today i attended a financial education expo. it was some refresher for me, since i also taught some finance in college. i had a smattering of finance, considering i studied economics in a master's course. it's a different perspective when you just teach and when you actually apply it to your own finances. theoretically, finance is not really that hard. it is when you apply your learnings that is most tricky.
since the lecturers were from the central bank talking banking, they would naturally encourage saving your extra income into financial instruments. but who would really allow money to accumulate in the bank until retirement. the failure of the US financial markets which affected the world economy will make us think twice. sure, the government would bail out these banks. this means, instead of punishing imprudent banking behavior, the government (our very own money, or the taxes we pay) is in fact used to save the bank which is a private operation and in which the government really has no business in.
what could have been done is criminalize imprudent behavior, zealous supervision and monitoring of banking and financial transactions. no bailouts please! taxpayers' money must not be used to pay off greedy investors. that includes us --- ordinary depositors. this means, we must aways closely watch our assets in depositary banks, or always ask our financial advisers how our investments are doing.
this means, everyone of us should have some working knowledge of finance.
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