Military Money: Saving Private Ryan from Financial Ruin
Holly Patraeus, wife of General David Patraeus, wants to keep predatory lenders off the backs of service men and women overseas, and she sees financial education on military bases as the best way to do that.
This is a worthy search for WMD -- Weapons of Monetary Destruction -- if ever there was one. Military personnel have some of the highest credit-card balances around. As reported by CBS Evening News here, one survey found that 33% of soldiers revolve a credit-card balance of at least $10,000, which is double the rate of the civilian population revolving at that level.
Meanwhile, home foreclosures of military families are on the rise and at least one member of congress attributes recent suicides among the military population to financial distress.
That view, by the way, isn't just about seeking political headlines or piling on banks that have overstepped in the foreclosure process. Lois Vitt, a financial sociologist in Charlottesville, VA, studied family violence in the Navy and concluded that the vast majority of violence in the homes of military families -- maybe as much as 90% -- springs from financial problems.
"The Navy is always in the news for domestic violence, for killing, shooting or whatever," she told me in a lengthy interview for a book I'm writing on kids and money. "A lot of times it's over money."
Like Holly Patraeus (pictured above), Vitt believes that mandatory financial education on military bases is at least part of the solution. She says teaching these young men and women about money would save lives -- not just money, the car and the house; but marriages, families and life itself.
This is a notable position that widens the discussion considerably about whether financial education has a place in our schools. If Vitt and Patraeus are right, kids should be taught about credit cards and compound growth for the sake of their health along with all of the obvious reasons.
For her part, Patraeus is steaming ahead. "This is a challenge," she says in an interview with Katie Couric. "But the military is a place where things can be ordered and financial education can be mandatory."
Well, the same can be said of teaching money to kids in school. It can be mandatory. Yet in most states it isn't and federal officials have said they will not dictate to the states on this issue. I've written a few times about countries like Australia and the U.K. that are moving toward federal mandates in financial education. Now we can add Canada to the list. Learning about money should be a core part of elementary school and high school, a Canadian federal task force concluded this month.
In its report, the task force suggested the federal government provide resources for teachers and employers to train and then teach about money; it also suggested the government launch a public-awareness campaign. Among its 30 pointed recommendations, the task force suggested financial literacy be taught as early as possible by incorporating money skills into the curricula in elementary and secondary school, as well as by offering college financial education courses.
That's casting a wide net -- much wider than just the military.
Photo courtesy CBS
More on MoneyWatch:
· Taking the Lead Down Under
· Pushing Financial Education in the U.K.
· Wanted: Financial Literacy Ad Campaign
· Student Loans: How They Changed A Life for Decades
Daniel J. Kadlec is an author and journalist whose work appears regularly in Time and Money magazines. He is the former editor of Time’s Generations section, which was written and edited for boomers. Kadlec came to Time from USA Today, where he was the creator and author of the daily column Street Talk, which anchored the newspaper's business coverage. He has co-written three books, including, most recently, With Purpose: Going from Success to Significance in Work and Life. He has won a New York Press Club award and a National Headliner Award for columns on the economy and investing.
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