From The Salmon blog they inform us that the Congress Finance Commission has just approved a non-law proposition that aims to educate children in finance so that when they grow up, they have basic financial knowledge and in that way they can face with criteria to make economic decisions.
And, in my opinion, the 80s were those of engineering and the computer revolution, the 90s were those of marketing and we have been listening to concepts related to finance throughout the millennium. The year 2012 was definitely the risk premium with tremendous successes like that of Aleix Saló's Simiocracy or, and it was already anticipating it, that of the Ninja crisis of Leopoldo Abadía. And it is that everywhere you can read seemingly incomprehensible concepts, such as differential, analyst reports, income statements, interest margin, benefits, income, billing, etc. and it is necessary to understand the language, know it and have a critical capacity. For example, Jesús Encinar recently referred to a high school textbook that indicated, in a completely wrong way, that the public sector is not subject to the markets as it happens to the company.
So teachers, educators, parents and the entire environment of influence of the child will have to be aware of that children not only learn basic concepts as a bank account, credit card, debt, mortgage, tax, financial instruments, inflation or savings, but they will also have to know how to relate them to the context in which they will need them: home economics, private enterprise, public sector, etc. And for that I think it is essential that children get used to reading and watching news on a daily basis to have opinion and knowledge. On the Internet, it is said, there is a lot of information at our disposal although there seems to be little knowledge.
And of course we should not forget to teach the kids the sense of responsibility so that they understand that money costs a lot of effort and work to earn it. They must also have other capabilities such as knowing how to read, write and have critical capacity to know what they are offering or what they are willing to buy.
We will be attentive to see what the proposal translates, meanwhile we remember the page of Finance for all which we talked about in Peques and Más for some time and that remains in force with frequent updates.
