The Obama administration wants to spend up to $100 billion on efforts to help homeowners, especially those facing foreclosure. But one of the leading ideas on how to do that — rewriting home loans to make mortgages affordable to struggling borrowers — is based on a startling lack of data about what works, and early evidence suggests that many lenders aren’t going to make substantial changes without serious strong-arming.

There are various ideas being bandied about, but the goal is common: to entice mortgages servicers, whether lenders themselves or third parties acting on behalf of investors, to rewrite the terms of loans so that people behind on payments might be able to keep their homes. (Read the four steps to ending the foreclosure crisis.)

One way being discussed to do that is for the government to share in the losses if a servicer modifies a mortgage and the homeowner again defaults. Another approach is to directly help pay for the cost of the modification. The servicer might cut monthly payments to 38% of a borrower’s income with the government chipping in to reduce the payment down to 31%, a presumably more sustainable level. Either tactic could be combined with a direct payment — $1,000 is a figure often mentioned — to incentivize servicers to do the heavy lifting of figuring out how much a homeowner can truly afford and recrafting his mortgage to match.

To a homeowner who has always made mortgage payments on time, perhaps by sacrificing spending elsewhere, the whole concept may seem grossly unfair. But society’s problems are unfortunately often our own. As the foreclosure rate has skyrocketed, and loan defaults have rippled from subprime mortgages into ones made to prime and near-prime borrowers, property values in many parts of the country have been pounded. There is an unavoidable correction going on in house prices, that much is true, but the swoon has caused additional

Reviving the Housing Market: Will Loan Modifications Work? – TIME.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier plans to push for a “new trans-Atlantic agenda” during a meeting Tuesday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As part of a new start for US-German relations, Steinmeier is looking for progress on disarmament.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has high hopes for an improvement in US-German relations under the new administration of President Barack Obama. The chances of those hopes being fulfilled will become clearer over the next few days, after Steinmeier’s meeting Tuesday with his US counterpart Hillary Clinton and this weekend’s Munich security conference.

Steinmeier, who has been noticeably keener to engage the Obama administration than German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was upbeat about trans-Atlantic relations as he prepared for his trip. “I am now finding dialogue partners for issues where they were previously hard to find,” he said Monday before leaving for the US. He told reporters during his flight to Washinton that he wants to push for a “new trans-Atlantic agenda,” which would include arms control, energy security and climate change.

Steinmeier will be the first member of Merkel’s cabinet to be received by the new US administration. As well as talking to Clinton, who was sworn in on Monday, Steinmeier will also meet with Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones. It is not clear if he will also meet with the president. Among other issues, Steinmeier and Clinton are expected to discuss the forthcoming NATO summit in April, the global financial crisis, climate change, the situation in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Disarmament is also an issue close to Steinmeier’s heart. In an article to be published in the Wednesday edition of the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Steinmeier expresses his hope that progress can be made on the issue “after a years-long blockade by President George W. Bush.” Specifically, Steinmeier would like to see action on producing a successor agreement to the START 1 treaty on strategic nuclear weapons, which expires in 2009, and also for the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. During her recent hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clinton said she would push for progress on both issues.

Steinmeier would also like to see the Obama administration roll back American plans for a controversial missile defense shield with installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. The missile shield, a brainchild of former President George W. Bush, has caused friction between the US and Russia. “I expect all the sides in the controversial question of the planned US missile shield in eastern Europe to get together to discuss the issue. My position remains: Where there is a common threat, common answers are also possible,” Steinmeier wrote in the article, which is timed to coincide with the Munich security conference. The closely watched conference starts Friday and will be attended by US Vice President Joe Biden and James Jones.

German Foreign Minister to Meet Clinton: Steinmeier Calls For ‘New Trans-Atlantic Agenda’ – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

President Obama’s election, and this year’s 100th anniversary of the NAACP, means there has probably never been more reason to celebrate the annual February observance, historians say.

“Barack Obama is opening our hearts and minds to the true meaning of Black History Month,” Barron said. “African Americans won’t be viewed as just a minority but as people who make a difference.”

Obama’s election, and this year’s 100th anniversary of the NAACP, means there has probably never been more reason to celebrate the annual February observance, black leaders and historians say.

“We celebrate whenever a glass ceiling is broken and the presidency may be the highest glass ceiling,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, which is celebrating its 1909 founding this year.

But those leaders also agree those milestones don’t mean that racial inequalities no longer exist. While Obama’s breaking of the color barrier in the White House may make the NAACP’s job easier, Jealous said they will pressure Obama just as they have past presidents.

Gerald Early, a professor of African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, said that Obama’s election should not be viewed as the end of racism, but “should be taught as an event that signaled a new era in American race relations.”

“With Obama as president, I think people are more optimistic about race relations than they’ve been in a long time,” he said.

This optimism is seen in Black History Month celebrations planned throughout this month in the 1,700 local NAACP units and hundreds of primary, secondary and university campuses nationwide.

This year’s Black History Month theme is “The Quest for Citizenship in the Americas,” determined by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, said Daryl Scott, vice president for programs.

Stephanie Smith Budhai, 23, head of the University of Maryland’s Black History Month Committee, said the theme correlates well with Obama’s presidency.

“Barack Obama shows that (African Americans’) citizenship is just as important as the citizenship of any other ethnicity or race,” she said.

Black History Month has added meaning in 2009 – USATODAY.com.