No pretentiousness intended and I can see how I would upset your working to middle class sensibilities.
Instead of using cut n' pasted newspaper articles with selected quotations and excerpts from reports, I have used personal experiences and that of others I know in the real estate game- including a very relevant reference to family members with significant commercial holdings, not experiencing any duress in market that according to two posters here would collapse!
To me, that is real, workable data. And in the past 12 months it gave me suspicions of the doomsayers.
Financial literacy and fluency in my experience is a huge problem for pilots. I recently worked in liason with my company, our union and the banks on the issue of financial stress in the GFC. Not much could be done except make awareness to counselling services. Some banks were helpful on margin calls. And incidentally, in discussions with the banks it wasn't just dumb professionals like pilots who made huge, unrecoverable personal losses. But those from the financial community!
This isn't the first time I have witnessed pilots lose their shirts. I recall from Ansett days the tax scams- there were two- that suckered in highly paid individuals; some with financial degrees. Yes they were fools but the loss, financial and personal, was a sad lesson.
And today the sharks are back. The suits who circle pilots with promises of grand short-term returns through finance, shares, property, insurance, trusts etc etc.
Financial literacy is important for the modern professional pilot who must self-fund retirement. Like you, some can choose to switch off to what is said or discussed - the curse of the poor. Or alternatively.Take in snippets of information, tips, mistakes made and confessed lessons- and make your own successful path.
Funny. That last sentence is an aviation mindset of most successful pilots as they professionally progress. As soon as $ mentioned it's a dirty concept.
