Sunday, March 7, 2010

My submission to appear before the Task Force on Financial Literacy


Submission was limited to 150 words. This is 149:

CAITI's mandate is defined as Advocacy. Accountability. Education.

From my 5,000 hours of volunteer work, it is my conclusion that financial literacy is lacking in all levels of Canadian society, especially the media/business media and virtually all MPs, who have no academic/real world training and demonstrate no understanding of the most basic of financial concepts like "the time value of money" or "accrual accounting".

Therefore, a national strategy to correct financial illiteracy would be most efficacious if approached from the "top down".

Improving financial literacy is futile if pursued in isolation from improving Canada’s abysmal financial disclosure . Examples include the government’s use of blacked out documents as “proof“ of tax leakage, Manulife failing to disclose it was not hedging its variable rate annuity products and BCE failing to disclose to its shareholders the existence of a superior transaction that proved the only feasible one in the end.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Home Run!

m.

Dr Mike said...

Unfortunately for us , our very own MPs are the most guilty when it comes to a lack of the most basic financial knowledge.

Ask your MP about the double taxation within RRSPs sometime & be prepared for an eye opening answer.

If you want to really be shocked ask them to define an income trust & then ask them how they work.

Makes you wonder how they ever managed to vote on the income trust bill with any clarity.

Sad but true.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Not only is there a problem with financial literacy in this country but also with reading and writing skills. Canada is slowly being dumbed down. Thinking skills need to be better taught in the schools and universities.
Have you also noticed how, in TV commercials, men are being dumbed down too? Men are being made to look like complete idiots while women and children seem to have it all together and know so much more than men. Not very nice. BB

Anonymous said...

When the entire world is convinced you are wrong despite your passionate pleas, you are either the village idiot or a renaissance man. I want you to think very hard about which one you are. Check your ego at the door when doing this excercise.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous:
I know of 2,500,000 Canadians who agree with me. Doesn't sound like the "entire world" to me. BB

Dr Mike said...

"Anonymous said...
When the entire world is convinced you are wrong despite your passionate pleas, you are either the village idiot or a renaissance man. I want you to think very hard about which one you are. Check your ego at the door when doing this excercise."

I hate anonymous posters as you can say whatever you want without any foundation of truth or without any ramifications.

Spineless , just like your buddy Jim Flaherty who hides behind 18 blacked-out pages.

Dr Mike Popovich

PS---learn how to spell while you are at it --- like what is this "excercise"

Richard the Vitriolic said...

Anonymous said: When the entire world is convinced you are wrong despite your passionate pleas, you are either the blah blah blah.

Schopenhauer, an 18th Century philosopher, observed: THERE IS NO OPINION, HOWEVER ABSURD, WHICH MEN WILL NOT READILY EMBRACE AS SOON AS THEY CAN BE BROUGHT TO THE CONVICTION THAT IS IS GENERALLY ACCEPTED".

Propagandists have been using that tactic ever since.

So Anonymous....how's it feel to be an idiot?