmes, the study’s senior author. “The next step will be to test whether our pre-clinical findings translate to patients currently suffering from comorbid PTSD and alcohol abuse. If it does, then this could lead to new thinking about how we can better treat these serious medical conditions.”

The North Carolina scientists reached their conclusions based on a study of laboratory mice. Over the course of a month they gave one group of mice doses of alcohol equivalent to double the legal driving limit in humans. A second group of mice was given no alcohol. The team then used mild electric shocks to train all the mice to fear the sound of a brief tone.

When the tone was repeatedly played without the accompanying electric shock, the mice with no alcohol exposure gradually stopped fearing it. The mice with chronic alcohol exposure, on the other hand, froze in place each time the tone was played, even long after the electric shocks had stopped.

Harder to get over the fear

People can react the same way. Patients with PTSD often have trouble overcoming fear even when they are no longer in a dangerous situation.

In the experiment, mice exposed to heavy alcohol concentrations experienced physical changes to their brains. Comparing the brains of the mice, researchers noticed nerve cells in the prefrontal cortex of the alcohol-exposed mice actually had a different shape than those of the other mice.

Holmes said the findings are valuable because they pinpoint exactly where alcohol causes damage that leads to problems overcoming fear.

“We’re not only seeing that alcohol has detrimental effects on a clinically important emotional process, but we’re able to offer some insight into how alcohol might do so by disrupting the functioning of some very specific brain circuits,” he said.

So drinking in moderation, if at all, is important not only to avoid accidents and a damaged liver, but also to avoid physical changes to the brain that can make it much harder to handle a traumatic event.

Credit bureaus and other consumer reporting companies are going under the microscope. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau  (CFPB) is disclosing the the procedures it will use in making sure these companies are following the law. 

“Consumer reporting, and especially credit reporting, plays a significant role in a consumer’s life. It can dictate whether or not a consumer is able to get a credit card, a mortgage, or a student loan,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Our supervision program will benefit hundreds of millions of consumers by making sure these companies are playing fairly and by the rules, and our field guide will ensure that all companies are held to the same standards.” 

Widely used info 

A consumer report may contain such information as a consumer’s credit history and other transaction details. Lenders use credit reports to evaluate a borrower who is applying for credit cards, mortgages, automobile loans, and other types of credit. 

Consumer reports also serve other purposes, such as determining eligibility and pricing for other types of products and services and informing decisions about other relationships. For example, consumer reports may be used to set premiums for auto and homeowners insurance or to make employment decisions. 

The Dodd-Frank Act gave the CFPB authority to supervise “larger participants” in the consumer financial markets as defined by rule. In July 2012, the CFPB identified a market for consumer reporting and defined larger participants to include companies in that market that have more than $7 million in annual receipts. The CFPB’s supervisory authority will cover an estimated 30 companies that account for about 94 percent of the market’s annual receipts. 

Altogether, the three largest credit reporting companies issue more than 3 billion consumer reports a year and maintain files on more than 200 million Americans. 

Ensuring compliance 

Examiners will be looking to verify that consumer reporting companies are complying with requirements of federal consumer financial law, including: 

• Using and Providing Accurate Information: Examiners will assess whether companies have reasonable procedures in place to ensure accuracy of the information about consumers that appears in their reports. This will include looking at how companies screen information that they receive for accuracy and how companies match incoming information to a particular consumer’s file to make sure it appears on the right consumer’s report.
• Handling Consumer Disputes: Examiners will determine if reporting companies conduct reasonable investigations when consumers dispute the accuracy or completeness of their files. Examiners will also evaluate the systems, procedures and policies used by the company for tracking, handling, investigating, and resolving consumer inquiries, disputes, and complaints.
• Making Disclosures Available: Examiners will determine whether reporting companies disclose to consumers their file information and credit scores when required to do so, and whether they have trained personnel to explain the information in their disclosures to consumers.
• Preventing Fraud and Identity Theft: Examiners will look to see whether these companies are fulfilling the requirements to address identity theft and to protect active duty military consumers, through such means as fraud and active duty alerts, and blocking of reporting of information that stems from identity theft. 

Exam procedures 

The procedures are an extension of the CFPB’s general Supervisory and Examination Manual and provide guidance on how the Bureau will be conducting its monitoring in the consumer reporting market. The examination process will be an process of pre-examination scoping and review of information, data analysis, onsite examinations and regular communication with supervised entities, as well as follow-up monitoring. When necessary, examiners will coordinate and work closely with the CFPB’s enforcement staff, who may take appropriate enforcement actions to address harm to consumers. 

Examiners will evaluate the quality of the regulated entity’s compliance management systems, review practices to ensure they comply with federal consumer financial law, and identify risks to consumers throughout the consumer reporting process. The CFPB has issued similar procedures for other companies under its supervision, such as mortgage originators, mortgage servicers, and payday lenders. 

The CFPB’s authority to supervise consumer reporting companies takes effect September 30.

Mortgage rates were little changed in the last week, hovering near record lows, according to two weekly surveys.

Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) and Bankrate.com's weekly national survey both show fixed mortgage rates declining or remaining the same from the previous week amid mixed economic data.

30-year slightly lower

Freddie Mac shows the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.55 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending September 6, down from last week when it averaged 3.59 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.12 percent.

The 15-year FRM this week averaged 2.86 percent with an average 0.6 point, the same as last week. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.33 percent. Adjustable rates averaged anywhere from 2.75 to 2.61 percent.

"Mortgage rates were little changed over the holiday week amid mixed economic data releases,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac. “Although consumer spending rose 0.4 percent in July, representing the largest gain in five months, the core price index was unchanged suggesting little threat of inflation.”

Other signals were mixed. Consumer confidence picked up slightly in August but manufacturing contracted for the third consecutive month in August.

Bankrate average slightly higher

Bankrate found the average 30-year FRM inching down to 3.79 percent and an average 0.4 point origination fee.

The average 15-year fixed mortgage rate bucked the trend and nosed higher to 3.04 percent, while the larger jumbo 30-year mortgage reset a record low of 4.33 percent. Adjustable mortgage rates also reset record lows, with the 5-year and 7-year ARMs falling to 2.76 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively.

Bankrate sees Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech last week, leaving the door wide open for possible additional stimulus, as a main influence on rates. Bond yields and mortgage rates moved lower in response on the expectation that the Fed will soon be in a buying mode.

The looming employment report will be critical in determining whether the Fed acts at their meeting this month or defers until later in the year. While markets are expecting the Fed to act next week, it would take a weak jobs report to truly seal the deal.

Ford is recalling certain 6,146 2013 Escape vehicles manufactured from October 5, 2011, through August 31, 2012, equipped with 1.6L engines. 

The cylinder head cup plug (freeze plug) may become dislodged resulting in significant loss of engine coolant. As leaking engine coolant evaporates on the hot engine, the glycol may ignite causing an engine compartment fire. 

Ford will notify owners, and dealers will seal the existing plug and add a secondary plug cover, free of charge. The safety recall is expected to begin on, or about, September 10. Owners may contact Ford at 1-866-436-7332.

Individuals and businesses affected by Hurricane Isaac are getting some relief from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 

Following recent disaster declarations for individual assistance issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the IRS has announced that affected taxpayers in Louisiana and Mississippi will receive tax relief, and other locations may be added in coming days based on additional damage assessments. 

Deadlines pushed back 

The tax relief postpones various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred on or after Aug. 26. As a result, affected individuals and businesses will have until Jan. 11, 2013 to file these returns and pay any taxes due. 

This includes corporations and businesses that previously obtained an extension until Sept. 17 to file their 2011 returns and individuals and businesses that received a similar extension until Oct. 15. It also includes the estimated tax payment for the third quarter of 2012, normally due Sept. 17. 

The IRS will abate any interest, late-payment or late-filing penalty that would otherwise apply. In addition, the agency is waiving failure-to-deposit penalties for federal employment and excise tax deposits normally due on or after Aug. 26 and before Sept. 10, if the deposits are made by Sept. 10, 2012. Details on available relief, including information on how to claim a disaster loss by amending a prior-year tax return, are available here. 

The tax relief is part of a coordinated federal response to the damage caused by the hurricane and is based on local damage assessments by FEMA. Information on disaster recovery is available here. 

So far, IRS filing and payment relief applies to the following localities: 

• In Louisiana: Ascension, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. Tammany parishes;
• In Mississippi: Hancock, Harrison, Jackson and Pearl counties.

Apple is sending very strong signals that it will take the wraps off its latest version of the iPhone next week. Members of the media have begun receiving invitations to an event September 12 in San Francisco.

With all the rumors and hype about the impending release of the next version of Apple's smartphone, it seems very likely the wraps are about to come off the iPhone 5. The invitation all but gives it away, proclaiming “It's almost here.” The invitation also bears a large number 5.

So, what will the new device feature that the old one doesn't? There is no shortage of conjecture.

Rumor central

The tech site Gizmodo has been collecting all the leaks about the new phone over the last few months and predicts it will feature a unibody design with two-tone back and be available in both black and white, as the current model is.

Reports also suggest the iPhone 5 -- it's just assumed that's what it will be called -- will feature a four-inch screen. Apple has already announced its new mobile operating system, iOS6, so it is assumed the new phone will run that.

It is also widely assumed that the new iPhone will have 4G LTE network capability. Android phones have offered it for more than a year but the iPhone 4S, which came out last fall, only operates on the 3G network.

While many iPhone users say that's plenty fast for their uses, carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, with lots of iPhone customers, have reportedly found iPhone users' voracious data appetites have placed a strain on their 3G networks.

The 4G network also drains batteries faster. Gizmodo opines that Apple held off on moving the iPhone 4S to 4G for that very reason.

Mini iPad?

The real mystery about the Sept. 12 event is whether Apple will also use the occasion to introduce a mini iPad. Such a device is said to be in the works, even though the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was on record rejecting such a notion.

The iPad, introduced in 2010, features a 10-inch screen and retails starting at $499. Since then a number of small tablet computers and e-readers, featuring seven-inch screens, have hit the market at $199, proving wildly popular with consumers.

Apple is rumored to be readying a seven-inch iPad that would sell at or near that price point and reportedly plans to have it out in time for the holiday season.

The way Public Citizen sees it, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has dragged its feet for too long on a petition calling on the agency to stop allowing the drug Aricept to be marketed at doses that can cause severe — and even fatal — side effects. To make its case, the public interest lobbying group has filed suit asking the court to compel the FDA to act. 

The suit follows a petition from Public Citizen  in May 2011 urging the FDA to remove from the market immediately a 23 milligram (mg) dose of Aricept and to add to lower-dosage (5 mg and 10 mg) forms of Aricept and the generic counterpart, donepezil, warnings against use at a higher dosage. The agency has yet to act on the petition. 

Aricept was approved in 1996 as a treatment for Alzheimer’s at a dose of 5 or 10 mg daily. Before the patent expired in November 2010, the drug maker, Eisai, sought approval for a 23 mg version, on which it would have an additional period to market without generic competition. 

High dose danger 

A study presented to the FDA in 2009 failed to show that the 23 mg version was more effective than lower doses. But the high dose was associated with a much higher incidence of vomiting, which, in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the FDA, “can lead to pneumonia, massive gastrointestinal bleeding, esophageal rupture or death.” 

Based on the study results, the primary medical reviewer at the FDA recommended that agency deny the company’s application to market the higher-dose 23 mg version of the drug. That recommendation was rejected by the director of the FDA’s Division of Neurology Products, Dr. Russell G. Katz. The approval allowed Eisai to market Aricept 23, exclusively, for three years. 

Public Citizen is asking that the court declare unlawful the FDA’s failure to act on Public Citizen’s petition and order the FDA to issue a decision on the petition. 

“A primary function of the FDA is to protect citizens from harm caused by needlessly dangerous drugs, in this case a drug no more effective but significantly more dangerous than the lower doses of Aricept,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. “By ignoring Public Citizen’s petition for more than a year, the agency has ignored this responsibility and instead has chosen to support the profit interests of a large pharmaceutical company. During the past year alone approximately 350,000 prescriptions have been filled in the U.S. for Aricept 23, with total sales of $91 million. Allowing Esai to exploit and harm vulnerable patients with Alzheimer’s disease is unconscionable.”

Despite more consumers shopping at discount food stores, the competition remains tough. Supervalu has announced it is closing 60 under-performing stores including 38 in its retail food segment and 22 Save-A-Lot locations.

The majority of the stores are expected to close before December 1, 2012, the end of the Company’s fiscal 2013 third quarter.

“These decisions are never easy because of the impact a store closure has on our team members, our customers and our communities,” said Wayne Sales, Supervalu's president, CEO, and chairman. “Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to move with a greater sense of urgency to reduce costs and improve shareholder value.”

Company expects big savings

There will be costs associated with closing the stores but the company says it expects to recoup $100 million from the sales of assets and reduced costs over the next three years. The Company owns the real estate for approximately one-third of the retail food stores being closed.

The closures in the retail food segment include 27 Albertsons stores, 19 of which are located in southern California. Eight of the other stores are in the Intermountain West region. In addition to the Albertsons and Save-A-Lot stores, Supervalu is closing four ACME stores and one previously announced Jewel-Osco location.

Eight other stores are targeted for closing but their locations have yet to be announced because of ongoing contract discussions.

Up against dollar stores

Supervalu has struggle in recent years to compete against other discount chains. In addition, dollar stores have aggressively moved into the grocery space, taking many Supervalu customers, who were already shopping at Dollar General and Family Dollar for other items.

On Wednesday, Dollar General reported a larger than expected profit and raised its forecast, based in large part on an increase in food sales. The company reported a 5.1 increase in same store sales for the just completed quarter.

Since 2009 and the onset of the recession, dollar stores have increased food offerings, undercutting discount grocers like Supervalu and, in some cases, even Walmart.

Klement Sausage of Milwaukee, WI, is recalling approximately 2,920 pounds of frozen bratwurst patties because they may contain foreign materials -- pieces of a plastic pen. 

The products subject to recall include:

• 10-lb. cases containing 4-ounce patties of KLEMENT SAUSAGE CO. BRATWURST PATTY. 

All products were produced on July 6, 2012. The packages bear the establishment number “EST. 2426B” in the USDA mark of inspection and the batch number “21097” on the case label. The products were distributed for foodservice use in Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) was alerted to the problem by the firm after the company received complaints from distributors who were made aware by food preparation personnel who discovered the foreign matter while preparing to cook the product. There are no reports of injury or illnesses associated with consumption of this product. Anyone concerned about an illness should contact a healthcare provider. 

Consumers with questions about the recall should contact Jeff Klement, the company’s vice president of special projects, at (414) 744-2330 x244.  

While attention has been riveted in recent weeks on Apple and Samsung, as they fought their patent battle in court, other smartphone manufacturers seem to have been flying under the radar with pretty cool products of their own.

Nokia, for example, this week announced two new smartphones that will run on Windows 8 and feature something designed to alleviate a constant consumer complaint – rapid battery drain. The Lumia 920 and the smaller Lumia 820 have batteries that can be recharged wirelessly. No more having your phone out of action while it recharges or going dead in the middle of a call.

Charging partners

But wireless recharging requires a little infrastructure. There has to be a way for users to connect wirelessly with a charging station.

Nokia kicked things off by announcing Virgin Atlantic, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf would be early providers of wireless charging for the two phones. It said it planned to execute agreement with other partners in the weeks ahead.

Deals with Virgin Atlantic to put wireless charging stations in the London Heathrow Clubhouse lounge and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to put charging plates on tables in some of their cafés, were the first of many deals Nokia said it intends to sign to take wireless charging outside the home and office.

Better cameras

In addition to offering wireless charging, the Lumia 920 comes with Nokia's largest-ever battery. But power sources aren't the only innovations the two phones offer, the company says. The phones boast enhanced camera lenses and a technology called Nokia PureView.

Using advanced floating lens technology, the company says the camera in the Nokia Lumia 920 is able to take in five times more light than competing smartphones without using flash, making it possible to capture higher quality pictures and video indoors and at night. It also compensates for hand movement while the photo is being taken.

"Nokia PureView continues to deliver cutting-edge technology to make it possible for a smartphone camera to take the kind of images usually only seen on a standalone SLR camera," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia Smart Devices. "With the Nokia Lumia 920 we have made it possible to shoot pictures and video at home, outdoors, in a restaurant or even at night, and come out with professional-looking results."

Focusing on images

Nokia says better imaging is its niche. It says it has tried to create cameras that work well in low light and give consumers a great camera in addition to a great smartphone.

The Nokia Lumia 820 is a mid-range smartphone that Nokia says delivers high-end performance in a compact package. While the Nokia Lumia 820 has the same unibody look and feel as the high-end Lumia smartphones, it comes with an exchangeable shell design. That allows consumers to choose different colors and add wireless charging. Beneath the shell is room to insert a micro SD memory card.

Nokia has not yet announced release dates for the phones or prices but should be available before the end of the year.

Political commercials are bad enough, but you expect them. Plus, the politicians and the groups supporting them spend a lot of money for the privilege of bombarding you with their points of view.

But an election year on Facebook is getting to be insufferable. For starters, I have a lot of "friends" who aren't really friends. For a while there I was responding positively to every friend request, because not to seemed somehow rude. Oh, how innocent we were in those days.

I'm not a big Facebook user but like to keep up with my cousins and a few friends and it seems a pretty good way to do that. Only now I have to wade through political opinions -- both left and right -- from people I barely know to get to the good stuff.

From the right and the left

For example, the top two posts on my timeline at the moment are from Republicans, one urging everyone to see the movie "2016" and the other chortling over the Occupy protests at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

My childhood friend Charlie is a diehard Democrat and, while all his posts are reasoned and civil, almost all of them are a critique of Republicans and a defense of the Obama Administration. He posts about little else.

Another Democrat "friend," who I am sure I have never met in my life, continuously tosses grenades with her posts, delighting lately in ripping into Paul Ryan, or "Lyin' Ryan," as she calls him.

New meaning to political nature

Last week she posted a beautiful photograph of a massive squall line rolling across the horizon and I was sure she had finally taken a break from politics. Alas, I was wrong.

"Scary!" she wrote. "Almost as scary as the idea of a Romney Administration!"

I know I am not alone in getting weary of all the political views on my Facebook page. Two of my cousins posted this graphic on their pages today. I'm sure this thing is going viral by now.

But since there is no button to hide political content I'm doing the next best thing, though perhaps a little extreme. From now to November 6, when a "friend" posts their political views, I'm de-friending them.

It's nothing personal, but my Facebook page isn't talk radio or cable TV. And if you really want to know the truth, everyone has political views -- so they aren't very interested in yours.

A hacker group claims they’ve been successful in stealing the device information numbers of 12 million Apple customers, specifically iPhone and iPad users.

The group said they stole the data from a New York based FBI agent’s laptop, which set off an alarm for many Apple users who believe they may be one of the hacked victims.

Here’s what the group wrote after releasing 1 million unique device identifiers (UDID) to substantiate their story:

During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence ResponseTeam was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of “NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv” turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers, user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc. the personal detail fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted on many parts. No other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose.

The hackers named AntiSec are comprised of different members of the main hack group Anonymous, and said they wanted to warn people of what the U.S. government and the FBI were up to.

“Well, we have learnt it seems quite clear nobody pays attention if you just come and say ‘hey, FBI is using your device details and info and who the [expletive] knows what the hell are they experimenting with that, well sorry, but nobody will care,” wrote one of AntiSec reps in an email rant.

UDIDs

So what are UDIDs exactly?

They're just what the name implies -- a unique number assigned to a device. Every device has its own identifier and each number is used only once. It's not a number users would be familiar with and unlike a user id or password, the UDID is burned into the hardware and stays there throughout the life of the device. 

Think of it as a VIN number for electronic devices.

Although the numbers aren’t connected to all of your computer's data like user names or passwords, the numbers can potentially be used to match each device with its owner.

In fact there’s already a program developer in Florida who has created a program where Apple users can check to see if their UDID was one of the numbers on the FBI list, or one of the numbers that's been hacked.

But before you get too worried about your personal information being compromised, the FBI has since released a statement that says the hackers aren’t being truthful and UDIDs were actually never stolen.

“The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed,” the government agency said in a statement. “At this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.”

However some Apple users have already sent out tweets saying they confirmed that some of their UDIDs have been compromised, though how they would know that is an open question. The FBI insists AntiSec’s hacking claims are not merely a fabrication, but an out-and-out falsehood.

“Statement soon on reports that one of our laptops with personal info was hacked,” the FBI Press Office said in a Twitter post. “We never had info in question. Bottom Line: Totally False,” the tweet read.

Trumped the iPhone

The sudden reports of Apple devices being hacked trumped the company’s big news of the iPhone 5 possibly being introduced on September 12, of this year.

The Apple company, based in Cupertino Calif., released an invitation wanting the press to attend a media event that will be held in San Francisco later this month.

Although the flyer didn’t actually say the new iPhone was being introduced, a huge number five was shadowed under a number 12, which hinted that the new edition of the Apple phone will be revealed in a little over a week, leaving consumers around the globe salivating in anticipation.

Rumors have been circulating that the new phone will have a pretty substantial change in design, including a slimmer and bit longer appearance with  a brighter display screen, and that's for starters.

Some would say purchasing a home is a definite part of the American dream. But that dream can easily turn into a nightmare if you’re suddenly unable to afford the mortgage payments.

Well, a company has recognized the large number of people in this  predicament, and have come up with a unique way to solve a family’s mortgage problems, and increase its client list.

Brainiacs From Mars, a marketing company specializing in off the wall ideas, offers to pay your mortgage if you allow them to use your house as a billboard. And what does that mean exactly?

Well, picture your house being painted a mango-colored orange or an electric green, with colossal company logos all over it from the roof to the base. That’s the idea behind this new technique of advertising and Braniacs From Mars is the first company to put it into action.

“It really blew my mind,” said Romeo Mendoza CEO of Braniacs in an interview with CNN Money. “I knew the economy was tough, but it’s sad to see how many homeowners are really struggling.”

Lots of applicants

The company has received an overload of applications from homeowners wanting their houses to be used for marketing purposes, since the peculiar offer was announced earlier this year.

Here’s how the deal is structured: Homeowners submit an application to Braniacs From Mars, then the company decides which houses it will choose. If you're accepted, you’ll have your mortgage paid for up to one full year, as long as the advertisements are visible for the entire duration of the deal.

The first to jump on the offer was the Hostetler family from Buena Park, Calif., and they’ve been nothing but pleased with the business exchange thus far.

“We thought it would be nice to have a company pay the mortgage so we could pay down our bills and the credit cards," said Scott Hostettler in a published interview. 

Braniacs not only select houses that are perfectly located for advertising but chooses families based on what their circumstances may be. Once the advertising is completed the company restores the house back to its original look.

Not a charity

But make no mistake about it, Braniacs From Mars isn’t a homeowner’s assistance company, it’s a marketing firm, and the main idea is to build up its client roster by providing an unprecedented way to market brands and raise awareness.

Shortly after Mendoza and his company made the advertising offer known nearly 40,000 homeowners applied, changing the deal from a strange sounding bartering system to something of a lottery. The bulk of the applications came from those states that have been on the front lines of the  housing crash like Florida, California and Nevada.

Of course downsides of the exchange consist of having a weird-looking house and potentially annoying your neighbors.

Also, if you’re the type who likes to keep a low profile, those days would be very much over. You would also have to deal with any home owner association guidelines about deviating from the planned neighborhood look and appeal.

“There are definitely zoning issues in some cities, and we realize that” said Mendoza. “But we have really hit a nerve, and we can’t let that stop us. Once people start seeing how it works, once they get it, the moment they realize it is paying people’s mortgages, they’re always on our side because of this economy.”

But the question remains: Is going through all of that attention getting and having a strange looking house better than getting your house foreclosed? According to the almost 40,000 homeowners that applied, it’s definitely worth it, as desperate circumstances many times call for out-of-the-box solutions.

For those interested in throwing their house in the ring for mortgage payments they can go to the company’s website and fill out the online application. But I hope you really like green or orange, and you don’t mind possibly having a 20-foot Twitter logo on your house.

Federal regulators are currently debating how to define a "Qualified Residential Mortgage" (QRM) under the Dodd-Frank Act and what they decide may well determine whether you will ever be able to afford to buy a home, according to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL).

Congress established the category of a Qualified Residential Mortgage in response to the housing meltdown. Unless the mortgage a lender originates meets the requirements of a QRM, the lender will be required to retain ownership of a portion of it.

Reasonable restrictions

Loans with risky product features such as high fees, balloon payments, low teaser rates or interest-only or negative amortization schedules will automatically be ineligible for QRM status, as will loans that do not verify borrower income. According to CRL, these are reasonable restrictions.

However, regulators are also considering imposing minimum down payment requirements as part of the QRM standard. Unless a homeowner has a large amount of cash to put down, such a requirement could make it harder to get a loan and qualify for a low rate.

"While much has been written on the barriers to homeownership that would result from the 20 percent down payment requirement included in regulators’ April 2011 proposed rule, there has been less commentary on a possible 10 percent down payment," CRL said in a brief, filed along with six other consumer and civil rights organizations.

A lot of cash

If a buyer were required to come up with 10 percent of the purchase price, the down payment on a home costing $189,000 would be $18,900. With fees and other closing costs the buyer could be looking at needing to raise $20,000 in order to make the purchase.

"The costs of imposing a mandatory 10 percent down payment are unacceptably high," CRL said. "Not only would such a requirement exclude creditworthy families from homeownership, but it also would undermine the nation’s economic recovery by further depressing the housing market."

But wait a minute, didn't lax lending standards, and allowing consumers to purchase homes they couldn't afford, get us into the housing mess in the first place? Yes, but CRL says loans with lower down payments are not the same as subprime loans, which often utilized low teaser rates before adjusting sharply higher.

Low down payments not the cause

It says the housing crisis was brought on by abusive loan terms and practices in the subprime and Alt-A mortgage markets, not low down payment loans. According to CRL, arbitrary minimum down payment requirements would lock middle-income families out of the mainstream market and widen the wealth disparities that already exist between whites and communities of color.

"Given median housing prices and incomes, it would take over 20 years for the average family to save a 10 percent down payment plus closing costs," the group said. "The barriers would be even greater for typical African-American and Latino families, for whom it would take 31 and 26 years, respectively, to save enough to meet such a requirement. Again, lending history has shown that many families who don’t have the funds for a significant down payment can become successful homeowners."

Realtors agree

The CRL stance puts the consumer group on the same page as the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which has been preaching that same message for years. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun has said that if the mortgage industry simply returned to the lending standards that were in place years before the housing bubble, home sales would increase by 15 percent.

Looking at large sample of mortgages originated between 2000 and 2008, the CRL study shows that, after applying Dodd-Frank’s other mortgage protections, a 10 percent down payment requirement would have had a relatively small benefit in reducing defaults.

The Federal Communications Commission’s plan to launch a program to measure mobile broadband service performance in the United States falls short of providing adequate protection, Consumer Watchdog charges. Cell phone carriers must be required to disclose data speeds in their advertisements if consumers are to benefit, the group said.

Citing deceptive and confusing advertising by mobile phone companies concerning data speeds, Consumer Watchdog last month petitioned the FCC to require wireless carriers to disclose actual network data speeds in advertisements and at the point of sale. 

Consumer Watchdog pointed to AT&T’s advertising of the iPhone 4S as an example of 4G/data speed marketplace abuse. In a petition to the FCC, the group said: 

“In January 2012, AT&T began marketing the iPhone 4S as being a 4G phone, even though Apple represents it as 3G -- a fact that was reflected on the phone itself: when connected to the AT&T network, a ‘3G’ icon appeared on the screen. Then, in March 2012, the iPhone’s software was suddenly updated so the screen displayed a ‘4G’ icon. Nothing else about the phone or AT&T’s network had changed, yet AT&T immediately began an advertising campaign flaunting the phone’s improved, faster 4G speeds.”

Standards ignored

The nonprofit, nonpartisan group told the FCC that technical speed standards for “4G” mobile technology are universally ignored by U.S. cell phone companies, which now promise “faster, 4G” speeds in virtually every advertisement, “either without actually making improvements to existing products and services or without disclosing the meaning of 'faster.’

“Having accurate information about how fast a smartphone downloads data is essential when a consumer choses a device and carrier,” said John M. Simpson, a consumer advocate with the public interest group. “But unless the information is clearly disclosed in advertisements and at the point of sale it is inaccessible and virtually useless.”

“The FCC's mobile broadband testing and measurement program does not go far enough,” said Laura Antonini, Consumer Watchdog staff attorney. “The public may finally get some reliable information on mobile broadband data speeds, but it will not prevent wireless carriers from fooling consumers with inaccurate and confusing data speed claims.”

The Commission announced an open meeting on Sept 21 to discuss the methods for performance testing of mobile broadband Internet service, approaches to remotely acquiring and analyzing such data, and other methodological considerations for the testing of mobile broadband performance.

We all click those little boxes saying we "agree to the terms and conditions." Well, guess what -- that action has consequences, as a the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed when it upheld a lower court's dismissal of a proposed class action lawsuit against the consumer retailer and HSBC Bank.

The suit charged that the retailer and the bank had failed to properly disclose a $59 annual fee in advertisements and applications for the Reward Zone Program MasterCard.

Though lead plaintiff Gary Davis could have canceled the card the avoid the fee, he instead refused to activate it and continued to pay the annual fee for five years, Courthouse News Service reported.

U.S. District Judge George King dismissed the Los Angeles case, and a three-judge appeals panel unanimously affirmed on Friday. He noted that neither Best Buy's online application nor its advertisements violated federal disclosure laws. Furthermore, whatever alleged harm Davis suffered could have been easily avoided.

"The advertisement contained the disclaimer, 'other restrictions may apply,' which would have motivated a reasonable consumer to consult the terms and conditions," Judge Dorothy Nelson wrote for the appeals court. "If that were not enough, the online application used boldface and oversized font to alert Davis to the Important Terms & Disclosure Statement, instructing him to 'read the notice below carefully.'"

Additionally, Judge Nelson noted that Davis had checked a box indicating his assent to the terms and conditions.  She noted that Davis could have received a refund of the annual fee if he canceled the card within 90 days.

"Because Davis failed to read the terms and conditions before agreeing to them, and because he refused to cancel his card within 90 days, even when viewing the facts in Davis's favor, we must conclude that any harm he suffered was the product of his own behavior, not the advertisements," Nelson wrote. 

There are many ways to measure the health of the economy. Economists pore over financial data each month to determine which way things are headed.

But Visa says if economists want an accurate read on the economy, perhaps they should look under children's pillows. And according to the credit card company, the Tooth Fairy is leaving an average of $3.00 per tooth this year, an increase of 15 percent over the $2.60 left in 2011.

"The Tooth Fairy may be the canary in the economic coal mine," said Jason Alderman, Senior Director of Global Financial Education, Visa Inc. "She's showing signs of life by leaving 40 cents more per tooth this year. This is not only good news for kids, but an ideal teachable moment for parents to engage their children in thinking about how to budget their windfall by saving a portion."

Tips for parents

In case parents are uncertain about how much money the Tooth Fairy should leave for a tooth, Visa has created a mobile app to help determine that. The free app and calculator uses Visa's survey data and factors in demographics such as gender, age, home state, income and education levels to formulate how much money the Tooth Fairy is leaving in comparable households. The app is available for iPhones and iPads at the iTunes Store, while the calculator is available here.  

Other data in the survey seems to suggest that things are better this year for the Tooth Fairy, and perhaps are also looking up for families. Only three percent of children received less than a dollar for a tooth, down seven percent from last year.,

Eight percent of children received more than $5 per tooth, up from three percent last year. The most common amount left under a pillow, however, is $1. Thirty percent of children received that amount this year compared to 29 percent last year.

If you're looking for a quick way to lower your cholesterol level, don't count on Vitamin D. 

According to new research in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, an American Heart Association journal, taking vitamin D supplements to compensate for vitamin D deficiency didn't improve cholesterol -- at least in the short term. 

Researchers studied 151 people with vitamin D deficiency who received either a mega-dose (50,000 internationals units) of vitamin D3 or placebo weekly for eight weeks. Participants' cholesterol levels were measured before and after treatment. 

Correcting vitamin D deficiencies with high doses of oral vitamin D supplements did not change cholesterol levels, researchers found. This was despite effectively increasing vitamin D to recommended levels. Vitamin D levels nearly tripled in the group that received actual supplements, but were unchanged in the placebo group. 

Challenging the notion 

"Our study challenges the notion that vitamin D repletion improves cholesterol levels" said Manish Ponda, M.D., M.S., study lead author and assistant professor of clinical investigation in Dr. Jan Breslow's laboratory of biochemical genetics and metabolism at The Rockefeller University in New York. "These clinical trial results confirm those from a recent data mining study." 

The researchers also tested the effect of vitamin D supplementation on more sophisticated biomarker measures of cholesterol, such as particle size and number. "These measures of cholesterol, which are not used in routine clinical practice, also did not change in response to vitamin D therapy," Ponda said. 

As expected, replenishing subjects with high-dose supplements of oral vitamin D decreased parathyroid hormone levels and increased calcium levels -- physical functional changes that were linked to participants' increase in low-density lipoprotein (LDL, bad cholesterol). 

"For example, participants receiving vitamin D who had an increase in calcium levels experienced a 7 percent increase in LDL cholesterol, while those whose calcium levels fell or did not change had a 5 percent decrease in LDL cholesterol," Ponda said. 

The study questions the use of vitamin D supplements to improve cholesterol, Ponda said. While the dose of vitamin D in this study was high, it was appropriate for correcting a vitamin D deficiency over an eight week period. 

More study needed 

However, longer-term studies on the impact of the changes in LDL cholesterol as a result of high dose vitamin D supplementation are needed to make stronger recommendations. And questions remain about whether increasing vitamin D levels with exposure to sunlight, the predominant natural source, would have a different effect than with high-dose oral supplements. 

To address these issues, Ponda and Breslow will begin another clinical trial this fall, comparing the effect of oral vitamin D to ultraviolet light exposure with a longer follow-up period.