It’s been a busy week here as a consumer journalist.
Thursday I wrote about Moneygram agreeing to pay $13 million to settle charges related to how its wire transfer service was used in schemes to defraud consumers.
Then, later in the day, federal and state regulators announced Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $3.2 billion for false information it gave investors about residential mortgage-backed securities. So I wrote about that. Investors suffered billions of dollars in loses during the housing collapse that led to the Great Recession in 2008.
However, previously, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $1.8 billion to other federal agencies. So the total is a staggering $5 billion in fines to Morgan Stanley for mortgage-backed securities fraud.
Most of the other big banks also have settled for huge amounts, with Goldman Sachs the last one to finalize a deal. The fines total $64 billion so far.
Then, Friday I wrote about Uber agreeing to settle two class-action lawsuits for $28.5 million charging that it had misled customers about safety.
Suddenly, I realized that Valentine’s Day was coming up Sunday. I had to hustle to write three articles: don’t fall for Valentine’s Day scams, a survey that shows more Americans want to hear “I love you” daily than people in other countries, and facts and figures for Valentine’s Day 2016. My readers like consumer articles about the holidays.
Meanwhile, other bloggers in our Best of Boomer Blogs group also are busy. For our 437th offering, which I’m hosting, they offer the following:
In an article she wrote two years ago, Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting waxes nostalgically in honor of Valentine’s Day in “Valentine’s Day the Old Folks Way,” which many boomers will relate to. It’s two years later, but nothing changes – only the flaws and foibles may be getting slightly worse for the wear.
Laura Lee Carter of the Adventures of the Old New Farts likes Valentine’s Day, but wishes it were simply a celebration of all kinds of love, rather than a romantic holiday. Here’s Carter’s Valentine’s Day gift for you – live your life to the fullest.
This week, Tom Sightings of Sightings From Sixty has been worrying about what’s happened to his “pension” – or, not exactly his pension, since he doesn’t have one, but in his pension substitute, which is his IRA – and how it’s being drawn and quartered by the recent stock-market debacle. So in his post “Nervous About the Stock Market?” he reports on some sober but reassuring words from his financial guru in Phoenix, who tells us, basically, to keep thinking long term and to stay the course.
Click on the links to read the entire articles by these baby boomer bloggers. And, be sure to join in the conversation.
