While my blog would have so much more cache and drama prophesying only doom, alas, I did find stuff that is helpful for becoming Financially Literate, after all:
Seems like:
*Canada has set up a well-meaning site for people to read up on financial concepts and consumer rights when dealing with money products. But I think what people could really be interested in is having a dialogue about all this stuff. If people are actually coming to this site to learn, they would probably have loads of questions; and the one-way type common-sense tips aren’t enough. I tried emailing the given contact to see if they might respond–we’ll see if they do!
* The European Central Bank has set up some interactive games and videos on its site to teach about inflation, unemployment levels and price stability–aimed at young people to be able to understand and hopefully “like”. I tried it: controlling inflation and unemployment levels, and scored OK. I learned “that” these items are tied together, but as a video game, it doesn’t have the scope of addressing the social impact of what 10% unemployment can really mean for a population. And the cartoons sometimes went over my head (post-graduate education be danged). Will never match nuanced awesomeness of Angry Birds, but it’s a…start.
* The Youtube channel Financial101EC (by Investopedia) has many little watchable, well-produced videos explaining some basic ideas about finance and that might help you understand what certain things are. Though some are too slick and fast! Needs a “slow-the-$%^&-down” button.
*The Organization of Economic Co-Operation and Development (the OECD) (= a bunch of countries getting together to help each other on a bunch of issues) has created this site meant to be a database of Financial Education ideas going on in different countries: http://www.financial-education.org. I’m thinking this site was a one-time gargantuan effort to survey a bunch of countries, but can’t possibly be kept up in any timely or meaningful way . Also, some “Financial Education initiatives” touted, as for the case of Greece, seem to be just brochures!
Money Big and Small 