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?
A kid who starts earning the minimum wage ($7.25) on her fifteenth birthday, does so for 40 hours a week ($290), and puts aside only the normal deduction for Social Security and Medicare (7.65%, or $22.19) each week, for the next 45 years, can be a millionaire at age 60.
Leaving it to compound, it would take an average return of less than 10%—that of the S&P 500—for that investment to produce a million bucks by the time that child reaches age 60!
Because investing our way consistently beats the S&P 500, this means, without ever saving any more than what’s taken from every working person’s paycheck for Social Security and Medicare, a kid who invests as we propose can realize the American Dream and then some, with no risk, and without ever doing anything but flip hamburgers!
And, of course, Congress will handle (read "contribute to") inflation by increasing the minimum wage to compensate for it. What a fantastic country we live in!
Here are a few glimpses of what I was speaking about in my earlier post about the kids. You can’t look at the faces of these kids and their parents—engaged, eagerly learning the simple things they need to know about basic stock investing—and not find good reason to feel good about our nation’s future!
Thanks and credit to David Smith of Grand Junction, CO, for all the best photos in this video.
In not too many years from now, a select group of young people will burst from adolescence and emerge into adulthood. They’ll do so at just about the time we will badly need good people in public life to pick up the pieces of our economy and manage our businesses and our government responsibly. Those young people will be better prepared than most of their contemporaries, thanks to several individuals with the foresight and concern to see that they are. Read more…
Not long ago, after seeing one more newspaper article praising the virtues of The Stock Market Game, I yanked my gun off the rack and fired yet another salvo at what I consider to be a terrible influence on our children.
The article probably mentioned that the program teaches our kids such things as short selling and using margin to leverage their hypothetical portfolios so as to help them better manage their pretend-$100K and increase the kids’ chances of beating their competitors. I view these things to be about on the same level as teaching them about the pass line on the craps table!
Nevertheless, in response to a comment on that post, I suggested that it might be time for me to quit complaining, talk to the folks who run it, and see if they might be receptive to some suggestions to perfect it. …and then I did it.
Consider this: The securities industry supports and finances this “education” effort. Altruism? I think not!
In whose best interest is it for your kids to grow up believing “investing” is betting on the stock market – that it’s a great and exciting game and you can make a killing playing it? Certainly this is not something your kids ought to be taught! Read more…
Over this past holiday weekend, my family and I were talking about about “today.” And “attitude.”
In not too many years from now, a select group of young people will burst from adolescence and emerge into adulthood. They’ll do so at just about the time we will badly need good people in public life to pick up the pieces of our economy and manage our businesses and our government responsibly. Those young people will be better prepared than most of their contemporaries, thanks to several individuals with the foresight and concern to see that they are. 
This is a pet peeve of mine. 
