How to manage your finances during a divorce

The president of the Toronto Financial Services Alliance told Radio 5 live how Canada managed to avoid a state-bailout.

Japan's financial watchdog tells an investment firm to halt operations over worries it has lost most of the $2.3bn funds it manages.

The financial markets in 2011 can be summarized in three words: downside macroeconomic concerns. Bill Stone, chief investment strategist with PNC Asset Management Group, said those worries, primarily the Eurozone crisis, dominated investors' minds this year.

Seven days, three seemingly disconnected announcements, and one subtle theme: what we have here is a failure to communicate… or more to the point, a failure to educate. America and much of the world is in the midst of financial literacy crisis that goes well beyond one's ability to manage his or her own money. Consider what's going on at home and abroad. First, the attorneys general of 49 states agreed on a $26 billion package with five major banks in order to settle lawsuits brought by those states alleging improper mortgage practices and rampant foreclosure fraud. Then the stock market went through the roof when the Greek government agreed to a series of truly severe austerity measures hailed as yet another final solution to the teetering solvency of that once-prosperous EU country. And finally, the Obama administration released its new $3.8 trillion budget proposal, which projected a massive deficit for the coming fiscal year, and significant deficits for each of the next six years.