Jeff Hulett shares how a proper personal finance education can build the habits that grow lifelong wealth. Our cognitive biases impact financial decision-making, often work against us. He highlights the role of habits and commitment devices in overcoming these biases, while also discussing the dangers of modern marketing and the manipulation of data. We also touch on how evolutionary biology still influences our financial behaviors today. 

We discuss... 

• Jeff Hewlett shares his background in finance, mathematics, economics, and experience in banking and consulting.
• Jeff discusses his involvement in AI, machine learning, and how these technologies have been evolving over decades.
• He talks about his current role leading Personal Finance Reimagined, a platform focused on decision-making and financial education.
• How wealth distribution challenges are attributed to evolutionary biology and consumerism.
• Jeff emphasizes the importance of creating good financial habits and using commitment devices, such as robo-advisors.
• AI and its impact on decision-making, especially its potential for persuasion.
• Jeff highlights the significance of aligning decision processes with natural human tendencies, like binary decisions.
• How the U.S. education finance system preys on availability bias, deferring loan payments to the future while hiding present costs.
• College prices are excessively high, leading to concerns about the return on investment (ROI) for students.
• The value of a college degree is more about demonstrating the ability to work hard and sustain effort over four years.
• Community college can be a cost-effective route to a degree, demonstrating both financial savvy and resilience.
• There's a cognitive bias known as "time discounting" that leads people to struggle with understanding the compounding value of time.
• Confirmation bias affects political and social views, often reinforced by media echo chambers.
• Media, both legacy and social, plays a significant role in shaping biased worldviews, sometimes feeding incomplete or selective information.
• There's a growing generational divide in media trust, with older generations more likely to trust media than younger ones.
• The rise of narrowcasting in media has led to the creation of echo chambers where people only hear confirming viewpoints.
• Consumers of free media or social platforms are often the "product" being monetized, even when they think they aren’t paying for content.
• AI and technology add to the complexity of discerning truth, as biases are baked into data sources, and deep fakes further obscure reality.
• The challenge for society is figuring out how to discern accurate information amid pervasive bias and misinformation.

For more information, visit the show notes at https://moneytreepodcast.com/personal-finance-education-jeff-hulett-650 

Today's Panelists:

• Kirk Chisholm | Innovative Wealth
• Megan Gorman | The Wealth Intersection
• Phil Weiss | Apprise Wealth Management

 

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