OFFS--This is the shit that gets passed around social media these days.

[JT45242]

9. Which is why financial literacy is critical to teach in schools

Understanding the power of compound interest and how it helps you with a 401K/403B/IRAs etc and how it hurts you (credit cards, massive student loans for jobs that don't pay enough to support them).

My 47 year old brother in law didn't even know what a 401K was and whether or not he was eligible for one...ugh.

If American workers were better informed then they would benefit when the stock market goes up. They would understand that getting every matching penny from your employer as early as possible is how you grow wealth. In a perfect world people would plan retirement so that they would use pension/401K in a way that you never don't regularly touch principal (pull 5% annually) and supplement with social security.

Also, if more folks were given these options because businesses were afraid of losing workers to employers who offer them, then things would look up. The stock market is not all bad.

The insider trading and crony capitalism suck -- but using mutual funds to grow generational wealth with matching from employers is a good thing. the one good thing about switching from my teacher pension to a 403B is that when I die the money will go to my family rather than to fund other teachers. It isn't a guarantee that I will have XX % of my best three years like my teaching pension was, but I can invest wisely in green and ethical mutual and still average 12% growth per year for the last 8 years.