Poor

"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." - Benjamin Franklin U.S. author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, and printer (1706 - 1790)

"In 2005, savings rates dipped to minus 0.5 percent, something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression in 1932 and 1933. A negative savings rate means that Americans spent all their disposable income and dipped into past savings or increased their borrowing." - U.S. Commerce Department, 2006

I believe the average American is financially struggling not because of a lack of money, but because of a lack of financial understanding. You can be poor and earn six figures. Or you can be wealthy and only be earn minimum wage. The most important piece of information to determine financial success isn't how much a person makes, but rather how much a person keeps. What makes the U.S. Commerce Department figure striking is that American's are keeping a minus 0.5 percent of their earnings; this says to me the majority of American's are experiencing financial depression.

The reason I believe that Mr. Franklin spoke as he did about poverty is because being poor can simply be a lack of knowledge. I do not believe we need to be ashamed of what we do not know. We just need to acknowledge what we don’t know or understand and begin to take steps toward understanding.

My Great-Grandfather is 94 years old. He works the Internet and uses a digital camera. When Great-Grandpa was growing up in the early 1900's he saw his own father grow obsolete with the advent of the tractor. He refused to convert from the work-horse to machinery. My Great-Grandpa learned from that experience the importance of lifetime learning. One of his favorite quotes is a saying from Will Rogers, "It 'twasn't my ignorance that done me in, 'twas the things I'd know’d that wasn't so." - What is it that we "know'd that wasn't so?" - Is it Social Security?