THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate members of my Cabinet joining me today with some of our citizens who care about the future of our country and are willing to do something about it. Earlier today I signed an executive order establishing the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy.
Chuck Schwab is the chairman of this group, and John Hope Bryant is the vice-chair. These two men have agreed to take time to take the lead, and I appreciate it.
I have asked people from the business world, the faith world, the non-profit world, to join this council in order to come up with recommendations as to how to better educate people from all walks of life about matters pertaining to their finances and their future.
You know, it's interesting that if we want America to be as hopeful a place as it can be, we want people owning assets. We want people investing. We want people owning homes. But oftentimes, to be able to do so requires literacy when it comes to financial matters. And sometimes people just simply don't know what they're looking at and reading. And it can lead to personal financial crisis, and that personal financial crisis, if accumulated to too many folks, hurts our country.
One of the issues that many of our folks are facing now are these sub-prime mortgages. I just wonder how many people, when they bought a sub-prime mortgage, knew what they were getting into: The low interest rates sounded very attractive, and all of a sudden, that contract kicks in and people are paying high interest rates. One of the missions is to make sure that when somebody gets a financial instrument they know what they're getting into, they know what they're buying, they understand. That's not all Bush had to say.
Chuck Schwab is the chairman of this group, and John Hope Bryant is the vice-chair. These two men have agreed to take time to take the lead, and I appreciate it.
I have asked people from the business world, the faith world, the non-profit world, to join this council in order to come up with recommendations as to how to better educate people from all walks of life about matters pertaining to their finances and their future.
You know, it's interesting that if we want America to be as hopeful a place as it can be, we want people owning assets. We want people investing. We want people owning homes. But oftentimes, to be able to do so requires literacy when it comes to financial matters. And sometimes people just simply don't know what they're looking at and reading. And it can lead to personal financial crisis, and that personal financial crisis, if accumulated to too many folks, hurts our country.
One of the issues that many of our folks are facing now are these sub-prime mortgages. I just wonder how many people, when they bought a sub-prime mortgage, knew what they were getting into: The low interest rates sounded very attractive, and all of a sudden, that contract kicks in and people are paying high interest rates. One of the missions is to make sure that when somebody gets a financial instrument they know what they're getting into, they know what they're buying, they understand. That's not all Bush had to say.