Financial ignorance or lack of financial intelligence?

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I WROTE an article on financial ignorance recently and I realised the impact that the choice of vocabulary has on how a message is received, interpreted and misinterpreted. My goal is to deliver the message but I also take feedback seriously and this was one great experience. Instead of focusing on the overall message in the article, some readers focused on the word ignorance. They took offence at being called financially ignorant or financially illiterate.

Our education system looks down upon failures, upon the ignorant, and the uneducated. It looks down upon illiteracy and countries will rate themselves by how literate they are.

Literacy may give a false sense of national aptitude. The economic status of a country may always tell a different story. You would expect high literacy to be associated with great economies. The case for Zimbabwe makes my point, of course there are a lot of dynamics in the Zimbabwean case for it to be where it is now. High literacy but a poor economy due to a lot of factors, which we will forgo discussing right now.

Maybe I should have encouraged readers to improve their financial intelligence. The words improve and intelligence may have received more attention than the word financial. Ignorance is far from being an insult, it just refers to uninformed citizens in a specialty but crucial discipline such as finance.

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It affects individuals, and it affects countries. Financially ignorant citizens cannot recognise the merits and demerits of financial decisions at both a personal and national levels.

Finance and economic development actors in private and public sector are able to make ridiculous decisions without being challenged.

Prosperity gospel evangelists and marketing gurus have made fortunes by taking advantage of financial ignorance or lack of financial intelligence.

But is ignorance a bad word? It simply means lacking in knowledge in some discipline, in this case in the world of finance.

It means we have a limited vocabulary which shapes our emotions. The rich have a richer vocabulary because they learn the language of finance as well as what the rest of us learn. Most people have specialised in certain disciplines according to their career choices.

I have learnt the language of physics, the language of mathematics but I have also expanded my vocabulary by reading far and wide across the disciplines including finance. My first love was sciences until I discovered you need financial freedom and my love for stock market trading developed.

Finance is by far the most important discipline but by far the least understood. The economy depends on it, personal finances depend on it, yet many people avoid learning the language of money, finance and the economy.

So when I put the argument that financial ignorance was a great challenge, the responses I got were consistent with a limited vocabulary that excludes financial intelligence.

Financial intelligence is limited to savings as a path to prosperity. Liabilities are mostly mistaken for assets. Most people believe that the path to a fulfilling life is to study hard, find a great job, work all your life and save up for retirement. It works for some people but it can be a gamble that most people are not aware of. Most people think they are investing when they’re merely gambling using an investment vehicle.

The industrial revolution introduced the concept of jobs. Scientific innovation and discovery made mass production of goods a reality. As time has moved on, the Information Age has made wealth creation largely independent of actual jobs.

Machines have taken over much of algorithmic processes, which can be converted into computer code and assigned to a computer. The production workers are replaced by one human being with the on and off button.

Financial ignorance or lack of financial intelligence among others has led to the many misunderstandings in debates as people debate from a position of ignorance due to lack of the correct vocabulary.

The Industrial Revolution and the Prussian education model was designed to produce mechanical special practice individuals who are good for only one thing: work for the owners of wealth.

Is that what people want, work till you die for someone else to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

The unprecedented moronic and unscholarly financial tendencies exhibited by subjects in a community, have derailed many initiatives and have caused gnashing of teeth with communities not taking ownership of their resources.

In places where they do understand they can’t utilise them to their maximum potential at an sustainable equal measure due to lack of financial intelligence.

It is a shame because the resources and means to learn are at our disposal but the will isn’t there.

I remember our previous article on subjects to learn for financial freedom to be learnt early on in life and habits to adopt for one to be financially independent.

Start reading! Start understanding economics and finance. Start learning and by being on this column is the beginning of financial freedom wisdom.

Make a date every Wednesday and let’s resolve this ignorance on economics. Ask questions as they say knock, knock and doors will be opened. Seek and you shall find.

Ignorance can be blissful but could be a cause of serious challenges in the quest for financial freedom. Never delight in the lack of financial intelligence. It’s true ignorance comes at a premium.

Explore. Dream. Discover. Financial Freedom.

MoB Capital is on a campaign for financial freedom, which ordinarily people call poverty alleviation.

In as much as MoB Capital is a microfinance institution it has an advisory division that is on a special crusade on financial freedom to uplift communities and we are not going to dwell on poverty as too much dwelling on it leads to want.

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