Excerpt from transcript
PAUL SOLMAN (Newshour): If Elmo's going to save, that would distinguish him from a host of grownup Americans, more than a third of whom have a mere $1,000 or less socked away, in total. Twenty-nine percent of us report not having saved one penny for retirement. Related, perhaps, we can't calculate our way out of a paper bag.
Get this: Americans 50 or older were asked, suppose you had $100 in a savings account, and the interest rate was 2 percent per year. After five years, would you have more than $102, exactly $102, or less than $102? Two percent interest, five years. What portion of the country didn't know that more was the blindingly right answer? Half.
It might explain why 1.5 million Americans filed for bankruptcy last year alone -- no clue, no cushion.
PBS Newshour 6/3/2011
Another excerpt from transcript
PAUL SOLMAN: Stunningly, their self-control, or lack of it, by age 3, has almost perfectly predicted their future prosperity.
Duke Professor Terrie Moffitt:
TERRIE MOFFITT, Duke University: So, the children who are of very little self-control are in deep financial trouble by their 30s. Those who are very high self-control are doing really well. They're entrepreneurs. They have got retirement accounts. They own their own homes. And those who are average self-control are right in the middle.
PAUL SOLMAN: Does it correlate with their initial socioeconomic status?
TERRIE MOFFITT: Self-control is clearly more important than the socioeconomic status of one's family, the amount of money that one had growing up, and it's more important than school grades, academic achievement, and it's more important than scores on intelligence tests.
Even MORE evidence to teach our children EARLY.
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