Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin

[lukethedrifter]

So, not to give away any national security secrets or anything but ..., I was Informed this a.m. that a certain VP candidate in need of massive amounts of tutoring is holed up in my district.

[clevername]

can you drive by where she is and yell "gotcha" really loudly?

[Freed Roger]

So, not to give away any national security secrets or anything but ..., I was Informed this a.m. that a certain VP candidate in need of massive amounts of tutoring is holed up in my district.

you might want to put your deer whistles on the vehicle

[Radbird]

So, not to give away any national security secrets or anything but ..., I was Informed this a.m. that a certain VP candidate in need of massive amounts of tutoring is holed up in my district.

Drive by and throw her a lifeline.

[Arthur Dent]

I wish I'd hear some sort of plan for introducing at least some mandatory finance based curriculum at the high school and college level. For me, that's the root cause of this. Banks wouldn't be less able to offer bad loans to people who realized they couldn't afford them. The entire financial system operates above most everyone's head, and nobody understands it until they're forced to. I had no idea what escrow was when we bought our home. I knew enough to get a fixed rate and from a good bank, luckily. I've paid off 90% of my credit card, and my wife's is mostly paid off as well. We've almost paid off our car. But I basically stumbled into the advice it took to get me to this point.

Educational stuff is a state/local decision in most cases, I realize. But some encouragement from the top would be nice.

It's not just ordinary citizens. Many of the finance people making these deals didn't understand what they were doing either. It just didn't matter as long as you continued to make money.

And yes, better economic education ought to be a national priority. I think that's the most important thing missing from the standard K-12 education. General knowledge about this topic is awfully pathetic and people get seriously screwed because of it both managing personal finances and at the voting booth. I am concerned how it would be taught as the field is deeply infused with ideology.

[G. Keenan]

I wish I'd hear some sort of plan for introducing at least some mandatory finance based curriculum at the high school and college level. For me, that's the root cause of this. Banks wouldn't be less able to offer bad loans to people who realized they couldn't afford them. The entire financial system operates above most everyone's head, and nobody understands it until they're forced to. I had no idea what escrow was when we bought our home. I knew enough to get a fixed rate and from a good bank, luckily. I've paid off 90% of my credit card, and my wife's is mostly paid off as well. We've almost paid off our car. But I basically stumbled into the advice it took to get me to this point.

Educational stuff is a state/local decision in most cases, I realize. But some encouragement from the top would be nice.

It's not just ordinary citizens. Many of the finance people making these deals didn't understand what they were doing either. It just didn't matter as long as you continued to make money.

And yes, better economic education ought to be a national priority. I think that's the most important thing missing from the standard K-12 education. General knowledge about this topic is awfully pathetic and people get seriously screwed because of it both managing personal finances and at the voting booth. I am concerned how it would be taught as the field is deeply infused with ideology.

What no longer exists seems to be the notion of living within your means. It's just far too easy to spend money these days and not doing so takes a lot of discipline. With a credit card it doesn't feel like your spending real money when you swipe it. Now you don't even have to sign a receipt half the time. Just swipe this little piece of plastic and a latte comes out. It's totally Pavlovian or something.

[PujolJunkie]

Daily Tracking:

All 3 main pollsters have Obama at +6

Gallup - Obama 49, McCain 43 (+6)
Rasmussen - Obama 51, McCain 45 (+6)
Diageo/Hotline - Obama 47, McCain 41 (+6)
R2000 - Obama 51, McCain 41 (+10)
GW/Battleground - Obama 48, McCain 46 (+2)

GW/Battleground doesn't weight by age, which is why their result is considerably lower and they had even been reporting a McCain lead as of yesterday.

Florida:

PPP - Obama 49, McCain 46 (+3)

[planet planet]

I am concerned how it would be taught as the field is deeply infused with ideology.

I agree with this. If you talk to a handful of different people whom are highly informed about finance, you can get five different opinions. The only concept they agree upon regarding investing is diversification and most agree on not being able to time the top and bottom of a market.

[ghostrunner]

I am concerned how it would be taught as the field is deeply infused with ideology.

I agree with this. If you talk to a handful of different people whom are highly informed about finance, you can get five different opinions. The only concept they agree upon regarding investing is diversification and most agree on not being able to time the top and bottom of a market.

I think you'd have plenty to cover before you got into philosophy, and investment/stock market stuff ought to come later. Just knowing how a loan works would be a step in the right direction for high school kids.

I'd be most concerned with how credit is approached. Some people seem to literally "believe" in using credit. "The more you use, the more credit you can get." That gets turned into an excuse to use credit when you could do otherwise. One of Bush's biggest mistakes, IMO, was the "spend money" comment after 9/11. There's a good idea behind that, but he failed to provide any explanation. Leaving it at spend money says "if you don't go buy stuff, we're in trouble." I'm guessing many people spent credit and not money.


Going along with this, how secretive were everyone's parents about money? This now seems to be one of the biggest mistakes my parent's made. The concern is obviously that your kids might tell other people or feel better or worse than other people based on this number. But what happened for us was that I never had any comprehension of how things that were bought for me affected the finances, and therefore I had no appreciation for it. So as a child I'd ask for something and I'd get it, or I wouldn't and I'd sulk about it and have no idea why it wasn't possible. Right now, my intent is to be pretty free with this information when my son gets older. Perhaps that doesn't work out as well as I think.

[KyCardinalFan]

Going along with this, how secretive were everyone's parents about money? This now seems to be one of the biggest mistakes my parent's made. The concern is obviously that your kids might tell other people or feel better or worse than other people based on this number. But what happened for us was that I never had any comprehension of how things that were bought for me affected the finances, and therefore I had no appreciation for it. So as a child I'd ask for something and I'd get it, or I wouldn't and I'd sulk about it and have no idea why it wasn't possible. Right now, my intent is to be pretty free with this information when my son gets older. Perhaps that doesn't work out as well as I think.

My parents rarely to never discussed money with us. The only time I can think of my father saying anything to me was after college he gave me between $1-2K and suggested I start an IRA. I knew I needed to pay off my bills, but I didn't worry about carrying a balance on my credit cards. Luckily, I was never a big spender.