It's potpourri week. Every now and then, my computer fills up with ideas that don't make it to column length. Rather than waste them, I accumulate them and, well, you get the idea. Here we go.

Chinese people save something ridiculous like 42 percent of their salaries. Americans, and probably Bermudians, by contrast, save something nearer to zero. For the longest time, I thought this meant there was something superior about the Chinese, but I found out this week why they are able to save so much. For most of them, there is nowhere to spend money.

Some Chinese live in cities such as Shanghai, which is a lot like Hamilton when you boil it all down (so maybe I should run for Mayor there). Most Chinese, however, live in the local equivalent of Ferry Reach, far from the madding crowd, and don't have any shops within a distance they can reach. No restaurants, no Starbucks, no cell phones, no nothing.

Here's the odd part. The Chinese do not appear to be any more or less miserable than the rest of us. They do not, however, have a columnist telling them how to get rich slowly, because they already know. I guess that means they are at once less miserable and more so, because what could they possibly find to read on a Saturday?

And finally, I was babysitting a few weeks ago. No actual babies were involved, you'll be relieved to hear, but a ten-year-old and his eight-year-old sister. They had just moved in to an executive home, and inherited a huge dog, simultaneously.

Over pizza with the young 'uns, I commented on their new state of affairs. "You've got more rooms than I have," I said. "You've got more dogs, more TV sets, more pianos ?"

The lad chipped in: "And we've got more money than you have."

Don't judge the nipper too harshly; he was right. "How much have you got?" I asked, ever keen to obtain such information about my friends, but more to test the lad's mettle. "I dunno," he said. "And how much do I have?" I asked. "I dunno," he said, quickly tiring of the game.

Kids test areas about which they are uncertain, a psychiatrist writes, and that's all this was, but it set me to thinking about the importance of what we learn at our parents' knees. If it is true that we eventually 'become' our parents, do we automatically inherit their financial genes? Maybe not, but in our financial education as in other areas of learning, it is our parents as much as anyone that imprint on us their attitude to money.

Such financial wisdom as I have came from my grandparents and parents. My mother and father taught me the value of a Pound (now worth about one and a half cents), with lessons (mostly conversational) taking place almost every day.

If your parents didn't do you that service, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't teach your kids. In fact, you should. If it transpires that your bad financial habits were to stop you from getting rich, at least give your children the chance.