The San Luis Obispo Tribune – STEVE ROSEN
” You know an issue has been ratcheted up a couple of notches when consumer crusader Ralph Nader weighs in. His latest cause is financial literacy education. Nader contends that efforts in classrooms all around the country to teach youths about spending, saving and using credit wisely are not working. Why? Largely because the educational programs are often produced by banks, investment firms and credit card companies that “prosper when young people make poor money decisions,” Nader wrote last month in an opinion column in The Huffington Post. Given this conflicted state, Nader wrote, financial services companies are more concerned with “selling their wares, not in teaching customers to buy something that may be better or cheaper from a competitor or to not incur any debt at all.” His views are shared by the FoolProof Foundation, an organization that was created with help from the late CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite. The Florida-based foundation – whose motto is “Use caution. Question sellers. Rely on research.” – issued a statement at the beginning of Financial Literacy Month in April that said financial education programs are ineffective.”(more)