Financial Illiteracy Is Killing Our Kids

This is scary.  Remember the 80's R.E.M. hit song, "It's the end of the world as we know it"? If we continue to do what we as a nation are doing fiscally,than those lyrics will ring true for our generation and more so for generations to come.

Image via Wikimedia

Do you know the depth of our current trade deficit, national debt, and budget deficit?  I.O.U.S.A was a movie released in theaters a couple years ago and you can watch this movie broken down into digestible bites at their website.  The movie helps explain everything simply... and because it's simple it's understandable... and because it's understandable the depth of the problem of mass fiscal irresponsibility really hits home.

http://www.iousathemovie.com/

Brett Nelson references this movie in a recent article in Forbes and points at our rotting education system as the source of this problem.   Our population needs to be financially literate in order to compete in the global economy in the future, and we are failing our kids.  Three-quarters of high school seniors failed a financial literacy test given by Jump$tart Coalition in 2008, and only 5% earned better than a "C".  5 percent!

http://blogs.forbes.com/brettnelson/2010/08/24/financial-illiteracy-is-killing-us/

But there is hope and the article ends with a few recommendations, all of which the use of FamilyMint can actually help to make happen:

• Teens who reported learning a great deal about goal-setting were significantly more likely to also report that they had saved money for something they wanted and then purchased it
• Teens who reported learning about managing savings and checking accounts were more likely to report having opened both types of accounts
• Those who reported learning about saving money were more likely to save regularly
• Teens who learned to track spending were more likely to report having developed a budget vs. those who learned little or nothing and also more likely to save money to purchase something

FamilyMint helps parents teach their young kids to live within their means and develop the fiscal responsibility that our nation desperately needs.

Take a look at the videos and article linked above.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.