Celebrating financial literacy efforts

Financial literacy matters.

The GameStop fiasco brought that to the fore. The rise and fall of the stock in recent months reminded me of the battles that erupted around the advent of “Mad Money.” I bore witness to the explosion of Jim Cramer’s “Mad Money” on to the investing scene. The show straddled the line between game and clinic, and while most attention was paid to the games and the booyahs, there were lessons in most episodes, as Jim strived to educate.

On one hand, more people participating in wealth management is a positive for the markets. But blindly following Reddit characters or second-hand reports of “Buy! Buy! Buy!” opens the dark side of investing.

Therefore, we should give credit to people that cheer for those leaders who strive to create a financially literate community — and that’s what we’ve done in this issue.

In our cover story, Mark Schoeff Jr. and Nicole Casperson report on adviser reaction to the GameStop mania. And then we hear from a number of practitioners on why they are doing the work they’re doing to provide necessary access to finance. Thank you to Kate Healy, Luis Rosa, Dan Otter, Cindy Couyoumjian, and Cristina Livadary.