Reading 'Riting and Financial Literacy
Posted September 19, 2008 6:41 AM
The talk shows nationwide were filled yesterday with discussions of the current crisis on Wall Street. Not just the financial talk shows, but the traditional ones where people yell that their taxes are too high and the Democrats are to blame, and the ones where they blame the Republicans for everything.
What was most interesting was how little everyone--callers and hosts--understands about the causes of the crisis specifically, and about finance in general.
I can live with the fact that people can't tell the difference between preferred and common stock, but not to know that the value of bonds rise as interest rates falls, or that the head of the Federal Reserve cannot buy a company on behalf of the government strikes me as pretty glaring gap in someone's education.
Does this mean a basic personal finance course should be mandatory in high school (and college)?
What do you think?






