Economic Ignorance: Don't blame the kids

Walk into any high school and you'll probably see a slogan that just so full of optimism that your hair will stand up on your arms in excitment. It reads something like this: " We're Here For the Kids". If only it were true. So many words, so meaningless. There are reasons for the facade put forth by education leaders, but let me give you a simple example.

Ask the next high -schooler you see the following:
1. What is the function of the Federal Reserve System?

2. What is a blue chip stock?

3. What is meant by the term "federal deficit"?
4. What is meant by the term "fiscal policy"?

If the responses are "I don't know", please don't nod your head in agreement with so many other adults who just think our children are below stupid on the intelligence scale. They aren't!

Let's go back to that school slogan about being there for the kids. How can our school look at us with a straight face and say they are there for them when they make no effort to prepare these kids with economic knowledge? Let me take it a step further: school districts pulled courses such as economics and civics out of the curriculum in an effort to save money. In place of those courses they designed a course called "social studies" a sort of snake oil of the social sciences; a sort of dumbed-down version of history.

After thiry four years as a teacher of government and economics I couldn't define the term "social studies" because it is just too nebulous.

Schools....not there for the kids.

While your at it try asking a college graduate the following:
1. What's the function of A.I.G.?
2. What's a hedge fund?
3. What is a "credit default swap"?

He/she probably won't have a clue. So how dare any of us point a finger at those who took out mortages they didn't understand and criticize them anymore than we would those brilliant lawyers/doctors who bought the crap Madoff sold them

Stimulus Package: Where's Ross Perot When We Surely Need Him?

Where's Ross Perot we need him? No, I am not talking about leading the country, although I do think he would be a great source of knowledge in these troubled times. I am talking about his ability to get up close and personal with his flip charts. Who could forget his visual effects during the 1992 presidential campaign? Whether we want to admit it or not he did inculcate a lot of difficult information with those big charts and keen pointers.

Every one is in a tizzy over the stimulus package and the bail out of banks. The information is so esoteric that the average citizen doesn't gasp the rationale for the continued loaning to A.I.G. and Citibank, for example. For that matter, many well educated people "get it" but continue to berate the Obama plan for no other reason than to follow the party line.
One huge reason why we must continue to bail out the big boys falls to a concept known as "credit default swap". This is a very complicated bank-to-bank scheme wherein world banks pay off a monthly type of insurance plan (this plan that must be paid monthly for fear of a run on the banks). In other words, A.I.G. and Citibank are wrapped up in a world web from which they cannot be extracted.

So, why bring in Ross Perot? Well, maybe not him physically, but someone who could graphically explain the whole process to us in order to bring credibility back to Wall Street. Yes, we need a Perot type person who is not connected to the financial barons who could flip chart us into some modicum of sanity.