Earning a large salary does not make someone have a clue about the ins and outs of investment options.
Oh, very much agreed. I've seen several really sad cases of people making six-figure incomes and then losing most of it because they never learned how to handle money. But I wasn't talking only about large salaries. Really, I don't know what anyone on here is making except McJ, who's brought it up. I was also basing the conjecture on people who own houses, people who travel a lot, etc.
Eclair is making I think - but she is Aussie. The thing with most of these six figure salary people is because they often don't invest anything at all, instead they live to their means. In Britain especially we have a lot of people like that, which is partially why we are being hit quite hard by the credit crunch.
I know that in the UK, financial products are required to have a factlist accompanying them, so anyone who understands financial markets cannot get ripped off too easily - and they know what they are buying. You certainly should be able to drag out the facts from any company literature.
I don't know about "should" - most of the terminology is new to me and so are the common pitfalls.
So many of the pitfalls also have to do with people making poor decisions based on emotion. The way my mind works, I meet emotion with emotion and logic with logic - so if I also want to avoid emotional pitfalls, it's helpful to have emotional conversations with real people about the subject. Telling myself that a regular 401k would earn me xxxx vs a Roth's yyyy because I read it on Schwab's site won't help me with decisions that would have a far greater impact, like whether to trust the stock market at all or just hide everything in a box in the back yard. Or what percentage of my salary to save.
If you want to get a general idea on investments, I reckon this book might be good (I swear by this series of books for my degree, its the only way I get through it without actually having to work really hard)
http://books.global-investor.com/books/13828/Jack-Clark-Francis/Investments-(Shaum%27s-Outline)/People do make investment decisions based on emotion, true. But by far the biggest factor is their own cluelessness and especially their arrogance in making investment decisions.
As for the webpage I linked, it only contains the very basics and no real advice - which is why I linked it.
You linked it because it offered no real advice?
Yes - it largely is facts. I am not claiming to be a financial advisor here.