Story Comments

voxman

You know James, as a long time reader of your column, you are usually to the point. I'm sympathetic to the hard working people who lost their life savings. But bottom line, trusting your hard earned life savings to one individual is a tragic mistake. A mistake that we as investors are responsible for, not Bernie.

cgm205

I don't often comment on general interest articles, but "personal finance—markets; stocks, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds; bonds and interest rates; asset allocation and diversification; the relationship between risk and reward—are not all that complicated. Why isn't such a course offered, at least as an elective, at every high school in America?"

made me sit up and take notice.
How long since the author has been in HS?
I taught college freshmen for 19 years and can say that 60-80% of HS grads today would not be able to read a text on the personal finance topics mentioned and surely could not handle the simple math needed to calculate the results of their decisions.

Our educational system is on a fast track to doom.
Don't let teachers and teacher unions tell you otherwise. I get a safer retirement with health care than most who made 3X my salary.