People generally respond to the financial news in one of two ways.
Either they flip right past it or else they try to pay attention but understand only about half of what is said. If you've got money socked away in regular investments or in a retirement plan, however, you have a lot to gain by understanding what it all means. And making sense of it is a lot easier than it looks. Once you get past the jargon, the financial pages are no harder to follow than the sports pages. If you can read a box score, you can understand everything you need to know about the economy to be a better investor.