education so you can open up your choices. i think it is no longer this generation when you deny yourself things. you can be smart about it, put things away in a good investments and get the things you want to do today. you can only do that if you learn how to manage and how to make sure you are not in debt. make sure you build an opportunity for yourself, and the skills out here with all the agencies we have to afford the opportunities. i want to share that with you. we're trying to be smarter with your money and your parents money and your taxes. we're trying to plant five years in advance -- did you know the city never did a five-year budget before? i am amazed. while i am mayor we get to kick off the very first time. we're not just planning a year to your budget. we are planning out five years ahead so that the city can afford to do more things it wants to do and still keep their

promise, which is that your taxes and the taxes your parents pay for do not go up extraordinarily and we still get good schools and great streets and good parts to play in and all the other wonderful things that make the city successful. thank you very much, and congratulations on joining us. [applause] >> thank you, supervisor, and thank you for the great leadership you are showing our young people by posting this today with me and for the leadership you have shown. and don't we have a great mayor in ed lee? [applause] excuse me, there is a frog in my throat. i want to thank you for being here. vice principal, thank you as well. i understand that our treasurer is either here or will be here. is that correct? he is going to tell you

something pretty exciting, and that is how you can save money for college, so listen up when he appears. i understand mario is here from the youth commission. we want to thank you, as the director, for being here. [applause] aaron, where are you? somewhere. [applause] here at lincoln, you have done something that has not been done in many places around the country, and that is, you have created an identity theft council and taught more than 200 students about the problems with identity theft. how many of you are on the identity theft council, raise your hand. [applause] is kneel here? thank you for your leadership in bringing this council together and creating this kind of

awareness among our youth. as many of you are probably already aware, more people every year are victims of identity theft than those that are victims of burglaries, attempted burglary, arson, pickpocketing, purse snatching, auto theft, shoplifting, embezzlement and fraud combined. imagine all of those crimes, add them together, and there is still more identity theft going on in this country than all those other crimes. it is a huge problem. i just heard on the tv this morning sony -- playstation -- shut down its system today because someone hacked into the system and was able to get 2.5 million names and credit card numbers. so being smart about preventing identity theft is really a huge

issue and a great skill to have. if you are interested in learning more about the program, session two is one of the workshops that a that you should avail yourself of so you can learn more about identity theft. the mayor talked about the problems we are having with budgets on the city level. let me tell you about the problems we are having with budgets on a federal level. he was talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. how about talking about trillions of dollars? that is what the problem is on a federal level. $1.40 trillion is the deficit this year, and we have a debt of close to $14 trillion. that is not fair to carry that debt so that you as young people are going to find yourself paying more money to service the

debt then you are to have services in this country. that is why we have got to fix that. one of the ways we have to fix it is to stop engaging in wars that we are not paying for. [applause] i am going to test the historical wizards in the room. the hubble event two wars that we have not paid for. we have not paid for the iraq/afghanistan/libya war. we borrowed money in order to engage in those three wars. there is only one other war in the history of this country that we did not pay for, that we borrowed money in order to pay for. [inaudible] did you all hear that? [laughter] he was right. the revolutionary war. the revolutionary war, we borrowed money from france. every other we have engaged in we paid for as we went, but we

have not paid for this war or these wars, and the cost is now over $1 trillion. what is worse is that detail on that war, and i mean the fact that all those and wounded warriors that come home that have suffered traumatic brain injuries or serious injury -- the cost of providing health care to them for the rest of their lives is going to make the cost of these wars close to $3 trillion. so why am i telling you this? i am telling you this because it all relates back to you and your life, whether or not there is going to be dollars spent on the kinds of programs you want on a federal level, there will be a student loan program where -- when you are in college. we have maximized the student loan program on a federal level by getting rid of, interestingly enough, the banks that were making $60 billion a year servicing those loans. we decided that we could do that as a federal government.

so we are all looking at ways to tighten our belt. how many of you think your parents do not spend enough money on things for you? [laughter] how many of you think they are taking that money and stalking away for your college education? [laughter] you know they are. that is really what this is all about -- prioritizing what is important and putting the money away. as much as you want that new ipad 2, think about how much you will save by putting that money away, gaining some interest on it now, but using it for your college education. most kids i talk to in college to they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that they are saddled with that they end up having to pay over a long time into their adult lives. you will want to be there -- you do not want to be there. and you certainly do not want to get these credit cards that you

might find at a giants game where they are going to give you a free tall, and you sign up only to find out that it is a 29% interest rate -- i love the giants, do not get me wrong. i go to as many games as i can, but we have got to be smart. whenever anyone is trying to offer you something to get you to do something relative to credit, think about it. ask them what the interest rate is. ask them how much it will cost you per month. you are going to learn a lot today, and i think it is going to be a great opportunity for you. let me just begin by telling you this -- people in this country are saddled with debt. personal debt, much like the federal government is saddled with debt. for the longest time, we thought that we could basically put it on plastic. that has been the american way. unlike many european countries where they do not have a lot of

credit, we have used the credit card in ways that we should not have. so that now, the credit card debt in this country is it hundred $66 billion. that is the equivalent -- $866 billion. that is the equivalent of every american -- man, woman, and child -- having credit card debt that equals almost $3,000. imagine $3,000 of debt that you are paying interest on every month. so you never can get out from under that. you are going to learn lots of things here today. i hope one of the most important things you learn is that money does not grow on trees. you should always have money stocked away for emergencies and all those great new fan a gold video equipment and games and things that you want to have today, that you just have to have today -- wait a couple of

days and see if you still have to have it. or that dress or those pair of shoes or that hers. more often than not, what happens to all of us is it looks great for about 20 seconds, and then we have lost interest in it. so enjoy the day, and i am delighted you are all here to gain greater experience of our financial literacy. [applause] >> we have been joined by our treasurer. i do want to give him the opportunity to say a few words. >> thank you, everyone. thank you, supervisors, mayor. it is great to be here as the city's treasurer. our office has the responsibility for handling the city's money. that is a big job. that is a lot of money that we collect, that we spend, that we used to provide valuable services all across the city. i am excited to be your with you today because in our office, we

want to do everything we can to make sure you have all the information and tools and resources to handle your money successfully. it is so important that every community, every household in our city is able to be successful, save for their future, and make themselves and their kids financially successful going forward. i'm excited to be your today. i'm going to be back in a few minutes, i understand, to introduce our keynote speaker. i am excited about that, and i will be telling you more about what we're doing in the treasurer's office to help families in san francisco and even an exciting new program helping public school system in san francisco have a chance to save for college. thanks so much for being here. learn a lot. [applause] >> i will just keep my comments brief. i hope you do learn a lot. you're going to see a lot of financial institutions around the rim, talk to them, speak with people can talk to you about financial aid. a lot of departments might have

summer job opportunities. talk to them. make sure you use all the resources today, learn about what you should be thinking about in the future. the covers woman was talking earlier about identity theft here i will tell you, i myself actually was a victim of identity theft. someone opened a cell phone account under my name just this past year, and i cannot tell you how much time it has taken for me to go and talk to credit bureaus and try to sort out the whole mess. i will just tell you, it is something that happens to a lot of people. you might not think it is you, but it is something that is good for you to start thinking about. i will not be saying anything further except to thank the people who have helped us today. principle pain, thank you for the use of your wonderful facility -- about princ -- principal payne.

in my office, tammy as the one who pulled all this