अमेरिकियों आर्थिक निरक्षर?

सेडोना से नमस्ते…

हाल ही में आर्थिक अनुसंधान के राष्ट्रीय ब्यूरो (NBER) released a report showing that the average person does not have the financial literacy required to navigate the modern economy. The only positive thing I can say about this exercise in discovering the obvious is that it wasted private and not taxpayer dollars.

The overly negative tone of the NBER report chronicling the financial illiteracy of the American public is actually misplaced. The fact is that there has been a huge improvement in financial literacy over the last thirty years. I saw this first hand as a financial professional. At the beginning of my career in the late 1970’s the average person knew next to nothing. उदाहरण के लिए, जब एक विशेष, अस्थायी, टैक्स जमा करने के लिए स्वतंत्र बैंक प्रमाण पत्र उपलब्ध में बनाया गया था 1980 many in the stock brokerage industry were concerned that they would lose business to the banks. Exactly the opposite occurred. We were astonished at how few people had any idea that you could invest in कुछ भी that yielded tax free income. दूसरे शब्दों में, हमारे बाजार तेजी से रात भर का विस्तार.

में 1970 the sum of business coverage was a few seconds on the evening news. During the 70’s Wall Street Week and the Nightly Business Report were introduced on PBS. That was it. इसके अलावा, यहाँ तक शिक्षित के लिए, getting comprehensive and timely information was difficult indeed. Today we have multiple 24/7 नेटवर्क के लिए समर्पित केवल to financial news. Obtaining data is a snap via the Internet. The effect I observed in the increased education level of the people I encountered was dramatic, and the improvement continues. The reason is that people will readily learn what they think is in their interest to know as long as they are afforded the opportunity to do so. It may not happen overnight, लेकिन यह होगा.

reflexively बोले, montralike, somber toned response to such revelations is usually that our schools must be enlisted to impart the requisite knowledge to our precious children. As with all other similar instances this would be exactly the wrong approach, guaranteed to be a waste of time and effort with regard to the vast majority of the students who would snooze through the classes if they were present at all. Like nearly everything else taught after basic reading and arithmetic, व्यक्तिगत वित्त के विषय बेकार है क्योंकि वहाँ छात्रों के लिए कुछ भी नहीं है जीवन में करने के लिए संबंधित है कि किसी भी महत्व की उन से है.

दुर्भाग्य, the futility associated with our elementary/high-school paradigm is the least of the barriers to the public becoming financially literate. There is the cultural phenomenon of extending childhood well into the twenties. There can be no expectation of financial literacy when the little animals are segregated from the real world for longer and longer periods, अब भी कई मामलों में बीस साल के करीब पहुंच.

The next factor impeding financial literacy is the cultural ambience of spending being patriotic and necessary for a healthy American economy. Then there is the nonsense of entitlements along with the knowledge that when you mess up financially there will be little or no painful consequences. Gosh, until recently everyone was even entitled to own their own home even if they had no money and hardly and income. By the time our adult sized children take on mortgages and bear children it is too late. The bad habits are so deeply embedded that all the headlines in the world will have little effect. Historically, केवल अवसाद और बड़े पैमाने पर बेरोजगारी एक बस्ट की मैक्रो आर्थिक परिणाम बहुत सारे लोगों के नोटिस लेने के लिए मिल और tightwadism के पुराने समय धर्म मिल.

Part of the blame must also accrue to the financial services industry. It is the only industry I know that subtracts value from its clients in the aggregate. Even lawyers are unable to do that. The reason is that the professionals know next to nothing about their subject. Once you get past price-earnings and chart patterns, nearly everything they spout is wrong. The public believes the securities market is a casino for good reason. The industry acts like croupiers raking the cash from the suckers at the roulette wheel.

The least of it is that the industry will have you all-in at the top of the market and all-out at the bottom when you just can’t take any more pain. Huge conflict of interest issues have traditionally been at the heart of this phenomenon. Commission salesmen don’t make money unless you trade – a lot. In house (पक्ष बेचना) विश्लेषकों शक्तिशाली वित्तीय हितों और भारी को बेचने के मूल्यांकन मुद्दा कभी नहीं प्रेशर है (हालांकि इस डॉट कॉम असफलता के नरसंहार के बाद ही बदल रहा है). Now that many financial professionals have turned to fee based compensation tied to assets under management (कोई व्यापार आयोगों) the problem remains because the advisor is not compensated for managing cash. इसलिए, ग्राहक पूरी तरह से शीर्ष पर निवेश किया है, हमेशा की तरह.

इससे भी बदतर, financial planners certified in their trade routinely provide advice mathematically guaranteed to destroy even their conservative clients by misinforming them about how much they must save in order to meet their goals. Long term investment returns were wildly overestimated. This was not limited to the feckless individual investor. Big pension funds, साथ ही सार्वजनिक निजी, have fallen into financial black holes as a result. I also cannot count the number of times financial planners (प्रमाणित, कम नहीं) नियमित रूप से अपने ग्राहकों को वे सुरक्षित रूप से वापस लेने की सलाह दी सका 10% of their assets each year after retirement. Everyone who followed that advice is broke today.

शिक्षाविदों को भी अपने दिमाग की उपज के साथ कार्य "आधुनिक पोर्टफोलियो सिद्धांत बुलाया" में मिला. All that was modern about it was the new language and equations replete with squiggly letters. उदाहरण के लिए, हर किसी को कम बीटा वाले पोर्टफोलियो का निर्माण करना चाहता था, high alpha assets. In English that means buying stuff that does not move up and down very fast (कम बीटा) और प्रासंगिक बाजार सूचकांक outperforms (उच्च अल्फा). फिर, दुर्भाग्यवश, इस नए फ़ैशन अल्फा बीटा दृष्टिकोण भी शीर्ष पर खरीदने की गारंटी देता है और नीचे की बिक्री.

"पढ़ें बेन ग्राहम और फिल फिशर, वार्षिक रिपोर्ट पढ़ी, लेकिन उन में ग्रीक पत्र के साथ समीकरणों करना नहीं है. " (जोर गयी.)

वारेन बफेट 1993

सेंट. Warren Buffett himself pointed out years ago such notions would have you buying commercial real estate before it busted in the late 80’s and early 90’s. He also noted that under modern portfolio theory he never could have made his legendary purchase of Consolidated Edison as it crashed following the elimination of its dividend. Given all of this, और अधिक से अधिक यहां बताया जा सकता है, यह किसी भी आश्चर्य हो सकता है कि औसत व्यक्ति इतना वित्तीय मामलों के बारे में कोई खबर नहीं है?

This rant has been mostly about personal financial issues. Prior posts have dealt extensively with general policy issues and economic literacy. While the news is nearly all bad, पिछले सप्ताह की सबसे महत्वपूर्ण कहानी कम से कम आशा की एक छोटी सी किरण प्रदान करता है. The American Association of Retired People (AARP) आधिकारिक तौर पर इसकी लाबीस्ट कहा था कि कोई भी धारणा है कि सामाजिक असुरक्षा लाभ में कटौती हो सकती है के लिए अपने reflexive हार्ड लाइन आपत्ति संघर्ष (सेवानिवृत्त लोगों के भविष्य की पीढ़ियों के लिए) as part of any reform plan. I would have given steep odds against this development given the persistently demonstrated innumeracy and economic illiteracy of nearly everyone embroiled in this issue in addition to the traditional intransigence of AARP.

तुम सब सभी के लिए सर्वश्रेष्ठ,

स्टीफन Reiss
स्टीव (पर) SedonaCyberLink.com