ben s bernanke : financial education and the national jump $ tart coalition survey remarks by mr ben s bernanke, chairman of the board of governors of the us federal reserve system, at the jump $ tart coalition for personal financial literacy and federal reserve board joint news conference, washington, dc, 5 april 2006. * * * good morning. we are here today to learn about a report on a topic of vital importance to our economic future : the financial literacy of america ’ s young people. increasingly, personal financial security requires the ability to understand and navigate the financial marketplace. for example, buying a home, saving for retirement or for children ’ s education, or even effectively managing the family budget now requires more financial sophistication than ever before. financially literate consumers make the financial marketplace work better, and they are better - informed citizens as well. as a former educator and school board member, and as the parent of two young adults, i am personally convinced that improving education is vital to the future of our economy and that promoting financial literacy in particular must be a high priority. i know that those of you here today join me in this conviction. the jump $ tart coalition is a leader among organizations seeking to improve the personal financial literacy of students from kindergarten to the university level. in particular, through its biennial survey of high school seniors - - the results of which you will hear about in a few minutes - - jump $ tart has brought increased attention to the issue of financial literacy among youth in the united states. over the tenyear history of this survey, the data gathered have become some of the most useful measures of what young adults understand about finances. the federal reserve is strongly committed to jump $ tart ’ s mission to better educate america ’ s youth about personal finance. on the regional level, many federal reserve bank staff members work closely with the state coalitions to help achieve this mission. in fact, there is at least one specialist in economic education at each of the reserve banks and at most of the branches. many of these specialists offer training seminars to help educators teach economics and personal finance in their classrooms. the federal reserve also supports a variety of programs and initiatives to increase financial literacy. i want to take a moment to describe just two of these initiatives. the first is a student competition called the fed challenge, a program designed to teach students about monetary policy and the national economy. among other activities, students in this competition take the roles of federal reserve

general economic policies of the european community. question : in your meeting today, could you describe what the mood was of the meeting and whether there was much debate about your move and much debate about the level of the move and also, whether it was an unanimous vote in the end. duisenberg : the mood was good. we had a very long and, i must say, very interesting discussion today. there were a few who were not very inclined to do something about the rate - but here i talk about a very few - and a very large majority was inclined to do something and supported the proposal as we put it before the council. and so, we had a very good discussion. for the final decision, i am afraid i have to tell you that we did not take a vote. but we know all the different views and so, finally, i could conclude as follows : the governing council decides that the main refinancing rate will be lowered from 3 % to 2. 5 %. question : you said there were no monetary risks of inflation at the moment. can we infer from today ’ s decision that there were monetary risks of deflation or is it purely a growth - oriented decision that you have taken today? duisenberg : no, we also see no risks of deflation emerging. we see that inflation has now remained, on a euro area - wide basis, constant at a rate of 0. 8 % four months in a row up to now. we see some risks on the upside, i. e. mainly the impact of rising energy prices, but that is by definition, as it was when it was on the downside, a temporary factor. we see some risks deriving from some wage settlements here and there in europe, those are the upside risks. we see some downside risks from a rather subdued outlook for general economic development in the entire euro area. but as such, the main thing is that we do not see the situation of price stability in which we entered the euro area, and which prevails until this moment, would be in any way endangered in the future. that gave us the leeway to take the measure i have just announced. question ( translation ) : mr. president, would you say you have admitted today that you are pursuing a business cycle - oriented monetary policy, which would constitute a change in model, compared with the deutsche bundesbank, which has always maintained that it does not pursue a business cycleoriented