Economic Stimulus Package

You cannot turn on the news or read the paper without having "economy" or its derivatives mentioned. Yet, how many know what "recession" really means? Or why we have a stock market? Oh, and to think about what our politicians DON'T know about economics scares me as they are making "economic" decisions for us. So I believe the next economics stimulus package should not be billions of dollars, but an emphasis on the teaching of economic principles in K-12 education. Economics should not just be a high school elective or something only taught by Junior Achievement volunteers. It should not be the largest major at the top universities because of the screwed up belief in this country that if you know something about money systems that you will get lots of money. Those top university programs should be training the next leaders in economic thought not the next Madoff's. Damn, I would be ok if they were just training the next politicians!

In our K-12 education, we are given a a survey of all topics; math, chemistry, biology, art..., but not economics. At least not in my experience. In my high school, the meat-head athletes took the business classes, which were taught by a teacher that slept with students. In 6th grade, we had a mock stock investing experience, but the teacher never told us why there was a stock market, why the prices of the stocks we picked fluctuated. We were only taught that some people make lucky picks and win big. The economics education of today's children should be more than this. Maybe it is and in the coming weeks I will be proven wrong. If not, I have found my cause.