Even if people don't have money to invest, they can still go into debt. And the time value of money applies to both investments and debt. People need to know how to shop around for debt and to understand the implications of different loan terms. They need to understand the impact that bad credit can have on their future.
I'm totally with you that we need to teach people financial literacy in like high school. But there's only so much financial literacy can do for the populace if the labor share of productivity gains are low, if precarity is on the rise, if student loans are so high, if k12 education quality depends on your zipcode/parent's income, if one medical or legal mishap might mean bankruptcy or a lack of access to the job market, if assortative mating means marriage is yet another driver of the great divergence between the upper and lower quintiles of income in this country.
