Do you understand the big financial picture?

Hello,

First of all, I'd like to welcome the new Linkedin members who kindly got interested about this modest one-man project I'm happy to share with all of you; it's an honor and a renewed commitment to share my thoughts as to the critical importance that Financial Culture already has since our global financial markets are facing a "turmoil" where many banks are already dealing with a difficult time.

O.K. Let's see... I'd say that one "small" yet very important detail, since all of us are sharing already a basically similar "financial faith", is the need of... hmm, -sorry to be stubborn- having at least a basic financial knowledge about how to plan about a key issue... our, hmmm... retirement... (You don't want to "suffer" like this, Do you?) so, this note won't focus on concrete retirement plans (I assume that there are many really good ones); on the contrary, it'll focus on the urgent need of identifying who should help us all to understand the "financial" ground we must explore sooner or later to understand first of all (and hopefully once and for all) what are those financial markets and what we could do in order to make our money grow (if we wish to invest wisely and... retire without too much problems).

Based on my own modest personal and professional experience, I've concluded -unfortunately- that many global financial institutions have failed to provide the public with a more consistent financial knowledge about a long list of many concrete practical -and even legal- issues:

I'm not ashamed to tell you that as a financial professional, I still notice that in my home country (Mexico) the financial system as a whole has failed to give the public the knowledge to understand many apparently "not so important" financial details... it's not surprising for me to understand after all these years why an infamous crisis the Mexican financial system dealt with in 1994-1995 (being myself a direct "victim" because I was one of many guys in the local financial system who lost his job as a senior analyst), led many banks to run into very serious problems particularly with credit cards when customers weren't able to pay huge debts.

There's something I'm already a "bit" worried about this particular problem: the same banks continue offering "tons" of credit cards without too much inquiries. Business or... Stupidity?

Based on this small personal account, I could try to create something like a "basic finance check list" about subjects we could discuss in future postings based on the importance of acquiring a basic financial culture: (1) Financial Markets (2) Participants (3) Who are they (Banks, Bankers, Analysts, etc), (3) Financial Products and Services: Mutual Funds, Retirement Plans, Private Wealth, Advisors, Credit Cards, Mergers & Acquisitions, etc, (4) How to invest and save money?, etc.

Best regards.