Bank of America Offers U.S. Biggest Settlement in History and other news and views for Thursday 7 August

  • Bank of America Offers U.S. Biggest Settlement in History - “The tentative deal — which people briefed on the matter said would cost Bank of America more than $16 billion to settle investigations into its sale of toxic mortgage securities — started to take shape last week after the Justice Department rejected yet another settlement offer from the bank. Then, a wild card entered the fray. Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a longtime thorn in the side of Wall Street and Washington, issued an unexpected ruling in another Bank of America case that eroded what was left of the bank’s negotiating leverage.”
  • How Deeply Flawed Studies on Abortion and Breast Cancer Become Anti-Choice Fodder
  • In New Calculus on Smoking, It’s Health Gained vs. Pleasure Lost -  “Rarely has the concept of happiness caused so much consternation in public health circles. Buried deep in the federal government’s voluminous new tobacco regulations is a little-known cost-benefit calculation that public health experts see as potentially poisonous: the happiness quotient. It assumes that the benefits from reducing smoking — fewer early deaths and diseases of the lungs and heart — have to be discounted by 70 percent to offset the loss in pleasure that smokers suffer when they give up their habit.”
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  • Why Do So Many Female Characters Succeed at Work But Fail at Home? – “Barbara Hall, the seasoned showrunner and novelist, raised an intriguing question last month while talking up her new CBS drama, ‘Madam Secretary.’ Why are so many female characters depicted as successful in their professional lives but ‘broken’ in every other way? ‘Madam Secretary’ is Hall’s effort to bust out of what has become a TV cliche.

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