There is no question that mistakes have been made in the financial crisis and people rightly or wrongly are suffering the consequences of such actions. Investment firms are attempting to alter practices to ensure that such a disaster doesn’t happen again
but what else can be done?
The key is education. I am a strong advocate of implementing financial education in to the school curriculum as I believe that the spend culture of today needs to change to the save culture of tomorrow. Reckless spending and living beyond your means is irresponsible
and is a practice that seems to have been adopted by institutions as well as individuals. Far too often, I see people working for large banks that make the fatal error of continuing to think that they can spend “their” money as liberally as they have spent
the firm’s money, plunging themselves in to greater debt.
I am at a loss as to why I heard on Radio 4 earlier this week that some Twits have decided that history lessons should be scrapped so that children can learn how to Twitter when it is far more important that they are taught about financial matters and not
as a substitute to history. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to learn how to Twitter but it may take more rocket fuel to appreciate the finer points of the financial meltdown.