One is the potential confusion or overlap between independent, scientific opinion, and the concrete financial advice people receive from persons that are as much salespersons as advisers. The other is that even academic or institutional economists disagree about many things, so what is the truth?
Financial education should therefore (a) recognise that being, and being perceived as, free from even the slightest suspicion of conflict of interest is a key prerequisite for being credible; (b) exploit synergies with conduct regulators, in order to find ways to ensure minimum standards for professional advice; and (c) concentrate on basic, counterintuitive but robust, ‘round earth’-type concepts, like the surprising effects of compound interest, the non-obvious advantages of diversification and the often overlooked trade-off between risk and return.