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Apr 02, 2008 -- Americans are contractually illiterate

When you're presented with a contract, do you know what you're reading? Most of us don't. In fact, Business Week reports that only 1 in 8 Americans can read a long, dense text and comprehend it. There's obviously a problem with our educational system when 88% of us are clueless when looking at a contract. This news was significant to Clark because he's always asking callers, "Well, did you read the contract?" If we expect consumers to sign agreements, we should also expect that contracts be written in simple English. The nation's newspapers usually write at a 6th grade level. If they can tackle world issues at that level, why is it that we don't require our contracts to be written in plain English? Clark's guess is that if you knew what you were agreeing to in a contract, no one would ever sign one! But we can only have a truly free market when there's complete transparency.

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What others are saying

  • Have you tried reading these things?
    I have a PhD and MD so I know what boring is! However, even I can't make heads or tails in some of these documents! A local lawyer told even he couldn't figure out what some of these contracts say and that's a real problem! Before you go belittling the education system (which definitely has some problems), maybe we should start taking a harder line on these contracts as unfair.
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