The causes of every financial crisis are rooted in a lack of understanding the nature and rules of money. To prosper, rather than suffer, from finance, we all need to learn these rules. All complex systems, including financial systems, work best when everyone understands and sticks to the same rules without abusing them.

We have had enough of being the victims of an ongoing financial crisis. We want to take matters into our own hands and shape our own financial destiny. That’s why we are launching The Financial Manifesto, a social movement which aims to transform the lives of individuals and societies through financial education.

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The Financial Manifesto

We, the undersigned citizens from nations across the world, declare the following beliefs regarding the necessity of financial education for individuals worldwide.

1. We aim to help diminish the gap between rich and poor through a wide range of financial literacy campaigns and actions. This gap is a source of many social problems. The existence of poverty is shameful and unnecessary.

2. We advocate all fundamental values – freedom, respect, and peace – that serve both men and women in their pursuit of excellence, wellbeing and social harmony.

3. We have the ability to think and act as independent beings, and should therefore also have the power to use money according to this rational choice. These choices include the right to make mistakes, and ultimately, grow from them.

4. While everyone has their own subjective opinion, we believe that we have the intrinsic ability to distinguish between productive and unproductive uses of money.

5. Any suppression of financial education inevitably leads to the reduction (or even the elimination) of human freedom.

6. We hold the view that those possessing adequate financial resources and financial knowledge are less susceptible to being influenced by dangerous ideologies of any type, whether political, religious, or consumerist.

7. A deeper understanding of finance will protect individuals from those who seek to exploit or abuse them.

8. Financial education can assist individuals in acquiring the essential material wealth and financial security that are necessary for any meaningful sort of rational choice.

9. We believe that only financial literacy, which financial education can develop, can prevent humankind from misusing money, and in doing so, can free individuals from a dependence on advertising or any other kind of commercial manipulation.

10. We are deeply convinced that financial education should be the basis of family finance planning and should, therefore, be taught and encouraged both as an essential component of the school curriculum, and any other educational or social organisation around the world.

11. The cooperation and solidarity between financially well-educated, rational citizens is a growing requirement of the pursuit of peace and harmony in the modern world.

12. When based on trust, money is the foundation of any community relationship.

13. In the near future, Artificial Intelligence-based technologies will be able to make financial decisions for us. Those decisions will be better, faster and made without cognitive and emotional biases. However, we also believe that even when AI is potentially able to do all kinds of human jobs and make all human decisions, we, as rational beings, will still be obliged to develop our skills, educate ourselves, and work both wisely and hard to fulfil our great destiny and to live our lives to the full.

14. We consider personal finance from many different perspectives: cultural, economic, social, psychological, marketing, personal etc. We will be discussing money matters with specialists representing all these different fields and industries. This is the best way, or perhaps the only way, to comprehend the complexities and paradoxes of contemporary money.

Therefore, we call on all men and women throughout the world who share these beliefs to join us in our endeavour to ensure their acceptance and a will to act on them.

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