From the President's Desk

Photo: Sean C. Rush, President and Chief Executive Officer

Sean C. Rush
President and Chief Executive Officer

Are you as concerned as I am? Main Street, USA, is feeling the impact of the financial storm buffeting Wall Street and the banking industry. The U.S. National Debt Clock, the digital counter near New York's Times Square, has run out of space to display the current total that has now surpassed the $10 trillion mark.

But Americans aren't the only ones worried about keeping their homes and cars and putting food on the family table. Across the globe, hardworking Main Street residents are feeling the local aftershocks of toppling banks and roller-coaster FTSE, Nikkei, and Micex market indexes in towns in Britain, Japan and Russia, respectively. Families in Beirut, Bogotá and Johannesburg are concerned about the future. All would benefit from the confidence reinforced by a strong financial education.

It is a Code Red world emergency. We need volunteers for a rescue mission, supplying basic financial literacy survival skills right away. One of the first targets for disaster relief must be the young people worldwide who will inherit our financial legacy—good or bad—and need to have the education and skills to deal with it. They need to know the basics about earning, spending, saving and credit.

Junior Achievement has the right programs in place, ready to go. We know "the JA way" works. JA can provide programs that teach K-12 students age-appropriate, hands-on lessons about how to be financially literate. What can you do to make sure these educational lifelines reach the young people who will be in charge of preserving the global economy? The future is in your hands.

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