Fixes for the Financial System

Today's New York Times described the proposal of six academics for changing the financial system. Mine is one of them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/weekinreview/25chan.html?pagewanted=1&sq=They%20have%20got%20it:%20fixes%20for%20the%20financial%20system&st=cse&scp=1

Compound Interest 101
ANNAMARIA LUSARDI

A person borrows $100 at an annual interest rate of 20 percent. How long does it take that debt to double? About four years. What share of American adults can figure that out? About one in three, says Annamaria Lusardi, an economist at Dartmouth College.

Ms. Lusardi wants to add financial literacy to high school curriculums. A crisis sparked in part by the decisions of millions of Americans to take mortgage loans they could not afford has underscored her conviction that “lack of financial knowledge is alarmingly widespread.”

Only three states — Missouri, Tennessee and Utah — now require a course devoted to personal finance, according to the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a nonprofit group. Another 18 states incorporate some lessons into other courses.

“Financial literacy is an essential piece of knowledge that every student should have,” Ms. Lusardi wrote recently on her blog. “Just as reading and writing became skills that enabled people to succeed in modern economies, today it is impossible to succeed without being able to ‘read and write’ financially.”

Let's hope that in this time of reforms some attention will be given to consumers and to financial literacy.