Over this past holiday weekend, my family and I were talking about about “today.” And “attitude.”

The thrust of our conversation was why no one out there seems to have any interest in investing at all! It wasn’t that long ago when NAIC volunteers, looking to build attendance for an annual investors’ fair, could find plenty of folks who wanted to find out what it was all about and learn how they, too, could make a buck in common stocks. Not so today!

I suggested that it might be a generational thing. The world is evolving and our youth are moving into active adulthood. And it’s they who set the attitude for “the world out there.”

I also suggested that the same kind of disinterest shows up in the schools. Few are in it for the education; more are in it for the credentials so they can “get a good job.” (I’ll leave the definition of a “good job” for another day.)

Could it be that those of us who are financially well off have been so successful and intent on not making our kids “go through what we had to go through” that we’ve stripped them of the need, the urgency, the ambition—and the satisfaction—that comes with doing it themselves?

For all these months, I’ve been trying  awfully hard to arouse some interest in making money with one’s money, to no avail! What am I missing?

Any ideas?

Ellis Current Events, Food for Thought, Fundamental Investment Views, NAIC Veterans' Lounge ambition, interest in investing, kids, next generation