Warren Buffett is the most famous investor in the world. He also loves sharing his advice with kids as part of his Secret Millionaires Club. 

The following are questions he answered in a recent interview, including what he thinks the biggest mistake is that parents make when teaching their kids about money and how he learned about money.

Do you think most parents do a good job teaching their kids about money? 

Buffet: Most parents know how important it is to teach kids about money and managing it properly. There was a study many years ago questioning how to predict business success later in life. The answer to the study was the age you started your first business impacted how successful you were later in life. By teaching kids sound financial habits at an early age, gives all kids the opportunity to be successful when they are an adult.

What do you think is the biggest mistake parents make when teaching their kids about money?

Buffet: I think parents need to start teaching kids about the importance of managing money at an early age. Sometimes parents wait until their kids are in their teens before they starting talking about managing money when they could be starting when their kids are in preschool.

What made you want to launch the Secret Millionaires Club? What do you hope kids get out of it?

Buffet: There are a number of educational programs out there, but there are not many programs that teach about Financial Literacy at an early age. Secret Millionaires Club can help kids develop the right habits that will serve them well for the rest of their life. If this program can have some effect on youngsters and help them develop better habits on money, it can have a major impact on their life when they are older.

Where did you learn about money?

Buffet: My dad was my greatest inspiration. He was my hero when I was six and he is still my hero now. He is an inspiration to me in every way. What I learned at an early age from him was to have the right habits early. Savings was an important lesson he taught. I had all kinds of small businesses when I was growing up. When I was six I started my first business. I bought a six pack of Coke for 25 cents and sold the cans for a nickel apiece. I also sold magazines and gum door to door.

Michael’s Money Talks Show for Nov. 23rd.

Michael begins with his Commentary, where he talks about something big that is happening in the United States that isn’t getting nearly enough coverage given the far reaching implications that it will have.  

Then Ozzie Jurock tells Michael about two areas in the country that are not expensive to live in, then MichaelLevy talks about this incredible statistic that just shows you the change in in how we are behaving in terms of consumerism, retail etc. More below:

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The final hour of Money Talks begins with Michael interviewing Ryan Irvine of Keystone Smallcap Research. Ryan looks at smaller companies that haven’t yet been discovered by big money – large institutions/pensions/mutual funds etc. Ryan’s portfolio is up 32% this year after being up an astonishing 86% in 2012. Ryan talks about some of the opportunities he sees as well as some of the dangers.

After Ryan Kevin Konar talks to Miichael about finding yield, something that is certainly not very easy to do today. Then Victor Adair talks about a “bear market that we had better come to grips with.”

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Money and Drugs

1. The current decade has logged the heaviest drug use per person per year in the history of the United States. 23.9 million Americans aged 12 or older – 9.2% of the entire population – were “current users” of an illicit drug in 2012, the latest data available from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) shows. 

That’s up from 7.1% in 2001, and more than double the rate of 1969’s 4% (according to a 1969 Gallup poll). 

2. The most “Typical” drug user is apparently an 18-25 year old male living in the urban South, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The South is the biggest drug consuming region in the country by sheer numbers with 7.5 million current users, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. But New England and the Pacific West had the highest rates of usage at 11.4% and 12.3% of the total population. 

Males are almost twice as likely to use as females (11.2% versus 6.8%), though the numbers are rising among both genders. And finally, drug usage among ethnic backgrounds vary widely: 9.1% of whites report being current users, compared to 10.7% of blacks, 3.5% of Asians, and 12.1% of American Indians.

3. According to the CDC, median prices for 0.1-10 grams of the 5 most common drugs are as follows: Powder cocaine – $150; Crack cocaine – $180; Heroin – $650; Meth – $280; Marijuana – $14. Marijuana is actually the only drug that has increased in price (in current dollars) compared to its cost in the 1980s. The CDC’s drug price data shows that, in 2007 dollars, powder cocaine costs have dropped by -87.2% crack cocaine by -66.5%, Heroin by 93.2%, and Meth by -43.1%. Marijuana has doubled from $6.57 in 1981 to about $14 today.

4. While the drug market might generate large amounts of cash for suppliers, its cost to the state is astronomical. Of the roughly 1.6 million people in prison in 2012, some 330,000 were doing time for drug offenses, and at an average cost of about $25,000 per inmate. All together that’s a whopping $8.2 billion.

5. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that illicit drug use costs the U.S. $11 billion in healthcare every year, and $193 billion when accounting for crime costs and lost work productivity. Those abusing prescription narcotics and rotating multiple doctors for scripts are estimated to cost insurers $10,000-$15,000 every year.

Great forces are at work in the the US. Forces that are holding back its economy.

Canada’s  economy is affected enormously by the United States’s so Michael identifies those forces and clarifies how they are so highly likely going to affect our own economy going forward…..  

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To read “Michael Campbell’s Money Talks” Facebook page go HERE 

Michael’s Money Talks Show for Nov. 16th.

The Death of Government & our free lunch mentality is 1/2 of the equation. The other 1/2 is the rise of the Private Sector, New Technologies, Innovations & their impact on our lives. It also means change as last week BlockBuster closed its last 300 stores. In the meantime their are exploding companies & industries like Netflix, Facebook while we are on the brink of 3D Printing of Human Organs & food. More below:

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The second hour of Money Talks begins with Michael interviewing Peter Grandich!! Though he never finished high school, Peter Grandich entered Wall Street in the mid-1980s with no formal education or training and within three years was appointed Vice President of Investment Strategy for a leading New York Stock Exchange member firm. He would go on to hold positions as a Market Strategist, portfolio manager for four hedgefunds and a mutual fund that bore his name. Now Peter comments on Markets soley for Money Talks and are we ever glad to have his perspective illustrated in this interview below. 

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