Hat tip Robmu1
WTF are they teaching kids in school today? The fact that only 25% of those answering these questions got all three right makes me sick to my stomach. If you don’t graduate high school with the knowledge to get these three questions correct, then our educational system is a complete and utter failure. No wonder the government and bankers can get away with blatant fraud. The average person can’t add 3 + 6.
Most 20-somethings can’t answer these 3 financial questions. Can you?
A new study finds that young Americans could use some help when it comes to managing their money.
Just in time for financial literacy month, a new San Diego State University study of young Americans has found that they are lacking when it comes to financial knowledge and behavior.
Out of these three questions measuring basic financial knowledge, the average respondent could answer only 1.8 correctly—and only a quarter got all three right. (Answers are at the bottom of this story.)
(1) Do you think that the following statement is true or false? Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.
(2) Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow: More than $102, exactly $102, or less than $102?
(3) Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After 1 year, would you be able to buy more than, exactly the same as, or less than today with the money in this account?
Perhaps most troubling was what the research showed about how respondents have actually been managing their money. The average young person surveyed showed responsible behavior in only one of three categories: Paying off debts on time, budgeting and living within one’s means, and having any retirement savings at all. Only 2% of all respondents showed responsible behavior in all three categories.
Furthermore, the study—led by SDSU professors Ning Tang, Andrew Baker, and Paula Peter—found that there was little to no effect of financial knowledge on financial behavior. That is, young people manage money poorly, even when they know better.
And the answers to the questions above? They are: (1) false; (2) more than $102; and (3) less than today.
Where’s the little green onion. Oh.
Bob.
They are not asking white kids
Millenials response: Isn’t there an app for that?
In fairness to the kids… the first two questions are incomplete. 🙂
For example – if the stock mutual fund is being run by Obama butt buddy John Corzine, you probably are safer in a single stock. And for question #2, shouldn’t they know who the fed chairman is and which bank? Figure with Hellicopter Ben or his evil shrew sidekick Yellen at the helm kicking up hidden inflation, in addition to the common practice now with banks to fuck you at every turn, you have to figure that $100 left In a savings account for 5 years would only be worth about $42.50 after inflation and inactivity fees. And for question #3, it depends on what you’re buying. As long as you don’t need food or energy, everything else is cheaper and cheaper all the time; at least according to the Fed’s hilarious hedonics and imputation calculations. See, not so easy, eh? Ha!
Before the income tax, property tax and federal reserve it wouldn’t matter near as much if people couldn’t answer these correctly.
This math has almost nuthing to do with what the average person faces each month. As someone who is horrible at math ill take a stab.
false, more ,less.
The ability to balance a checkbook and count change has about gotten me through life math wise.
The ability to read a micrometer and use a tape measure comes in handy.
I have joked with my daughter about wondering if her Algebra will ever get used by her when she graduates.
Hate to tell ya, Strfkr, but white kids can almost never answer these questions, and, worse, many older adults who went to “college” cannot answer them.
The Great Housing Rampage of the 00s, which saw tens of thousands of people deal themselves into mortgages that were 5x, 6X, or worse, their yearly incomes, tells you the level of financial literacy that prevails among our education. And speak not to me of “subprime”- a huge number of the foreclosurs and of people in great distress, begging for principal writedowns and other gimmes worth $50,000 or more, are for people who are presumably well-educated, have incomes of over, and sometimes well over, $100K a year, and majored in things for which one would think you’d at least have to be able to 2 plus 2 add. For example, one couple I read of in Wisconsin, a scientist with a PhD in biochem, and his wife, with a combined income of $150K, buried themselves in a $750K mortgage that was a pay option ARM, and borrowed more money against the place as prices ramped up. And “Irvine Renter” , on his famous housing blog, chronicled case after case after case of affluent borrowers who dealt themselves into oversized mortgages, multiple HELOCs, default, and finally foreclosure on outrageously expensive properties. One case that stands out in my mind is that of a local L.A. TV talk show hostess making about $400K a year, who bought a house for around $1,8M (already too much for her income) and then took out more HELOC debt against the place, which had $3.4M worth of debt against it when she was foreclosed and booted.
And I still see educated, highly literate people who have no excuse for not knowing better, who really do not grasp what that $35,000 car loan is costing them over time, or how a $7 a day latte habit stacks up, or how grossly they are over-paying for cell phone contracts, cable service, and stuff like premium brand personal care products and home cleaning products. And they do NOT want to be told, either.
That’s okay. One my kids’ neighbors thought 2^4 was the same as 2×4. Seriously, he didn’t (and doesn’t) understand exponents (6th grade math) and he owns a $200k-plus home, is married, has two kids and a (semi) white-collar job.
Said kid was helping him with the math (for an adult ed class he’s taking) but wondered aloud to me how the guy plans any of his finances…then answered his own question: he doesn’t.
Most people spend everything they take in, simply because they have no idea how to do anything else.
yashure, algebra…yes, I do use it occasionally in the regular life I lead, along with geometry and occasionally trig.
I consider myself mathematically illiterate because I never took calculus. In truth, that’s one I can’t say I miss not knowing on a day to day basis, but I suspect that a thorough, gut-level grasp of calculus based statistics would help me easily debunk a boatload of junk science that crosses my reading list each week.
Even my near-math-genius middle son tells me that mechanical engineers largely rely on software to “do the math” on projects now. His (incredible, gut-level) grasp of math does however help him quickly and intuitively know when a member of his engineering team proposes a “solution” to a problem that can’t possibly work.
Having the actual answer to #2 should be required to graduate 9th grade.
they may be maf challenged , but thanks to government , at least the school chirrenz are being well fed.
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http://eagnews.org/photo-school-blames-poor-lighting-for-paltry-michelle-o-lunch/
Nah, your eyes are playing tricks on you.
That’s what administrators at Virginia’s Portsmouth Public Schools want parents to believe after a mother took a photo of her child’s paltry school lunch and posted it on social media.
The mom says James Hurst Elementary served the lunch Tuesday.
After the photo began circulating around the community, Food Service Coordinator Jim Gehlhoff admitted the lunch “concerns us,” but added that it might not actually be as bad as it looks.
“Poor lighting and food presentation make this lunch unappealing,” he said in a statement released to the media.
He says it’s in compliance with the federal lunch rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama.
what’s really important to teach kids…’Murica!
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Dear future generations, sorry:
Alex
I’m so old, they actually taught general business classes in high school. That was a great help for me as an adult, a real advantage as to not getting my ass handed to me in dealing with banks and investment brokers etc.
One day I axed myself, why don’t they teach the sheep about these things. You know the answer, stupit sheep are more easily taken to the cleaners. So I set out to make sure that my children were taught old school style. They are very smart business people and they will always axe me what to do if they are in doubt.
Crikey! Flash. That video…. Words. Fail. Me.
I see young girls with adult women behind them (in the audience.) I must assume the madness on stage was followed by a condensed presentation of, “The Vagina Monologues.”
MGTOW. Western Civ is doomed.
Chicago, let me stop you right there. You keep calling people educated and highly literate. This would be mistaken. What they are poorly educated and highly credentialed. This is what social promotion and affirmative action produce.
What do they need to know that stuff for? Interest at this point holds as much value as wizards and dragons and there will be no funds to invest in stocks or mutual funds until school loans are paid off which will be never.
These minnie stories always remind me my nephews ditzy wife. The were broke as a joke with not an ounce of initiative between them and shacked up with my brother and his wife. They were so fucking lazy they could not even help with dishes, cooking or taking the trash out. We were down for a visit when I played dumb and asked her why they were not renting their own place. She went into great detail explaining how she could not find a place that met her “architectural needs”. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I then explained that being young and broke was nothing new on Earth and that at this point her architectural needs consisted of three walls and a roof that didn’t leak. Doors and windows were optional and that they should both be working so hard each day that a warm shower and soft bed were all they looked forward to at the end of the day. Apparently someone had convinced her differently.
I don’t think she liked me after that. Broke my heart it did. 🙂
Starfuker. You are spot on. Education and intelligence are two different animals. I work with a couple PHD’s that can’t tie their fucking shoes.
What young Minnie’s need to be studying is the art of war. One way or another it’s coming to their doorstep, they will fight, the only question is will it be at home or abroad.
Stfkr, since the bulk of these people I know and have read of with these massive distressed mortgages are white, affluent, and mostly male, I can’t think that they’re affirmative action babies.
The problem with these people isn’t that they’re stupid, because they’re not. They have a worse problem, which is that they put their intelligence to work telling themselves the lies they needed to believe in to do the things that they wanted to do, like buy a 5 bed 3 bath house and borrow against it for an in-the-ground pool, a 2nd vacation home, foreign vacations, and BMWs.
These people, IMO, have a worse moral problem than the ghetto loser with an IQ of 93 who dropped out of 8th grade at age 16. I tend to be easier on stupid people who try to understand and make big mistakes when they are lied to, than I am on people with obvious intelligence who have the benefit of expensive educations, but who choose to be ignorant and irrational.
I recently read of a young woman, white, high I.Q., and given a paid-for education at one of the Seven Sisters colleges, which remain extremely selective and demanding to this day. She did not have to borrow money- her working-class parents saved money their whole working lives so they could fund her. So what does she do? She majored in English Literature, a very nice major for a rich trust fund baby, but completely inappropriate for a girl who would have to work and did not want to teach. Well, surprise, surprise, she could not find decent employment with this degree. So she next takes out college loans to fund her grad school. THEN, she “hooks up” with some guy she met at a party ,and has the kid, and keeps the kid. But it’s OK, see, because the father is “involved” even though he has no stable employment and can only contribute support intermittently.
So here she is- a broke single mom on welfare with $90K in college loans she is never, ever going to be able to pay back. I mean, you don’t have to be the graduate of an upper-tier school to end up broke and on the dole with an out-of-wedlock kid with chronic, congenital health problems and a stack of school debt bigger than some mortgages, but I daresay that the ghetto bunny with an I.Q. of 88 with her kid just might be costing the public less- at least she hasn’t rung up a stack of school loans… and God knows she has more excuse.
Flash- that video is simply shocking. Who needs titty bars, just go down and watch the middle/high school girls bump and grind without paying a cover charge.
Christianity truly needs to be reformed.
Bea Lever says: Who needs titty bars, just go down and watch the middle/high school girls bump and grind without paying a cover charge
B L ….Dude…I’m almost certain you’ll end up in the penitentiary somewhere.
Yeah, FWIW, those young women dry humping atmosphere where only acting as roles models in showing their sellbound tweenie audience how to be a strong and independent women..
cuz’ you see unlike us old boomers minnies’ got their priorities straight….and no one should feel left out or bullied because of gender. We’re all gender neutral now.
‘Poop Equality’: Students Hold ‘Sh*t-In’ at Public California University
The Queer Student Union at California Polytechnic University recently orchestrated a three-day “shit-in” at which students preached “Gender Diversity” and encouraged students to use solely gender-neutral bathrooms on campus.
“Put yourself in the shoes of a trans*/gender non-conforming student and take the pledge to use only all gender bathrooms,” a post from the organization’s Facebook page read.
Students reportedly created a staged toilet in the middle of campus, which students signed and decorated with several banners, one of which read “We’ve got shit to deal with,” according to images acquired by Campus Reform.
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2015/04/21/poop-equality-students-hold-sht-in-at-public-california-university/
@Chicago
I have witnesses that in my life. I thought for the longest time, after the divorce, that it was the reduced household income that kept me and the kids from enjoying all the perks the folks around me enjoyed. Even though I thought I was making decent money I still attributed the discrepancy to the lack of a duel income.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. I have since found out these college educated, master-degree holding people that I felt inferior to because they were living the life of Riley are – for the most part – in debt up to their eyeballs. The trips, the cars, the home renovations – all out of my reach because I couldn’t stomach the debt that was always readily available – was apparently a debt they were willing to get sucked into.
LLPOH schooled me about the ridiculous expectations for “material” stuff that has become a pervasive “entitlement” – what people thought was reasonable was generally unreasonable to me because I didn’t want the debt. But I still felt like I was not successful – kudos to the media for that!
Perhaps a discussion about how the usury laws changed around the same time as Nixon took us off the gold standard might be in order.
Sensetti
My statement was a condemnation followed by a plea for reformed Christianity. How did you decide I am a deviant, dude??????
I’m sure Bea was being sour caustic, he meant the schools are competing with the TB’s.
Bea, we gotta hook up, bro. Soon as I can get a kitchen pass.
We’ll go to the titty bars in Austin, awesome Teutonic beauties.
Thought I missed 2 of the questions, but routed my responses through Atlanta and ended up with a perfect score!!
The old SNL bit with Steve Martin comes to mind: Don’t Buy Stuff.
https://screen.yahoo.com/dont-buy-stuff-000000884.html
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.” -Albert Einstein
When it comes to finances I learned everything from my grandfather (who owned his own business in his youth). The most value financial information he taught me was about credit and interest rates.
Olga ,I thought it was I that schooled you.Shit,ungrateful people make me nausea.
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@yahsure, every decent cook ends up using Algebra, whether they know it or not. Carpenters and home repairmen too.
Though I don’t call it “algebra,” I’ve been making my daughter do “both sides of the equal sign” equations for years. She helps me halve, or quadruple, my recipes. Of course, I’m a whack job that finds learning experiences in everything we do. I try and sneak in knowledge, here, there and everywhere. I want my daughter to have a secretary, not be one, if such things still matter fifteen years from now.
@Chicago, my mom used to work for three PhD level professors at Michigan State. She was always amazed how men that were “so smart” were completely unable to do the most basic human/household activities. Like balance a check book, or capitalize proper names.
My first hub wanted to buy a Harley, that I had no desire to go into debt for, so I would not look for, nor sign for, nor include my income in, his pipedream.
Luckily, he was financially illiterate and when the dealer explained to him that 15% annual interest rate did NOT mean he would pay $1,800 total interest on a four year $12,000 loan, thankfully, he walked away.
His second wife enjoyed the ego that credit brought, most amusing is although he hated interest and paid off his truck and bike very quickly, she got them both in the divorce. Sometimes Karmic revenge is best served with no hand in it.
@flash, my nephew is still angry with me over a twerking incident from 2 years ago. I was visiting his mother and she was watching her granddaughter. My nephew came over to the house and was playing with his daughter (he wasn’t as involved as he should have been, a near death accident changed all that and he is becoming a better dad by the day) and told her, “butt dance for Aunt T.”
She started to twerk, my older daughter was watching, I scooped my grandniece up in my arms and chewed out both my sister and my nephew.
If you start sexually objectifying a THREE year old, just where in the heck does that end up? I’m betting it isn’t Yale, unless it is the Yale Titty Club.
Years and years ago I sold insurance door-to-door, it was simply amazing, time and again, how the people with the two brand new cars in the driveway of the (at that time, new and amazing) McMansions were sitting on futons and using towel covered boxes for tables and old sheets for curtains and literally did not have $25 worth of extra cash at any time.
During the last housing breakup, the paper and 6 o’clock news were full of sob stories. One was for a federal judge that had THREE massive homes in two states and ALL of them were outside what she could afford. Keep in mind this is a bitch that tells YOU what YOU can afford.
There was also an engineering couple from Ford, knocking down a combined $300,000 in cash PLUS no savings for retirement or health care. They built their “dream house” that came with overruns and ended up crying when they had a $900,000 debt on a house that wasn’t finished and would never be worth what they poured into it. They felt the “state” should “do something.”
I look back at the quality of vocabulary that used to normal and found in even the words written for the “lower” classes.
Then I look at the girls twerking.
Anyone that thinks we have a chance may just be wishful thinking. Once again, people like us are the minute minority and shrinking by the day.
@bb, you aren’t “nausea” you may have nausea, or be nauseous. Sorry, just a pet peeve because I know it makes one appear less intelligent even when they are smart. I have my own mental vocabulary mess ups too, that just isn’t one of them.