A Study in Absurdity

We have an issue in this country, and I think most people would agree with me on this, that people just generally don't know that much about money. It doesn't matter if it's the ability to balance a checkbook or how best to manage a retirement fund, people just struggle to wrap their brains around what they are supposed to do in today's money market.

No, I'm not going to try and sell you gold now, do you read this blog? Do whatever you want with your money, I don't care. What I wanted to talk about is a hilarious hypocrisy in how we use our federal dollars when it comes to addressing the aforementioned issue. Let's put on our imagination caps for a moment, who is the best, by which of course I mean worse, entity to try and educate the general public on how they should manage their money? If you said the same entity that has borrowed more money then they could ever hope to repay in their lifetime, then you would be correct.

The federal government is worried that you, yes you, don't know what to do with your hard earned money. The same government that takes 2 percent more of your money through a payroll tax increase and then wails louder then a kid who's binky was taken away when it had to tighten it's belt by basically the same amount.

Take a look at a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concerning the goals for an initiative called 'National Strategy for Financial Literacy'. Who's goal, simply stated, is to educate the general populous on how to manage their money;

Recommendation: To help ensure that the National Strategy for Financial Literacy serves its goal of improving the nation's financial literacy and education, the Secretary of the Treasury, in concert with other agency representatives of the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, should incorporate into the national strategy clear, specific goals and performance measures that would serve as indicators of the nation's progress in improving financial literacy and benchmarks for what the Commission sets out to achieve.

Agency Affected: Department of the Treasury

Status: Closed - Not Implemented

Comments: The Financial Literacy and Education Commission released a new strategy in 2011 and subsequently has produced an accompanying implementation plan (still in draft). The strategy and plan do not include the types of goals, performance and benchmarks that we recommended.

That's right, with over 50 organizations and programs lending their know how towards educating the general public on how to manage money, it was recommended that take some time to actually decide how and if we are accomplishing anything, an apparently major shift in the status quo of just doing something without worrying about those pesky things like results and effect. Note that this recommendation was over 7 years after the program was started back in 2003. They poo poo'ed the recommendation saying that their goals would be changing really soon anyway, not to anything that it was recommended them to be, and we haven't actually published them yet. Kind of sounds like a 'yeah, we'll get back to you on that one' comment.

Now, let's look at a senate hearing about this project conducted in 2011, discussing these recommendations. Specifically the line of questioning from Senator Johnson (R-WI) to the head of the GAO, Mr. Dodaro. I'll paraphrase a little here;

Senator Johnson: So who is in charge of this program, now 7 years since it started?
Dodaro: I dunno, I guess that guy over there. (Points to a group of 20 agencies,a guy from treasury points to himself and mouths "Me?")
Johnson: How much have we spent on this program?
Dodaro: I dunno.
Johnson: Can you guess? Millions, Billions?
Dodaro: No, I really wouldn't feel comfortable guessing.
Johnson: Well, we've been doing this for several years, what have we accomplished?
Dodaro: Glad you asked! We have a website! It's very pretty.
Johnson: So 7 years in, and we still haven't even really established what you guys are supposed to be doing?
Dodaro: Did you not just hear me say 'website'?

So there you go folks. Someone, we don't really know who, spent god knows how much money to put together a website with no real goal or way of measuring if they are being successful so that they can educate you on how to manage your money. What a country!

Don't stop reading now folks, The final kick in the pants to this story is that in 2012, someone decided that their tactics and priorities, whatever they where, where old and tired, so they appointed a committee to look into this whole thing. Not so much as to take a step back and see how silly they look, heavens no, but rather to forge a path forward. There conclusion? Well, on top of once again stating that they really need to say what it is that they do, they concluded that they are failing their "objectives" on several fronts, then they continue a narrative that we've heard before, "Overall, participants agreed that additional funding is needed to address data gaps presented by these priorities."

No real definition, no idea how well we're doing it, so please give us some more money so that we can continue the good fight.

By the way, that really neat website can be viewed here. We don't know how much taxpayers spent on it, so you better look at it and try and get your money's worth.