Free library lecture will help you manage your money

In conjunction with the American Library Association, Bermuda National Library (BNL) will observe Money Smart Week on Thursday April 10th with featured speaker and noted local economist and Bermuda College senior lecturer, Mr. Craig Simmons.

This is the second year that BNL will join libraries across the United Sates in this public awareness campaign designed to help consumers better manage their personal finances.  This coordinated effort is held annually to stress the importance of financial literacy, inform consumers about where they can get help and provide free educational seminars.  The campaign was first created by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2002. 

Under the broad umbrella of financial literacy, Mr. Simmons' talk will take place at the Main Library in Hamilton on the ground floor Reading Room from 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 10th, as a brown-bag lecture, and his topic is Freedom can be Hazardous to your Wealth.

Mr. Simmons stated, “The human mind is remarkable.  It is capable of learning many languages; imagining black holes and dark matter; creating the seven wonders of the ancient world and more recently, the Panama Canal, Channel Tunnel, and Empire State Building.  But, humans also make predictably irrational decisions.  We save too little for retirement; our diets are driven by temptation/lack of self-control instead of nutrition; and we have too much confidence in our ability to forecast the future.  The problem: our brains are predisposed to biases that we are not aware of.  The solution: keep it simple and avoid overconfidence like the plague.”

Mr. Simmons is a senior lecturer in economics at the Bermuda College. His teaching experience at Bermuda College includes courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, international economics and ecological economics.  He was also a member of the inaugural Sustainable Development Roundtable created by Cabinet in the spring of 2005, the Energy Commission in 2012, a regulatory body, and the Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission set up by the Minister of Finance in April 2013.

For more information on the Money Smart Week education lecture please visit the Bermuda National Library website at www.bnl.bm