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A recent AARP Public Policy Institute report found that average credit card balances for households over age 75 jumped 31 percent during the recession. A separate AARP report found that boomers - households over age 50 - now have higher overall credit card debt than younger people - a reversal of previous trends.

The average combined balance on all cards in 2012 was $8,278.

The journalist Gary Rivlin has a chilling investigative piece in The Nation about the massive assault on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act since its passage in 2010. It illuminates the ways of Washington in an era of big money and how passing laws may be one thing, but fully enacting them is quite another when swarms of lobbyists work full-time to throw sand in the gears of government. 

Collusion — and conflicts of interest — between politicians and billionaires now operate across borders. When he was president, Nicolas Sarkozy reserved special favours for the Qataris (including a tax exemption on their highest-value property purchases). Qatar is now prepared to back him in starting a private equity fund.

Richard Haass, who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, has a new book out today entitled Foreign Policy Begins at Home in which he argues that the United States needs to get its own house in order to maximize its global power and influence. Haass says the U.S. also needs to avoid getting bogged down in wars of choice that don't involve vital interests, like Iraq. 

All true. 

Nutritional benefit programs can't seem to catch a break. First WIC, which has numerous studies proving its effectiveness in health outcomes for participating mothers and children (not to mention cost savings as a result of participation) is in danger of a 9.3% budget cut as a result of the sequester.

Dangers for Boomers’ Debt and Savings

Here’s the rub: Alarm bells are going off about both the size of midlifers’ debts and their limited savings.

The financial services industry is second to none in dreaming up ways to rip off Americans. Show me a a financial product—credit cards, mortgages, checking accounts, 401(k)s, annuities—and I'll show you a stack of consumer complaints documenting how banks and other firms have sought to bleed dry the American public. 

J. Mijin Cha, a senior policy analyst for Demos — a New York City based good government group — and principle author of the report titled "Fresh Start: The Impact of Public Campaign Financing in Connecticut," alongside former Connecticut Secretary of State Miles Rapoport and current Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill, cited significant changes in Connecticut's legislative process since publicly financed campaigns and encourages New York state to pass similar legislation.

To retirees, the offers can sound like the answer to every money worry: convert tomorrow’s pension checks into today’s hard cash.