Teach Finance in public schools

[MoralLibertarian]

Kids don't need to know about sex education: they have all the time in the world to learn whatever they need to know. What they do need to know is simple finance, financial planning, options for investing savings, and risk/return as soon as they possibly can understand the concepts.

With 60% of the country's elderly living off of social security (also known as poverty), and with social security as we know it gone in the future, we should be encouraging students early on to be spendthrift, to make good financial decisions, to avoid debt unless it's to make money (like investing on margin), to take risks while they're young and to be more conservative closer to retirement, etc.

90% of the millionaires in this country are self-made, and although their backgrounds differ in many ways, they share the common characteristic of knowing basic financial planning, aren't afraid to take risks for cash, and love making money. We should strive to create a culture that encourages these traits rather than calling the stock market too risky for the average citizen.

[fli]

They do.
Although it's much more pratical than "finance"--

It's called "Home Economics."

[LazyDrunk]

At 11/16/06 02:45 PM, fli wrote: They do.
Although it's much more pratical than "finance"--

It's called "Home Economics."

Sewing and cooking are great for a peasant life. I think he means more along the ways of smart investing.

Instead of paying old people to be old, why not educate children in ways to continue being productive after their physical ability to work is gone?

[fli]

I don't know you guys,
but Home Econ isn't just "cooking and sewing"--

Though it's pratical in those things because... before anyone can think about being a Millionare *snicker*, one must be self sustaining in all possible ways such as feeding, clothing, and earning a wage for one self.

Although I didn't take it in high school, my sister did in conjuction of her business program. (It was like a mini-introduction of the major.)

I don't know... it's pretty naive to think that everyone who takes a finance class will become millionaires because there are other influential factors such as how much one starts with money (upper class Suburbon kids will have it easier than a lower class ghetto kids and our economics depends on levels so literally... not "everybody" will be on the upper class because the definition will be redrawn by new economic standards.

[Begoner]

I think preventing children from dying of sexually transmitted diseases is much more important than teaching them how to intelligently invest in the stock market. However, in most (if not all) US schools, there are optional finance courses which can be taken by those planning to invest smartly. However, there are much more critical courses than fincance, so it should not be made mandatory.

[LazyDrunk]

At 11/16/06 03:17 PM, mofomojo wrote:

At 11/16/06 02:50 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: cooking are great for a peasant life.

As if eating fast-food and microwavable meals are high class living??

Doesn't your locale have a restaurant? Where do you take your dates, the basement?

Sewing and cooking are vital skills, they're great money savers too. Especially if you don't want to eat pre-packaged shit or have a moral objection to clothing made in sweatshops.

You're right. Let's let colleges teach the ways of how to make major money, and let public schools continue teaching how to scramble eggs and hem boxers.

Great way to ensure the rich get richer, yadda yadda.

[Slizor]

Why not teach spread betting? Seems roughly similar to the stock market.

[SkunkyFluffy]

At 11/16/06 03:31 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: Doesn't your locale have a restaurant? Where do you take your dates, the basement?

I cannot begin to describe how much this sentence made me laugh.

[JMHX]

At 11/16/06 02:38 PM, MoralLibertarian wrote:
90% of the millionaires in this country are self-made.

Now there's a made-up number.

[MoralLibertarian]

At 11/16/06 03:46 PM, Slizor wrote: Why not teach spread betting? Seems roughly similar to the stock market.

It seems that way to you because you're ignorant. I'm not saying we should teach students how to invest in individual stocks. We should teach students the multitude of options they have for their money: treasury bonds, growth stocks, value stocks, CDs, mutual funds, ETFs. I'm not talking about derivatives here.

[SkunkyFluffy]

I think instead of spoon-feeding people things that most will never use, we teach people to be self-starters and go find things out for themselves. The information is out there, but people are generally too lazy to pursue it, which is a tragedy.

[LunaML]

Let me put this gently.

STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO TAKE!

Why in the seven hells of Sinbad, to I have to take six or seven hundred hours locked in a room having basic concepts described to me by people who assume I have the intelligence of a meal worm?

Let me describe my day to you. After I finish my test on multi-variable derivatives I have the joy of proceeding into a class room to be told repeatedly that it is not a good idea to drink underage or to have unprotected sex or to eat McDonalds for every meal.

I am barely in the top half of my class. I go to a public school in the city. I am NOT an idiot! So pack up your slogans, take your posters off the wall and give the school back their money to buy something useful. If you have to tell me what to do, go to my church, my television or my local billboard.

If you must think of something to do with those horrible “holier then thou” classes condense them. I have no reason to believe that one good hour of presentations on AIDS or finance will do any good but surely that matches our current success.

Also would it kill people to pay for a couple extra teachers so I could have a desk in every class?

Have a nice day

~Luna

[Elfer]

At 11/16/06 03:31 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: Doesn't your locale have a restaurant? Where do you take your dates, the basement?

Restaurants are actually usually pretty crappy if you know how to cook properly. The food usually tastes rushed and overseasoned.

[LazyDrunk]

At 11/16/06 07:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 11/16/06 03:31 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: Doesn't your locale have a restaurant? Where do you take your dates, the basement?

Restaurants are actually usually pretty crappy if you know how to cook properly. The food usually tastes rushed and overseasoned.

True, a homecooked meal always tastes better, but on the norm, restaurants rock the shit out of fast food and microwave dinners.

Also, Luna has a great point, Minnesota public schools are shit.

[Slizor]

It seems that way to you because you're ignorant.

It's true - I don't know much about spread betting. I know about the inherent risks of the stock market, but not spread betting. Meh, I think I'll stick to poker, I'm good at that.

[JakeHero]

At 11/16/06 08:47 PM, Slizor wrote: It's true - I don't know much about spread betting. I know about the inherent risks of the stock market, but not spread betting. Meh, I think I'll stick to poker, I'm good at that.

Try Russian Roulette.

[Elfer]

At 11/16/06 07:37 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: True, a homecooked meal always tastes better, but on the norm, restaurants rock the shit out of fast food and microwave dinners.

Well of course they do. They're also about a thousand times more expensive than a meal you cook yourself. That's actually something you should be considering if you're so concerned about kids and finances. A working knowledge of cooking saves you a LOT of money.

[Slizor]

Try Russian Roulette.

Try "fucking off and dying". Sorry to quote Shakespeare at you, but you seem like such an absolute preachy twat that I couldn't resist. Also, because the chances of me responding to your pitiful posts when I'm not being facetious are minimal I thought I'd take the opportunity.

Now, fuck off out of my sight.

[MortifiedPenguins]

Or we could just make an Economics type class a mandatory class for two semensters like the excuse for a class health.

[IllustriousPotentate]

I agree with ML on this one. Budgeting and managing finances is especially important if you're having to make ends meet. Yet, there seems to be no emphasis to teach it in schools.

They should at least cover the basics on the following:

­­» Budgeting
» Balancing a checkbook
» Understanding the tax system
» Understanding different types of investments

etc.

[RydiaLockheart]

In my senior year of high school, we all had to take economics. We didn't learn how to make a killing in stocks or anything like that, but we were taught about the economy, earning money, and most importantly, how to prioritize and budget. More high schools need to teach that.

That being said, sex education is also important, but it's also important that kids know how to take care of themselves without asking Mom and Dad for money.

[JMHX]

Finance already is in public schools. I thought everyone was aware of that nugget of wisdom. Besides, why give them finance classes when they are failing to pass remedial basic-level mathematics? Fundamentals first. Without fundamentals, you've got nothing.

[VigilanteNighthawk]

At 11/16/06 09:43 PM, IllustriousPotentate wrote: I agree with ML on this one. Budgeting and managing finances is especially important if you're having to make ends meet. Yet, there seems to be no emphasis to teach it in schools.

They should at least cover the basics on the following:

­­» Budgeting
» Balancing a checkbook
» Understanding the tax system
» Understanding different types of investments

etc.

\
I even agree with ML to a point on this (and yes, I'm scared). I'd be more worried about teaching them the fundamentals of handling a bankaccount and the various types of debt could go into first before going into the stock market.

On the other hand, if we must choose between sex ed and finances, I'm choosing to have sex ed in the schools. You can pick up from a financial planner what you need to know later, but only if you aren't slowly dying of a disease. Besides, all the payments for antivirals will suck up any extra cash to invest ; ).

[MoralLibertarian]

At 11/16/06 09:43 PM, IllustriousPotentate wrote: » Understanding the tax system

You'd need 5 years of graduate/law school for that.

Financials are every bit as fundamental as math and reading. Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man could add up any two numbers in less than a second and could count cards in Vegas poker games, but he couldn't apply that sort of thing to the real world.

[TwO-FaCeD-PaRaNoID]

Isn't it true that the american goverment supported the credit card system, so that people would expend more, causing the economy to grow?
(Everyone who does economics knows that more consumption means more national income, on a short range period)

[TheMason]

At 11/16/06 03:04 PM, fli wrote: but Home Econ isn't just "cooking and sewing"--

Things must've changed in the last 13 years, cause it was when/where I went to high school.

I don't know... it's pretty naive to think that everyone who takes a finance class will become millionaires because there are other influential factors such as how much one starts with money (upper class Suburbon kids will have it easier than a lower class ghetto kids and our economics depends on levels so literally... not "everybody" will be on the upper class because the definition will be redrawn by new economic standards.

The thing is a financial planning course could also teach kids about the FAFSA (Free Application Federal Student Aid) and make college funding less mystifying, allowing kids to see that college is something they can do and should not fear not having the money for.

[JakeHero]

At 11/16/06 09:26 PM, Slizor wrote: Try "fucking off and dying". Sorry to quote Shakespeare at you, but you seem like such an absolute preachy twat that I couldn't resist. Also, because the chances of me responding to your pitiful posts when I'm not being facetious are minimal I thought I'd take the opportunity.

Now, fuck off out of my sight.

It seems someone is bleeding out their cunt. Try not to get so worked up over three words.

[fli]

At 11/17/06 01:41 PM, TheMason wrote:

At 11/16/06 03:04 PM, fli wrote: but Home Econ isn't just "cooking and sewing"--

Things must've changed in the last 13 years, cause it was when/where I went to high school.

No in my Californian High School...
Classes also taught how to buy stock and micro-manage money.

The thing is a financial planning course could also teach kids about the FAFSA (Free Application Federal Student Aid) and make college funding less mystifying, allowing kids to see that college is something they can do and should not fear not having the money for.

But I wasn't talking about financial aid...
Moral has this misconception that if you take finance... you're gonna get rich quickly there afterwards and that everyone can be rich.

Of course,
Not everyone can be rich... not possible because our economy is based on having people to be either above or under themselves (money wise...) But everyone can be self sustaining and moderetly well off at least.

So I argue that Home Econ, where one can learn essential life skills and some finance (and bake awesome cakes) should be mandatory and not Finance. It does, after all, complement Economics which at least all CA seniors have to take. Let Finance be for people who request the class....

[JMHX]

At 11/17/06 07:37 AM, MoralLibertarian wrote:
Financials are every bit as fundamental as math and reading. Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man could add up any two numbers in less than a second and could count cards in Vegas poker games, but he couldn't apply that sort of thing to the real world.

You're basing your policy off of a movie? How did I guess? Well, since you've now compared our education system to an autistic 40 year old...

[poxpower]

Short-term effects:

-high school kids, being generaly retarded, will invest huge amounts of money into tons of idiot bogus companies and will lose their money, so the governement will have to help them.

-mid-term: said idiot companies, overloaded with dumbshit dollars, will all go under because they can't produce anything worth a damn, as they're run by ex-jocks with MBAs

-long-term: everyone is still poor, but those who are rich got right simply by getting lucky and investing they money in the right place, not producing anything. The general economy crumbles because no one has a penny to invest anymore, nor can they buy anything, and everyone is just sitting on their ass thinking they should have retired at 35 instead of having actual jobs and kids.

In conclusion: keep it to yourself. There is a fixed quantity of money available. If you create more, it loses value, and if more people have it, it just gets split up. So you'd be smart to keep this info to yourself and keep hoarding the dough.

Sad but true :o
As for teaching in schools, I think we should teach people how to take care of their bodies, how to develop good working habits and how to be SATIFIED WITH WHAT THEY FUCKING HAVE.