Regarding item 3. Yesterday, I had a meeting with an accountant to get my tax returns finished. It was clear they wouldn't be done on time, so he filed an extension.
He asked me if I wanted to pay an estimate or not. I asked what was the interest and penalty for paying late. He replied that I'd be charged 4% interest on late payments. I said I wouldn't worry about it, then, and would pay it when the return was finished.
He laughed, saying he had clients that were paying 29% on credit card debt yet preferred that to paying 4% on debt to the IRS.
I.e. he had many clients who simply did not understand how interest works, and was unable to explain it to them.
I can recount many episodes where understanding math has saved me a boatload of money, where most people get their tailfeathers clipped and never realize it. You can go on saying that most people don't need this knowledge, but I counter with they don't realize how much this lack of knowledge is costing them.
Why, oh why, do people in the US need to go to Higher Education to understand something as simple as percentages? (If this is the case the education system has simply failed)
This is, (to coin your own), grade-scool mathematics, or is treated as such across most of Europe.
Granted a lot of people fail because they simply can't be bothered. I don't buy the self-deprecating excuse of "I'm no good at maths me" from 99% of people repeating what they've seen on the idiot box, they just don't apply themselves. I've known someone math-dyslexic and they made a great deal of effort _not_ to highlight it, they were better than most normal people at simple stuff like this it just took them longer.
You are making an assumption that they are carrying the credit card debt. I pay for nearly everything with a credit card, but I haven't paid interest on a CC in close to a decade.
He asked me if I wanted to pay an estimate or not. I asked what was the interest and penalty for paying late. He replied that I'd be charged 4% interest on late payments. I said I wouldn't worry about it, then, and would pay it when the return was finished.
He laughed, saying he had clients that were paying 29% on credit card debt yet preferred that to paying 4% on debt to the IRS.
I.e. he had many clients who simply did not understand how interest works, and was unable to explain it to them.
I can recount many episodes where understanding math has saved me a boatload of money, where most people get their tailfeathers clipped and never realize it. You can go on saying that most people don't need this knowledge, but I counter with they don't realize how much this lack of knowledge is costing them.