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March 9, 2009
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Financial Literacy on FOX
ACTA president Anne Neal appeared on the Fox Business Network today to talk about financial literacy and college education. Maurice Black and I published an essay on that subject in January, and yesterday it appeared in redacted form in Newsday.
UPDATE 3/10: Anne Neal has an op-ed on financial literacy in today's Examiner. Among other things, she points out that on many campuses, taking a basics economics course is treated--within the broad, smorgasbord structure of general ed requirements--as equivalent to "Comparative Martial Arts Film and Literature" (Cornell University), "Digital Game Studies" (Dartmouth College), and "The History of Furniture" (University of Nebraska at Lincoln). That's what happens when you don't have a core curriculum. Guidance and focussed coverage of essential subjects disappear in favor of infinite choice--and utter relativism about the educational value of disparate courses.
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Comments:
"More than half of those surveyed do not understand what it means to say that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased, and nearly two thirds do not know that in times of inflation money loses value."
As much as I value self-government, I'm only half-joking when I say people who don't know such things shouldn't be allowed to vote. We're not talking complex mathematical models here, but the most basic of concepts necessary to really even THINK about the economy, let alone argue policy alternatives relating to it.
When I've discussed the present administration's responses (and lack thereof) to the recession and to the financial crisis (not the same thing, though interrelated) with fellow adult citizens, much of what I hear seems nearly on the level of a six-year old saying "why not just print more money and give it away? Then EVERYONE will be rich!"
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