Nate Geraci
November 28, 2011
Listen to The ETF Store Show every Saturday at 4pm on KCMO Talk Radio 710AM as we cover everything you need to know about Exchange Traded Funds and the world of investing.
On our most recent radio broadcast, the President & CEO of the Missouri Council on Economic Education, Mike English, joined us in the studio to discuss the importance of financial education within our communities. The Missouri Council on Economic Education is a nonprofit organization that focuses on educating teachers in economics and finance so that they may better promote financial literacy to their students. At The ETF Store, we’ve always made it a priority to ensure that our clients are educated on how we’re investing their money and that they understand the importance of critical factors such as investment costs, taxes and asset allocation. However, we also believe strongly in educating non-clients and simply being a resource for the community to help people better understand how to deal with various personal financial matters. To that end, we’ve partnered with the Missouri Council on Economic Education to help them in their cause of promoting financial literacy within our communities.
It has always struck a chord with us that schools require students to learn about subjects like Greek mythology or foreign languages, but they don’t require classes in personal finance and economics to teach kids the basics on things like balancing a checkbook or understanding the basics of investing. With the recent financial crisis, it seems highly likely that this lack of personal financial education was a major factor in what happened with the housing collapse. People were buying houses they couldn’t afford with exotic mortgages they didn’t understand. People just assumed that house prices always go up and they really didn’t have a good grasp of their own personal balance sheets. The fact that so many people were doing things financially that just made no sense whatsoever should really open people’s eyes up to the fact that we have a major problem in this country with financial literacy.
Mike English provided some interesting perspectives on this problem, the challenges we face in educating our youths, and how you can help. Learn more about the Missouri Council on Economic Education by visiting http://cas.umkc.edu/mcee/.
Listen to the full show here.
