Raising your financial IQ

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Raising Your Financial IQ

There are many definitions of intelligence. One of the more practical ones I learned from my rich dad is, "Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. For example, "in school, if you can solve math problems, you are considered intelligent". "Out of school, if you can fix a car, you are deemed to have automotive intelligence". When it comes to money. the bigger financial problems you can solve, the higher your financial intelligence. Today, our world faces some serious financial problems. Many are interrelated problems, one causing the other. Some of the more pressing ones are;

1.  Value ofthe dollar falling 
2.  National debt increasing 
3.  Baby boomers starting to retire
4. Oil prices rising 
5. Gap increasing between the rich and everyone else 
6. Wages decreasing 
7. Jobs being exported 
8.  Social Security and Medicare going bankrupt 
9. Savings being wiped out 10. Lack of financial education being taught

The pressing questions are;

1. What can we do?

 2. What are the solut ions to these problems? 

3. Is our financial IQ high enough to solve these problems?

 4. How do we avoid becoming victims ofthese problems?

 5. How do we protect our families from falling victim to these problems?

Many of today's financial problems exist because we did not solve the problems when they first arose. Rather than increasing the financial IQ of the population, we taught people co expect the government to solve their personal problems for them. This is why no politician dares touch Social Security and Medicare ... even though most of us know these programs are doomed.

Now I can hear some of us saying, "We need to take care of those who cannot care for themselves." And I agree with that. We, as a civilized society, should take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. However, most of us can take care of ourselves if we have to and if we have been trained to. 

It's time to raise our financial IQ.

 Changing Demographic 

Because of the low financial IQ solutions we used in the past, today our demographic population is changing from Rich to Poor. The rich are getting richer and the rest getting poorer.

Many world economies are becoming two-class societies: the rich and the poor ... classes or masses

          The April 16, 2006, Sunday edition of The New YOrk Times ran a frontpage article with the headline: 

"Revival in Japan Brings Widening of Economic Gap"

 The second paragraph of the article states: 

"Today, in a country whose view of itself was once captured in the slogan, '100 million, all-middle class society,' catchphrases harshly sort people into 'winners' and 'losers: and describe Japan as a 'society of widening disparities.''' 

In other words, the middle class is being wiped out. Today in Japan, you are either rich or poor, a financial winner or a financial loser.The same thing is happening in America and in many European countries.

The price of low financial IQ

If we as a nation attempt to solve Social Security and Medicare by giving people more entitlement payouts, the golden goose will be cooked and eaten, and there will be no more golden eggs. The reason why i write and  speak about financial education is because i want people to become rich and solve their own financial problems rather than expect others to solve their problems for them. We both agreed that by giving people money, we only made the problem bigger, harder to solve and more dangerous. Simply said, America is on its way to becoming a well-educated nation of rich people and poor people. The middle class is becoming extinct. The problem is our nation is filled with people like poor dad - a good man.