Month: July 2015

The shameful problem of elder financial abuse is only going to get worse.

Certainly, these cases are not exactly hard to find—last week Deadline Hollywood highlighted the sad fate of Eunice Bellah, the widow of the late and acclaimed television and film art director Ross Bellah. A few years after her husband’s death, the longtime family accountant deposited Eunice Bellah in a nursing home, sold her residence, and listed possessions ranging from wheelchairs to artwork on Craigslist, with longtime family friends powerless to intervene.

Bailout Money Goes to Greece, Only to Flow Out Again

NEW YORK TIMES: …Much of the previous bailout funds have gone to pay off Greek bonds held by private investors and other eurozone governments, rather than stoke growth. Within Greece, the money was supposed to help replenish banks’ capital, to get them lending to revive the moribund economy. Instead, it sat in banks’ coffers as […]

Bashar al-Assad’s Luck May Finally Be Running Out

SLATE COUMN: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has played a weak hand so well for so long that it seems foolhardy to bet against him. Even as he’s lost control over a significant portion of his territory and presided over the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century, he’s kept his core supporters in line and […]

Tsukerman: Crimea Today

“Ukrainian sources report that Moscow, through business channels that include the CEO of one state-owned oil major, is quietly sounding out Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko on a grand bargain that would include Russia’s final withdrawal from the Donbass with Ukraine’s recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea in exchange for about $100 billion in debt forgiveness, gas price rebates and other financial incentives.”

Congress faces fall from hell

POLITICO: Speaker John Boehner, addressing a roomful of fellow House Republicans on Tuesday morning, described a major, six-year highway bill crafted by the Senate as a “piece of s—-,” according to sources in the room. Senate Republicans have been only slightly more charitable about the House’s three-month measure, calling it another lame procrastination on an […]

Lew warns of Puerto Rico debt risks to US

FINANCIAL TIMES: …A disorderly resolution to Puerto Rico’s debt problems would be costly not only for the territory but for the United States as a whole, the US Treasury Secretary has said as he urged Congress to take action to tackle the crisis. In a letter to Orrin Hatch, a top Republican senator, Jack Lew […]

Amnesty International faces backlash from Hollywood celebrities for proposing new policy on sex work

STRAIGHT.COM: …One of the world’s leading human-rights organizations has come under fire for its Amnesty International says its proposed policy “is based on the human rights principle that consensual sexual conduct between adults—which excludes acts that involve coercion, deception, threats, or violence—is entitled to protection from state interference”. It cites many examples in which criminalization […]