Mature Resources - Monthly Magazine For Baby Boomers and Seniors

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, IL Comments on Wall Street Reform

Congresswoman JanSchakowsky Comments on Wall Street Reform

Wall Street Reform will finally hold the big banks accountable and protect the pocketbooks and financial futures of Americans who lost $17 trillion in retirement savings and net worth – many of them baby boomers and older Americans – as a result of Wall Street’s reckless behavior. This legislation will bring much needed protections to the American consumer, including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – a watchdog to protect Americans’ financial futures and prevent the abuses we’ve seen on the part of the loan, mortgage and credit card industries. For example, the agency will empower consumers and ensure the terms on credit cards are finally understandable and transparent.

Wall Street Reform also looks out for seniors. It creates the Office of Financial Protection for Older Adults to provide essential counseling and financial literacy programs to help fend off scammers. As the Co-Chair of the Congressional Seniors Task Force, I know this provision has particular value. The legislation also includes my amendment requiring the new Bureau to protect seniors from lenders that sell reverse mortgages with financially predatory terms.

With reforms like these, we finally put the American consumer first – not the corporate financial institutions that have proven they can not be trusted to police themselves.

Office of Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, IL-09
2367 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

August 2010 Letter from the Editor

Catherine Kenney - Editor of Mature Resources
Catherine Kenney, Editor

As its new Editor, I’m delighted to welcome all of you to the newly expanded Mature Resources. We have lots of great ideas for making this magazine even more responsive to the needs and interests of boomers and older Americans. Over the coming months, we will initiate many of these new features, so keep checking us out!

In the current issue, we’re inaugurating an exciting new series entitled “Resourceful Lives,” which presents portraits of contemporary Americans making the most of their later years in many different ways.

Resourceful Lives - Great Second Acts

By Catherine Kenney

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.
--Daniel J. Boorstin

The great—and doomed—20th Century novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, once declared famously that “there are no second acts in American lives.” He was, of course, talking about the American tendency to peak early and burn out. This proved only too true for him, dying as he did of a massive heart attack at age forty-four while eating a chocolate bar in that temple of American youth, Hollywood.

The Fountain of Youth; Staying Connected

by Heather McGee - Owner of www.SockGram.com

Today's active Baby Boomers view age as a mere number. According to a Baby Boomer Survey by Del Webb, Boomers feel much younger than their actual ages. They found that, as age increases, the gap between many Boomers' real age and perceived age expands. Why do some Boomers feel younger than their chronological age? Reasons for this "fountain of youth effect" include a positive mental attitude, happiness and a good sense of humor.

The Doctor Is In

By Catherine Kenney

“I spend a lot more time dealing with food than most people; it’s the only part of housekeeping I really enjoy,” my hostess declares. Appearances would never suggest this preoccupation with eating. Patricia Conard Birk, MD, trim and fit in periwinkle slacks and crisp white camp shirt, is padding around her bright, immaculate kitchen in a northern suburb of Chicago known for its dense trees and spacious lawns. Sporting the deep suntan of someone who has outlived the fear of skin cancer and still luxuriates in outdoor life, she asks if I might like something to eat.

The Sparrows Were Singing in Times Square - Reporter Speaks about 9/11 Experience

By Catherine Kenney

It is a day, like Kennedy’s assassination, etched in the memory of any American who was old enough to remember. The cornflower blue skies across most of the nation, the sense of unreality, the unfolding madness that would go on seemingly forever on that cool September day. A day that would change the world forever.