Bank Lawyer's Blog

What's Good For The Sharks Is Good For America

A couple of weeks ago, I said that I thought the plaintiffs' attorneys in the recently settled class action litigation against the Veterans Administration over the theft of a lap top computer would "make millions." Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that the "millions" assumption was indeed correct.

Under the $20 million deal, lawyers for the veterans will receive up to $5.5 million for fees and costs, while roughly $1.4 million will be spent to notify millions of veterans and provide information about the settlement via advertisements in newspapers, magazines and a toll-free hot line.

As you'll recall, each veteran who can prove that he or she has "incurred out of pocket expenses for credit monitoring or physical symptoms of emotional distress," will receive between $75 and $1500. I've asked it before and I'll ask it again: Is this a great country, or what?

In yet one more sign that this nation of the lawyers, by the lawyers, and for the lawyers shall not perish from the earth (as long as one lawyer and one solvent defendant remain), The Memphis Business Journal recently ran a piece detailing that though the TARP program may be a bust in terms of goosing the economy, it's been a godsend for the formation of "special practice groups" by law firms.

Securities Docket, an online trade journal for the securities industry, has tracked the proliferation of financial crisis practice groups and task forces since the fall. To date, the self-regulated list has grown to 32 national law firms. No Memphis law firms are represented.

Dude! If you're walkin' in Memphis, walkin' with your feet ten feet off of Beale, if you're walkin' in Memphis, and you don't know if you really feel the way you feel, then it's probably because you haven't created a financial crisis practice group. Get you one of those bad boys and you'll know how you really feel. You'll be feelin' like singing Hallelujah!

We've been a big fan of special practice groups, linked first to subprime and now to the bailout, for some time now. Every law firm should have one. In fact, when private capital finally heeds Treasury's siren call and comes pouring in to buy up "distressed assets," we look forward to the first "Bottom Feeders Feeding Frenzy Practice Group" bursting forth from a giant law firm like Athena from the head of Zeus.

PTSD Damages For A Non-Event

Two and one-half years ago, then-VA Administrator Jim Nicholson asked Congress for emergency funding of not less $160.5 million "for credit counseling and other measures to protect veterans and military troops whose sensitive personal information was stolen." Yesterday, the VA announced that it had agreed to pay $20 million to settle class-action litigation filed by five veterans groups as a result of that data theft.

Unfortunately for the taxpayers, there's a rub. As VA spokesman Phil Buhdan stated yesterday: "We want to assure veterans there is no evidence that the information involved in this incident was used to harm a single veteran."

It's even better than that. A lap top and external hard drive containing the data were stolen, and later recovered. According to FBI experts at the that time, the data had not been accessed by the thieves, much less used. In the intervening 30 months, not a single incident of identity theft or other unlawful use of the personal information was reported. So why pay $20 million?

The money, which will come from the U.S. Treasury, will be used to pay veterans who can show they suffered actual harm, such as physical symptoms of emotional distress or expenses incurred for credit monitoring.

[...]

According to the proposed settlement, veterans who show harm from the data theft will be able to receive payments ranging from $75 to $1,500. If any of the $20 million is left over after making payments, the remainder would be donated to veterans' charities agreed to by the parties, such as the Fisher House Foundation Inc. and The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.

[...]

"This is a very positive result," said Douglas J. Rosinski, an attorney representing the veterans groups. "A lot of hard work went into finding a resolution that all the parties could be proud to say they were a part of bringing about."

$75 to $1500 a pop for "emotional distress." How many warriors will step forward and claim that prize? Not many, I bet.  As for credit monitoring, the VA offered to provide free credit monitoring for any veteran who asked for it, but it wasn't necessary, was it? We knew it was a waste of money in the summer of 2006, and the absence of any misuse of personal information in the intervening months has only supported that view. The VA fired the parties responsible for the lapse of security, and the OMB changed its rules to require encryption of laptop hard drives, and all that was done without prompting by a class action lawsuit. Therefore, no actual harm exists to be compensated, and no dysfunctional behavior was corrected by the litigation.

The folks that this class-action litigation serves are the plaintiffs' lawyers. They'll make a lot more per-person than $75 to $1500. They'll make millions. For that small cadre, this outcome is, indeed, "a very positive result."

You Can't Get There From Here

Saturday's Houston Chronicle had an amusing (to perverse readers like your truly, at least) article on the current housing finance crisis, the dirty word "bailout," and how many of the proposals that have been made to "fix" the crisis have a snowball's chance in Hades of either (a) being adopted or, if adopted, (b) actually resolving the crisis. According to the Chronicle the stumbling block to any bailout is simple: "Most risky home loans made near the end of the housing boom can't be salvaged."

"Some people are just in houses that are just way out of reach for them," said Douglas Elmendorf, a senior economics fellow at the Brookings Institution, noting that politicians do not like "explicitly appropriating funds for this."

[...]

Washington's desire to help is undercut by the reality that it's not viable to rescue homeowners or banks that made loans or investors that bought securities backed by mortgages.

"I have sympathy with a lot of the borrowers, but I don't see how you would decide which ones were worthy and which ones weren't," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said last week, while announcing legislation to crack down on mortgage lending abuses.

When a soft touch like Barney shakes his head at a bailout, you know that it's got to be DOA. On the other hand, Frank's all for closing the barn door after the horses. There's no question that no one (other than the incurably wicked or deranged) wants to see a repeat performance of the unbridled shenanigans that occurred over the last several years in the subprime mortgage market. In that regard, it's likely that some bad legislation will be enacted that will over-correct prior (and no longer persistent) market practices and exacerbate the current credit squeeze by making housing credit tougher to obtain and more expensive for prime, as well as "less than Grade A," borrowers. Trying to fine tune business practices is like trying to fine tune the hot and cold water in your shower. First it's too hot, then too cold, then too hot, then too cold, and on and on until you get it just right. That kind of tinkering is generally best achieved by market participants who've been scalded and/or frozen and are sensitive to all the "nuances." When Congress tries to do it in its usual ham-fisted manner, it generally slams the tap either all the way to "surface of the sun" or to "absolute zero."

Not that such a risk will stop Congress. The taxpayers pay Congressmen and Senators to "do something" and we can't expect them to simply sit on their hands, can we? Especially a well known "hands on" kind of guy like Rep. Frank.

Frank and several consumer groups say lending law reform is needed to prevent mortgage abuses in the future, while Republicans say doing it now makes it harder for the housing market to recover.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., warned at a House hearing Wednesday that Frank's proposed bill would "push us into a housing recession" because lenders would face new restrictions on their ability to help borrowers refinance.

Political pragmatists say there are so many complicated issues at hand and so many interest groups involved that only narrow proposals can muster support.

"Damn the complicated issues! Full speed ahead!"

The final legislation may be more narrow than Frank's "Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007" that was submitted last week, but it's likely that we'll get some type of legislation enacted by Congress this year. Whether it will have a negative impact on credit  depends on how broad it might be. If it contains a suitability standard (like the "net tangible benefit" in Section 202 of the proposed bill) or the "securitizer liability" in Section 204, I expect that it will negatively impact the availability and cost of credit.

Sheila Bair's proposal of "a chicken in every subprime borrower's pot" comes in for some abbreviated fisking.

Sheila Bair, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., argues that mortgage servicing companies should agree to widespread conversions of adjustable-rate loans to fixed-rate loans for borrowers who are current on payments but confront rate resets.

Experts in the $6 trillion market for mortgage-backed securities say Bair's idea won't work because mortgage servicing companies, which collect and distribute loan payments to lenders, have a legal responsibility to modify loans only if they're confident the changes would be successful, says Mark Adelson, a mortgage securitization consultant.

Mr. Adelson must have confused Ms. Bair with someone concerned with the financial well-being of the lenders and servicers that her agency regulates (and insures). As we've previously observed, her primary concern is with a quick fix that appears to help borrowers and the politicians who cater to the downtrodden. The FDIC's new motto: "Legal responsibility? We got your legal responsibility; RIGHT HERE!"

Dick Durbin's Chapter 13 modification and cramdown proposal also gets a cold shoulder.

Some Democrats and consumer advocates want bankruptcy judges to be able to modify loans to keep struggling borrowers from losing their homes. Critics say the idea would keep lenders out of the mortgage market and result in more bankruptcies.

Finally, the always-ready-with-a-quote Bert Ely blows up the idea that Fannie or Freddie can play a part in any "rescue effort."

Finally, some Democrats want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be allowed to expand their mortgage portfolios, creating financial flexibility for investors and lenders to help borrowers refinance. Republicans, however, don't want to do that until the government-sponsored mortgage giants get more oversight in the wake of multibillion-dollar accounting irregularities discovered in recent years.

The federal regulator of Fannie and Freddie agreed to a smaller portfolio cap increase than what Democrats want, arguing that the companies have enough capacity to help the battered mortgage market.

"Fannie and Freddie aren't doing anybody any favors," said Bert Ely, an Alexandria, Va. banking consultant. "They're refinancing people that would be good candidates" for new loans, "no matter what."

That's right, Bert. Neither Fannie nor Freddie is going to make subprime loans, so how, exactly, either is going to affect the subprime credit crisis is a mystery to us all. But it sure sounds like "a plan" when some politician calls for expanded capacity for Freddie and Fannie, doesn't it?

In a world where appearance trumps substance, the "spin" is all that matters.

More Free Credit Monitoring

As promised by VA Secretary Jim Nicholson last month, the VA has retained ID Analytics of San Diego "to detect potential patterns of credit misuse" for veterans whose personal data was contained on a hard drive of a laptop stolen from the home of a VA employee in May. The VA provoked a firestorm of methane gas emissions from politicians and lobbyists for veterans when it rescinded its decision to provide free credit monitoring for veterans whose data was contained on that hard drive. As I've previously opined, the credit monitoring was unnecessary, and the VA did the right thing by refusing to provide it.

Unisys isn't so lucky.

VA subcontractor Unisys Corp. also agreed to provide one year of free credit monitoring for as many as 38,000 veterans after the company last week lost a desktop computer containing their data at its offices in Reston, Va.

Letters will be sent in coming days to veterans affected in the Unisys case describing how to sign up for the free credit monitoring.

The fact that the data stored on the hard drive of the Unisys computer is password protected (as was the data on the stolen VA laptop), and that there is no evidence that the data has been accessed (as was the case with the VA laptop), does not spare Unisys, as it does the VA, from the expense of a year's worth of free credit monitoring for all veterans whose data might possibly be compromised. Apparently, a government contractor is more susceptible to "strong arming" than is a government agency. Perhaps Unisys is taking the public relations bull by the horns and "doing the right thing" if, by "the right thing," we mean what's the best thing from a PR standpoint for the VA. The VA can say "see, we're on top of this thing." Moreover, credit monitoring for 38,000 veterans (the number on the Unisys desktop's hard drive) is a lot less expensive (although not cheap) than it is for 26.5 million veterans (the number on the VA's stolen laptop).

Personally, I think that Unisys is jumping the gun, but it's a valid business decision to make. At least it's not tax dollars being wasted on useless credit monitoring services. Not until they build recouping the cost into their next bid on a government contract, that is.

I've previously bloviated that the regulatory remedy of choice for data security breaches will be free credit monitoring. This is one more reason for each bank to seriously consider encrypting personal information during the entire "life cycle" of the data on a bank's system. Yes, such encryption can be cumbersome and expensive, but I can not say this too frequently: reason does not rule this area. Emotion, ignorance and fear do, as well as cynical political opportunism (wherever it can be applied).

That's life today in the USA. You need to face the facts when you're considering proper risk mitigation procedures.

update 8/15/06: The VA opts for encryption. As reported last night by The Washington Post:

Following a series of embarrassing data security breaches, the Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday announced it would upgrade all the agency's computers with a new encryption technology to be first installed on the agency's laptops within a month.

"A system-wide encryption program will be a tremendous step forward in improving the safety and security of sensitive veteran information," said VA Secretary Jim Nicholson.

[...]

The agency said it expects to have all of its laptop computers fully encrypted within four weeks, followed by encryption of desktop computers.

 

More Partisan Nonsense Re: VA

The Senate's "top Democrat" (is that akin to Jamaica's "top downhill skier"?) called for the ouster of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson because a vendor (Unisys) "lost" a desktop computer that contained personal information on at least 38,000 veterans. Not that this being an election year has anything to do with the Democrats using this non-event to attempt to make political hay.

"Enough is enough," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday. "Less than a month after promising to make the VA the 'gold standard' in data security, Secretary Nicholson has again presided over loss of the personal information of thousands more veterans."

Reid is the third Senate Democrat -- joining Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and John Kerry of Massachusetts -- who has called for Nicholson's ouster following high-profile data thefts at the government's second largest agency.

"Unfortunately, this dangerous incompetence has become all too common in the Bush White House, and it has made America less safe," Reid said.

[...]

"Each week seems to bring another alarming example of incompetence by the Bush administration to protect the personal information of Americans," Leahy said. "Certainly, our nation's veterans -- who have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country -- deserve better.

Kerry agreed. "Fire the incompetents," he said. "Losing veterans' most sensitive personal information must have consequences."

Kerry, if we fired incompetents, where would that leave you? Living off of "Tereza's" gazillions? Heck, you couldn't even beat George W. Bush! How incompetent does that make you?

In Nicholson's part of town, having Reid, Leahy and Kerry pile on you might be considered as having "won the trifecta" and be considered cause for high fives and a manly squawk of "awwwwwwrrrrriiiiiggggghhhhhhhtttttt!!!!" Nicholson's likely too dignified for that, though.

On the other hand, he might want to punch out the cyberidiots in his own party.

"I am absolutely appalled that another computer containing the personal information of veterans has gone missing," said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. "Those responsible must be held accountable and the VA clearly needs to do a better job of overseeing its contracting entities."

I can't find a written record of this, but I'm sure someone told me that Santorum also called the VA's security efforts "an abortion," which is for Senator Santorum (who was also a member of the Senate when some of its members knifed Julius Caesar), the harshest of condemnations.

For some reason, I doubt Nicholson, a former Army Ranger and decorated Vietnam Veteran, is quaking in his combat boots. No proof of that; just a hunch.

Let me make clear that my disgust with The Three Stooges (and "Shemp" Santorum) is not motivated by their political party affiliation, but by their attempt to unnecessarily stir up veterans again over an issue that may be a non-issue.

Let's review:

• The VA did not "lose" the computer, one of its contractor's did.
• The contractor is Unisys, an organization that knows more about computer security than Harry Reid knows about special interest groups (ok, not quite as much, but then, when it comes to special interests, Harry's "The Man").
• The computer was located in a secure building, on a floor requiring security cards to gain access.
• The hard drive is password protected.
• No one knows if the computer was stolen and, if so, whether any access to the data is likely to occur (for example, what was the strength of the password?).
• See previous posts on this blog for statistics (oops, sorry Senators, didn't mean to introduce facts into the discussion) about how little computer thefts and actual computer security breaches (when they actually occur, which has not been proved in this case) result in identity theft.

All-in-all, much ado about (most likely) nothing. At least, nothing that can be demonstrated at this time. In fact, I'd wager that Unisys was following industry standard security procedures, and that there was nothing more that the VA reasonably could do to secure that data. You could require every hard drive to be encrypted, but that's expensive. Who's going to pay for that? You guessed right! The taxpayers.

Computer theft happens. Get used to it.

No intelligent discussion of any issue is possible with cynical hacks like these. Headlines are all that matter.

UPDATE: A friend, business consultant John Walker, sent me this dead-on quotation: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." - Ernest Benn

 

Back Through The Looking Glass

Finally, sanity prevails inside the VA, and what ensues outside of it? More selfish whining and moaning by both the cynical and the ignorant.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson on Thursday defended the government's decision to withdraw free credit monitoring for millions of veterans, saying there was little risk their sensitive data would be compromised.

Testifying to a Senate panel, Nicholson acknowledged there were no 100 percent guarantees that names, birthdates and Social Security numbers stored on a VA employee's stolen laptop and external drive were not accessed or copied. But he said the low risk did not justify a year of personalized monitoring at a taxpayer cost of $160.5 million.

"Facts have changed, the situation has changed," Nicholson said, noting that the stolen equipment has been recovered and that the FBI determined with a "high degree of confidence" that the data was not compromised.

This action is exactly what I called for last month. I guess that makes me a heartless SOB, just like Jimbo.

Nicholson said the VA was in the process of hiring a company to provide data breach analysis to detect potential patterns of misuse of data. In addition, the department planned to send letters to veterans informing them of free services already available to all citizens, including free monitoring for 90 days and credit reports three times a year.

Well, that's just not good enough for some people. What kind of people, you ask? Guess.

"I know the FBI says it has a high level of certainty that the data was not accessed, but frankly I wouldn't bet my credit on it," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "And more importantly, the VA still has an inadequate data security system. Until that's fixed, I think the VA should keep its commitment."

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., saying that many veterans still don't feel reassured, added: "As long as 100 percent are comfortable, I'm comfortable. But unless we reach that consensus, we still have some work to do."

"100%"? Are you kidding me? You know there's one guy in every veterans gathering with the propeller cap on his head, wearing the green field jacket with the peace sign on the back and "Mouse, M" over the left breast pocket. The guy who screams "INCOMING" and hits the deck every time an illegal alien undocumented guest worker fires up a lawn mower. That guy's NEVER going to feel safe.

Besides, stirring the pot gives veterans support groups something to do, and this issue is too good to simply shut up about.

"To say the least, we're outraged that the administration would renege on their offer," said Robert E. Wallace, executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "The letter from OMB says the FBI has a 'high degree of confidence' -- that's not 100 percent. The government made a mistake. The government owes it to veterans to make them whole."

The trouble is, Bob, you can't make someone "whole" UNTIL THEY'VE SUFFERED A LOSS! There has been NO LOSS suffered by any veteran as a result of the theft of the laptop, and it is highly unlikely that any loss will be suffered. Jim Nicholson has already pointed out the FREE CREDIT MONITORING SERVICES ALREADY AVAILABLE TO VETERANS. Spending tens or millions of dollars of our tax dollars more on unnecessary credit monitoring services is not justified, period.

The government made the right call. Now, we'll see if they've got the wherewithal to stick by it.

As a guy who turned 18 in 1967, I'm struck by the number of men my age today who claim to have either served on a Swift Boat right behind John Kerry's when he did/did not "off" an armed/unarmed Vietnamese man running toward/away from him and/or when he did/did not visit Cambodia/Laos/Las Vegas one Christmas night in 1967/1968/Star Date 2024, or to have accompanied a young Army captain who looked a lot like Martin Sheen when he sailed into the Heart of Darkness to kill a renegade colonel/beached albino sperm whale who mumbled like "A Man Called Brando," or to have ridden a crazed water buffalo across a rice paddy while firing an M79 grenade launcher in one hand and a double magazine clipped M-16 in the other, in every single case while also toking the biggest Thai Stick in Southeast Asia. I'm not saying that there are a lot of these guys. What I am asking is how can we be expected to believe that so many veterans of our armed forces, many of whom faced physical danger (and not only from John Kerry), need a change of underwear because they live in mortal fear that there's an infinitesimally remote possibility that someone peeked at their personal information? I simply don't buy it.

This entire dust-up is pure politics at every level, except for the average ignorant American, who's being snowed.

Until we start talking sensibly about the risks involved in these incidents and the costs of the remedies proposed, we're going to waste tons of money and even more time. Banks can look to this incident as the worst-case example of potential reputational risk and out-of-pocket costs that can arise from data security breaches and realize that perception, not cold, hard facts, will drive the aftermath of these incidents. Logic will have little to do with it.

Overkill At The VA

Veterans Administration Secretary Jim Nicholson testified before Congress on Tuesday that the Bush administration "was asking for at least $160.5 million in emergency funds for credit counseling and other measures to protect veterans and military troops whose sensitive personal information was stolen."Besides covering credit monitoring for about half of the 17.5 million people whose Social Security numbers were compromised, the money would pay for out-of-pocket expenses for those whose identities are stolen, he told a House panel.

Nicholson said that the $160.5 million wouldn't cover all of the upgrading to security procedures that he intended to implement at the VA in order to turn that agency into a "model for information security." Also, more money would be needed if the VA decided to extend credit monitoring services for veterans beyond the one-year of protection now being provided.

Is it just me, or does this seem out of whack?

When the theft of the VA laptop was first announced, the VA alleged that the data was stored in a format that made it very difficult to retrieve and use. The VA also stated (with support from local law enforcement officials) that the laptop was almost certainly stolen for its hardware and software, not for its data, that the hard drive was likely wiped clean by either the thief or the immediate purchaser in order to enhance its "saleability" and cover the tracks of the thieves and "fences," and that it was likely already resold in the black market sans any personal information. In less than a month, we've come all the way from inadequate disclosure of the extent of the data that was contained on the hard drive, to using $29 million of the VA's funds already budgeted for 2006 that the VA claims it wouldn't otherwise use, and asking for over $130 million more from Congress.

I have sources who are retired military officers and non-coms who advise me that the VA could certainly put the existing $29 million - not to mention an additional $130 million or so - to a lot better use than protecting against the "possibility" that data might have been compromised and might be misused. For example, the VA might use it to provide better health care than it's now providing to veterans.

Last November, I discussed a study by ID Analytics that showed that less than one-tenth of one percent of data security breaches result in a consumer becoming a victim of identity theft or fraud. That's a potential victim pool of 17,500 people, IF the data has actually been compromised, which is not certain and, according to the people involved, is, in fact, highly unlikely to have occurred.

As I discussed a couple of days ago, Professor Fred Cate has pointed out even where crooks steal information and try to use it, they are often unsuccessful. According to Cate, data available as of last summer "indicates that 67% of victims of identity-based frauds report suffering no economic loss and paying no out-of-pocket expenses. The costs were usually paid by businesses, and ultimately by all consumers." We're down to 11,725 people at risk at the outside, not 17.5 million, and even that assumes that the data was, in fact, stolen.

Thus far, no identity theft or fraud has taken place. Anyone care to hold his or her breath awaiting the first incident?

For all that, we need to divert and appropriate (or misappropriate) another $160.5 million. Has anyone in the federal government heard of the term "proportionate response"?

The press reports and public statements on this matter are filled with bureaucratic butt-covering on one side and attacks motivated in most part by pure partisan politics on the other side. There doesn't appear to me to be any thoughtful analysis of the actual risk involved and a measured response to it. An employee took a laptop home in violation of VA policy. He was canned and his boss was canned. That's a good start. Here's the finish: "Don't do that anymore guys, ok? Also, as you're now required to do by OMB Guidelines, encrypt your hard drives. As to any of you vets, if any of you suffer a loss, we'll make you whole. We promise."

Problem solved. That'll cost you a lot less than $160.5 million. $160 million less, in fact. Best part: I accept U.S. Treasury Notes in payment of my invoices.

Many of the people taking up space in Washington, D.C. could be replaced by cigar store Native Americans and you'd get an immediate step-up in the competence level.

UPDATE 6/29/06: Lost Laptop Located!

Well, isn't this a happy coincidence. On the day I rant about a wasted $160.5 million, the stolen laptop is found and it appears that the data was never accessed. Now, nobody in their right mind can say you've got to spend money for credit monitoring. Can they?

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, the Senate Veterans’ Committee chairman, said he thought the VA had learned some lessons and that recovery of the laptop could save money if data has not been compromised. The VA then would not have to proceed with plans to provide free credit monitoring services for veterans and to pay a company to keep checking for new credit applications to determine if anyone was trying to falsely use the identity of a veteran or service member.

“If the FBI can confirm that the data has not been removed from the computer since it was stolen, I think we will be able to save taxpayers millions of dollars,” Craig said.

Tell you what, Lar, even if the FBI can't confirm that the data wasn't "removed" (I think he meant to say "accessed" or "viewed"), there was no justification for the $160.5 million appropriation in the first place, and there is absoultely no reason to even consider it now.

Taking Care of Veterans

In good news for veterans and for lenders, the US Congress earlier this week passed and sent to the White House the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2004. Among many other things, the Act now allows VA loans of up to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation's conforming loan limit, which is currrently $333,700. This is a substantial increase, and is expected to help many veterans who live in high-cost housing areas. It also extends the VA guaranty for adjustable rate loans through 2008, another important housing benefit to veterans.

Helping our service men and women is always a wise course, but particularly in times such as these.
---Kevin Funnell