United States treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral believes that soap operas can serve as a valuable tool for educating the masses about financial literacy. According to The New York Times, "Ms. Cabral said last week that her department is talking to producers of English- and Spanish-language soap operas about weaving financial education issues into story lines. Telemundo, the Spanish-language television network owned by NBC Universal, has indicated that it would be willing to incorporate such information into its telenovelas, she said."

What a great idea! Given that money woes are widely seen as a cause of relationship strife, there's plenty of drama to be found with financial issues. Here are a few of my ideas for money-related subplots in daytime soaps. Hollywood producers: If you're looking to hire me, contact AOL for my number: ;)

• A hunky young male model attempts suicide after his phone rings day and night with angry collection agencies looking for a piece of the $50,000 in credit card debt he has run up. After his girlfriend finds him unconscious and rushes him to the hospital, she tells him she loves him for who he is, and that he doesn't need to spend like a drunken sailor on shore leave to be an amazing person.
• Enrique and Jennifer's relationship hits the rocks after Jennifer becomes a distributor for a multi-level marketing company. Enrique is convinced it's a scam, but Jennifer spends all her time listening to motivational tapes and drives their friends away with her constant sales pitches.
• Krystal finds out her boyfriend is embezzling at his job, and doesn't know what to do.

While Suze Orman certainly has her critics, I believe she has hit the nail on the head with her recent look at the need for reform in the credit card industry: "It would also be helpful if the credit card companies were required to clearly explain all their fees and interest rates. I was pleased to see that Sen. Carl Levin (D.-Mich.) recently stated that he found the fine print language of credit card agreements unwieldy -- and he's a graduate of Harvard Law School. There's no reason that all the pertinent credit card charges and policies can't be laid out in a clear, one-page chart ... We require high school students to take driver's education and pass a written and driving exam before we allow them to operate a car. But we do absolutely nothing to educate them on how debt works, and instead allow credit card companies to set up booths at freshman orientation and sign kids up to cards with sky-high credit limits."

The SEC has done a pretty solid, for the most part, job of cutting down on investors getting duped, not with micromanagement, but with broad disclosure laws. If the Congress is going to take on the credit card industry, as it should, it should adopt the same model. If the Congress can accomplish two things, we can make a big dent in the credit card crisis:

1. Require clear and concise disclosures of the terms of the credit agreement -- not microscopic legalese -- Clear language that people can understand.
2. Once we've required credit card companies to disclose the terms clearly, we need to make sure that people can understand them. As Orman points out, we require people to pass a test before they can drive. Here's an idea: How about a 10 question credit literacy test, administered with the driver's license test. If you can't pass the credit test, you can't get a driver's license. That should get teenagers excited about financial literacy!

The Congress can certainly play a role in cracking down on predatory lending, but it should probably be limited to two things: Mandating clear disclosures and making sure that consumers are educated.

Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted a study into the personal finance habits of 1,003 Americans on behalf of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Here are some of the findings:

• Less than half have ever ordered their credit reports.
• Less than 40% use monthly budgets.
• Almost 1/3 don't know the interest rate on their credit cards.
• Nearly half saw no need for further financial education (A deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance)
• 1/3 expressed a desire to learn more about money.
• Four in ten credit card holders don't pay the full amount due each month.
• 59% reported that they usually pay the full balance rather than incur interest and finance charges on their credit cards.
• More than 1/3 of respondents had received financial guidance from professionals.

These numbers are pretty scary -- With the vast majority of credit reports containing errors, people are flushing money down the toilet in the form of higher interest rates by not making sure their credit scores are as high as they should be. The survey indicates that 1/3 or respondents didn't know the interest rate on their credit cards, and I have a hunch that a large percentage of that third are part of the four in ten credit card holders who don't pay the full amount each month. People who aren't knowledgeable about their finances tend not to be responsible either.

If you're reading this site, chances are you at least make an effort to be on top of your financial situation. But you also probably know someone who isn't. If you have knowledge of financial matters, offer to help those less fortunate. You could be the difference between poverty and a comfortable retirement for them.

As Barack Obama said in a recent speech, "Eighty percent of African-American teens in a city like Washington think that they'll be rich and over half think they'll be famous." Assuming that these optimistic predictions hold true in other cities and among other groups, it's clear that young people have pretty optimistic hopes for their future. If only their competence matched their confidence.

According to a recent survey (PDF - may take a minute to load) released by Schwab and written up on Yahoo! by Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, 73% believe they'll be earning "plenty of money" when they're out on their own. Based on the career that interests them most, teens believe they'll be earning an average annual salary of $145,500.

Those of you who read my posts frequently know that, when necessary, I have no problem naming names and going after specific companies that I think consumers and investors need to avoid. That is precisely what I'm going to do today. My brother is a junior in college and frequently receives offers in the mail for credit cards and other "financial services" (which reminds me of the old joke about military intelligence). Yesterday, he received a catalog from a company called Peach Direct (bad name, bad company), which boasts the slogan "Making Luxury Affordable."

Well who doesn't want affordable luxury? Surely I do. So I opened the catalog and began browsing the offers. Among the "deals" available are Gucci sunglasses for $10 per month, a 50" DLP Wide-screen HDTV for $48 per month, and an Xbox 360 for $14 per month. But my personal favorite is, by far this gem: Quicken 2007 Deluxe for $10 per month. Ladies and gentlemen, take it from me: If you don't have the $49.99 in cash that it takes to buy your own personal finance software, you probably don't need it. One of the savviest financial decisions you could make in that situation would be to not buy the software on installment, paying the 23.99% APR my brother was "pre-approved" for -- which is sort of like being pre-approved to take a vow of poverty. What's second prize? Fifty shares of Enron stock?

Chuck Jaffe wrote a nice column on Marketwatch tonight about "12 Worthy Financial Goals for 2007," including saving more money, increasing charitable donations, and keeping in mind how unimportant money is compared to the real things in life. It's a really great list but there's one thing that I'd like to add.

If you're a reader of Marketwatch or Blogging Stocks, you are probably one of the more financially literate people in our society. Be an investing evangelist; pass on your knowledge to others, whether it be your children, relatives, or people in your community. With the national savings rate below zero and people both young and old faring very poorly on basic financial literacy assessments, those of you who are "in the know" can have a major impact: help a young family you know set up a college savings plan for their child. Open up an account for your children and have them buy stock in some companies they like.

If you want to donate money to a cause that is promoting economic awareness, try the Foundation for Teaching Economics or Jump$tart.

The Motley Fool ran an excellent piece the other day about the National Council for Economic Education, one of the featured "Foolanthropy" charities for 2006. According to the Council's website, their mission is to "help students develop the real-life skills they need to succeed: to be able to think and choose responsibly as consumers, savers, investors, citizens, members of the workforce, and effective participants in a global economy."

In addition to its programs to teach entrepreneurship and financial skills to young people, the organization also conducts research on the state of America's financial literacy. And the results are, well, pathetic. In a quiz designed to test adults on economic concepts, adults got an average grade of 70% -- C, and students' average score was 53% -- F. "Six in 10 high school students and more than one-quarter of adults get a failing grade on the Economics Quiz."