Whenever I think of the effort they put on me, I can’t
help but realize how easy I have it being single and childless.
One thing that did stick was how to manage our
money. It took a lot of consistency and
patience on their part, but we learned the value of the dollar. We had the allowance, taught to work and how
to save, how to write a check, manage our funds, always pay our debts and
bills, and invest in what will last. And
then they let us do whatever we wanted with our money and they sat back and
prayed we’d wise up before we started living on our own.
We didn’t.
But this post is actually not about personal
finances or even my parents teaching.
This is actually about what my school should have done a better job
of: economy class.
The economy is loosely about finances, but only
loosely. Personal finances is just about
your survival and well-being; the economy is about society as a whole and how
to take care of the most people with limited resources.
Thing is, there are very few people who understand
the economy, the relationship between the government and the market, the
difference between cost and price, and why some systems work and others don’t. Many, if they think about the economy at all,
it’s generally as a reaction to what’s been reported in the news and whether it’s
affecting their paycheck. There is often
misunderstanding about why things happen the way they do. And I have been part of that group for the
longest time.
It was not my economy teacher’s fault. She was very good and very smart, and she did
her best with the resources she had.
Trouble is, she wasn’t given enough.
In California, at least, schools are given only one semester to teach
the economy, and that during senior year, when it’s getting late to teach a
whole new field of study to the students.
The purpose of educating children is to help them
become productive and useful citizens in your society, and in a democracy, part
of that is making sure they are well-informed so that when it comes time to
vote and/or work in the private or public sectors, they understand the full
implications of their decisions. Knowing
the economy is critical and requires at least two years of study if you want to
make sure something sticks with the rising generation. That, and I think studies should begin in
freshman year.
Until somebody gets a clue, though, let me recommend
Thomas Sowell’s amazing book, Basic
Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy.
I normally wait until I’m finished with a book until
I recommend it, but after just barely getting halfway through, it has more than
deserved my shouts of approval, early or not.
Sowell tackles everything from what the economy is, to the reasons for
and actual results of government regulations, why prices are not the same thing
as actual costs, how and why statistics are often misunderstood and misused,
and why money itself is used as a means of distributing wealth. I recently finished the chapter on insurance,
how it works and why we have it, and that alone has been worth my investing the
time to read it.
***
I reread Ender’s
Game for the fourth time, and that is a book that only seems to get better
with each return.
Orson Scott Card touched on something valuable in
this painful tale of war and leadership.
Ender is a most tragic figure, and yet I wanted to be him when I first read this book in high school. I bought it as soon as I could and promptly
loaned it to anybody foolish enough to ask me about it. I lost that copy after the first dozen or so
had it and had to buy another, which is currently being read by a friend. This book refuses to stay on any of my
bookshelves.
And that’s just the way I like it. If you haven’t read it before and we happen
to run into each other, ask me about it and I will loan it to you. And if you happen to lose this copy, no
worries! It just means I get to buy
another copy to lend out.
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