Worth thinking about from an MMT perspective. Someone needs to write a primer on econ and personal finance that ordinary folks can use as a compass to navigate in their decision making. It would not need to be a dedicated high school course but rather a book suitable for use as a high school course and which would also have wider application.
I took college electives in econ, investment, and statistics. The econ course used Samuelson, which most of the student recognized as not the way the world actually works, and it certainly did not help me navigate either personal economics or macro in understanding the world.
On the other hand, the investment course used Graham's Intelligent Investor and Graham & Dodd's Security Analysis. This was a worthwhile course.
It wasn't until I encountered MMT that I began to understand economic reality in terms of actual operations.
Conversable EconomistHigh School Economics and Personal Finance Courses
Timothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota|
As Warren Buffett notes, investment is a matter of temperament, not IQ. Temperament is innate, it's not something you can teach. As for IQ...
ReplyDeleteIn an article for CBS Moneywatch on the woeful performance of investment clubs, Larry [Swedroe] notes:
If any group should be capable of showing that more heads are better than one and that intelligence translates into market-beating returns, it should be Mensa.
The June 2001 issue of Smart Money reported that over the prior 15 years the Mensa investment club returned just 2.5 percent, under-performing the S&P 500 Index by almost 13 percent per annum.
Warren Smith, an investor for thirty-five years, reported that his original investment of $5,300 had turned into $9,300. A similar investment in the S&P 500 Index would have produced almost $300,000.
One investor described their strategy as buy low, sell lower.
As Warren Buffett – himself no intellectual slouch – puts it:
“Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”
The urge to make money without having to put in an honest day's work...
ReplyDeleteThe factors of production don't organize themselves. Look at Angus Deaton's "deaths of despair". All these workers dying for lack of capitalists to organize their production.
ReplyDeletePrinceton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton call these “deaths of despair” — the deaths from suicide, drug overdoses and alcoholic liver disease ravaging swaths of the country.
This from David Goldman:
ReplyDeleteNote the color of Olaf Scholz's tie.
This today in oilprice.com...
In perhaps worse news, however, German conglomerate BASF said last month it would permanently downside in its home country and expand in China.
To succeed in business, you have to be a low-cost producer. Business will now flow to where energy is cheaper.
The factors of production don't organize themselves.
ReplyDeleteInvestments don't organize anything - they're a claim on other people's work.
So Warren Buffett isn't doing any 'organizing'.
It's usually skilled workers like designers and engineers who organize production.
Even Jeff Bezos was able to get his business off the ground by doing the work himself. Back then, he wasn't doing rocket science. Nowadays, he pays talented workers to do rocket science on his behalf. Capitalists only deserve credit for work they do themselves. Anything more than that is narcissism.
Designers and engineers don't organize production. It's not like they hire themselves.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, he [Bezos] pays talented workers to do rocket science on his behalf.
Yes, that's the point I was making. Bezos is organizing other people's production. That's what it means to organize production.
Why, just the other day, I organized production. I have an air compressor and I didn't want to get dirty in the garage, so I instructed my wife and daughter how to use the compressor to fill up their own tires. They remove the cap off the tire, screw in the compressor, dial in the tire PSI pressure and let the compressor rattle till it's done. Put the cap back on and move on to the next tire.
See, I organized production. I supplied the knowledge, they supplied the labor. It's a collaborative effort, just like how capitalism works.
Here's the compressor if anyone is interested. The nice thing about it is that it has a digital pressure gauge built in, and it's all automatic.
As Seen on TV Air Hawk Air Compressor
Designers and engineers don't organize production. It's not like they hire themselves.
ReplyDeleteSometimes they hire themselves. They start their own businesses. Because they're tired of working for idiots.
See, I organized production. I supplied the knowledge, they supplied the labor. It's a collaborative effort, just like how capitalism works.
Buffett and Bezos don't have knowledge. They have money. Their contribution in terms of productivity is nil.