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As our populations grow older and more of us survive to very mature ages, the financial services industry is beginning to respond to the risks of financial exploitation. For example, money transfer companies like Western Union started working several years ago with law-enforcement and consumerprotection agencies around the world to educate people about the most common types of fraud, including “grandparent scams” (see, http://www.wu.com/fraudawareness). In January 2014, the financial world experienced a milestone event in its approach to aging. Cynthia Hutchins, a 30-year veteran of the financial services industry and a recent graduate of USC Davis School of Gerontology, was appointed as the first-ever Director of Financial Gerontology at Bank of America Merrill Lynch—the first person to work for a financial services company in that role (Franklin, 2014). It was also the year in which Wells Fargo revolutionized its operating procedures to take account of the potential risks to its older clients (Long, 2016) Many older people, with finances to manage, may face the prospect of declining mental capacity. As a result of this troubling confluence, recent years have seen a growing problem of elder financial abuse. Scammers and schemers— known to the elder victim or not—follow the Willie Sutton bank robber analogy: steal from affluent elders because that is where the money is. And that is where a lot of money is: Peter Laibson of Harvard reports that, in 2011, people over the age of 65—12% of the population—were in possession of one-third of the nation’s assets: $18 trillion out of a total of $53 trillion. Or, as put here by Daniel Marson (2016), the population that has amassed the greatest wealth is at the greatest risk. There are multiple risks and sources of such risks. In Europe and the United Kingdom, it is little different. As chronicled by Gilhooly et al. (2016), to have lost accumulated wealth can result in economic destitution, depression, embarrassment, isolation, and suicide with the perpetrators including malicious inheritance schemes, opportunistic intrusions, and duplicitous friendships. The vulnerabilities that invite these perpetrators range from neglect, misplaced moral justification, loss of financial skills, misjudgment, to significant cognitive decline. As seen here, much attention is now being paid to detection, prevention, and intervention around elder financial abuse. Elders, their families, and advocates have an obvious stake in eliminating these practices. Financial institutions that hold both elders’ assets and their trust (in multiple meanings) have both a communityand self-interest in protecting their clients. Government, charged with promoting the general welfare, cannot look aside, and the newfound prominence of adult protective services and other elder justice programs reflect a growing concern. Yet, the problem comes with a number of complexities. Most center on preventing, uncovering, and addressing fraudulent behaviors, and these can be addressed through research and experimentation as seen in several efforts below. But, as well, there are ethical issues that compound detection and intervention efforts. Values of privacy, autonomy, and choice come up against those of paternalism, supervision, and control. Who can and should “take away the financial keys” has clear moral, legal, and affective dimensions, which clearly complicate whatever empirical understandings of a given situation may suggest. In short, the problem is complex, but it is also a problem that unquestionably exists and is assuming remarkably large personal, monetary, and social dimensions. That being the case makes the articles below of great value. They deepen our understanding of the elder financial abuse problem, but present clear, tested, and promising strategies to detect and root out these malicious practices. The opening article by Mary Gilhooly and colleagues (2016) introduces the topic of financial elder abuse and reports on the development and promise of a bystander intervention model (BIM) to address the problem. The Manuscript received XXXX XX, XXXX; accepted XXXX XX, XXXX.

White House Conferences on Aging, dating to 1961, have long captured policy-relevant understandings about the status of older adults in American life. The initial Conference rallied support for the major legislative achievements of 1965—Medicare, Medicaid, and the Older Americans Act. The 1971 Conference came together with enormous energy, both celebrating and contributing to the major legislative accomplishments of the 1965–1974 decade. The Conference in 1981 was marked by heated exchanges between insurgent Reagan administration officials and those pressing for further aging policy initiatives. In 1995, the Conference stood as a modest firewall against cuts to Medicare and Medicaid being proposed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican “Class of ‘94.” The Conference in 2005 was notable, in part, because for the first time the President did not participate—George W. Bush’s visiting an upscale retirement community on the day he was most likely to make an appearance—but also because of widespread concern among delegates regarding the President’s attempt to partially privatize Social Security. This year’s Conference is centered on highlighting both the needs and the contributions of the nation’s seniors. Organizers have identified four overarching themes critical to elders’ well-being: healthy aging, retirement security, long-term supports and services, and elder justice. While not being unmindful of the larger political realities surrounding the Conference, the rights, roles, and needs of seniors will hold center stage. It is important that such deliberations take place because the demographics and economics of aging continue to shift in important ways. Long gone—thanks largely to public policy—are days when elders were singularly poor and frail. Yet, a new series of pressures associated with extended lives, income differentials, and living environments will mark aging in the years ahead. Complex as these changes may be, they very often fall along a “cumulative advantage/disadvantage” faultline (Crystal & Shea, 1990). As such, it is essential that Conference participants recognize and address the structured diversity that marks contemporary aging by race, gender, age, and region. The articles in the following pages address each of the