chevydriver1123

After the sub-prime fiasco, should we make it a graduation requirement for High School for students to take a basic personal finance class?

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aegyptos

Its a good idea that should be part of a through reform of high school curriculum. I wonder though, who would teach it? Your basic teaching college grad has no financial expertise to impart. If a qualified corps of instructors could be found it would be a very good thing.

Scucca

It would be a waste of time & energy. It is inappropriate to see the inherent instabilities in capitalism as some supply side problem generated by bounded rationality.

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aegyptos

More irrelevant marxist rhetoric from Comrade Scucca.

Scucca

aegyptos,

Try content for a change!

Bounded rationality is of course the norm and the textbook dream of rational economic man is unachievable. However, the notion that education can be used to at least alleviate 'mistakes' misses the point. The instability generated in capitalism would occur even if that textbook dream of rational economic man was achieved.

Education resources that aren't used for human capital investment are a waste

aegyptos

You and your so-called market socialism are part of failed materialist ideology. Joseph Stiglitz was on Book TV the other day and he said 95% of economists consider Milton Friedman correct and that the free market argument has driven the materists underground. Obviously correct.

Scucca

Low level attempt dear chap. Please try to keep to the issues raised by the topic.

Consider, for example, the housing market. I'd argue that instabilities will always occur because of the link between the welfare state and housing demand. Simply put, countries with less generous systems where old age poverty is a concern are more likely to rely on owner occupation. Given capital market imperfection, this will always ensure the risk of mortgage market instabilities. Bounded rationality is not behind the problem.

aegyptos

Your topic is marxism over capitalism. I'm simply pulling away your camoflage and offering you an opportunity to make the collectivist argument. Do so now.

Scucca

You obviously have no knowledge of Marxism. That is not a crime. To use that knowledge deficiency to hide from the debate is, at best, unfortunate.

Try responding to the points raised. For example, how would you dispute that poverty risk increases the demand for home ownership? How would you then dispute that, even if rational economic man was achieved, market instability is the norm?

1069

I think basic car maintenance should be part of the curriculum.
As for finance, I don't know.
I don't know anything about personal finance, and I've gotten by.
But I've avoided credit cards and loans and all that stuff, and just lived paycheck to paycheck.
We never even had a bank account until a couple years ago.
All this had to do with the fact that we owed the IRS a lot of money. We had never paid taxes.
But we're on payment plans with them now, so it's all good. We can have a bank account and everything, we can finance a car.
But I actually think the way we lived was good policy, so we've pretty much kept doing it. No checks, no plastic. Buying things you can afford outright for cash. No "get it now, pay it off later". No living beyond one's means.

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"I do love this idea that one can scream and scream and scream, with that utopia just one more scream away."
~ Scucca