Wow...People Really Don't Have a Clue
A few months ago, a very good friend of mine who reads this blog, told me he skips over anything having to do with money or the FED. He said it confused him and he didn't understand it.
This is a guy who would be quite happy if I just posted pictures of half naked chicks on here. Not that I have anything against half naked chicks...but...
I forget. I forget that our people have been purposefully misinformed and misled. That our nation, run by bankers, has done very little to teach the millions of citizens just how they will be ripped off for the rest of their lives. Bankers profit by keeping consumers stupid. Since bankers and the government have always been in bed together- and the government runs your education system- I don't think it's such a mystery why the average American doesn't know shit about the FED. They can't tell you how money is created, they don't understand anything that the banking world does. This is not an over sight.
This was done on purpose.
Behold! A jaw dropping quiz given to the Occupy Wall Street crowd. We are in a lot of trouble. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/occupy_wall_street_quiz.html
This is a guy who would be quite happy if I just posted pictures of half naked chicks on here. Not that I have anything against half naked chicks...but...
I forget. I forget that our people have been purposefully misinformed and misled. That our nation, run by bankers, has done very little to teach the millions of citizens just how they will be ripped off for the rest of their lives. Bankers profit by keeping consumers stupid. Since bankers and the government have always been in bed together- and the government runs your education system- I don't think it's such a mystery why the average American doesn't know shit about the FED. They can't tell you how money is created, they don't understand anything that the banking world does. This is not an over sight.
This was done on purpose.
Behold! A jaw dropping quiz given to the Occupy Wall Street crowd. We are in a lot of trouble. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/occupy_wall_street_quiz.html
Comments
The powers that be would like us to keep thinking money is simple. In fact, it could and should be a lot simpler, but alas we currently have a complex money system that few of us fully understand. Like you said, big business and government actually want to keep it that way.
I am in my mid-thirties and only started to REALLY learn about money a few years ago on my own after the economic collapse. I was not offered any course in high school (one of the best public schools in the country) and back then I believed that the only people that needed those courses in college were accountants and businessmen. I studied computer science, so it's not like I shied away from tough subjects. I truly believed at the time that basic money management was straight-forward enough that the average person did not need to know anything about banking or government monetary policy.
The root problem is that I just never imagined the complexities involved. I didn't know what I didn't know.
Why is there so little emphasis on personal finance in our education system? Talk about useful skills!
I believe there are a lot of reasons.
1. No expectations. There never has been an emphasis in school. Finance and the money system has never been a significant focus of study in high school. Our parents didn't learn much there and so nobody has those expectations.
2. Teachers themselves don't really understand it. Those that really do understand finance are probably not high school teachers.
3. It can get political. Personal finance is not completely separate from the economy and government. Who controls the money and what it is used for can get political. The subject can turn prickly for high school.
4. Most schools are run by government. Government is always trying to acquire more funds. That's a lot easier to do when the people don't understand your tricks to do so. The general attitude of big government is that people are dumb and we need the government to handle our money. (That is the ultimate "intrinsically paternalistic" notion, Matt Damon!)
5. The finance industry makes more money, the more people are clueless about their own money. It's the same reason why the phone company does not want to send you an alert notifying you that you have exceeded your plan's talking minutes. Unlike they government, they don't want to spend it FOR you, they just want to sap it from you without you understanding how it's done.
When you have big business AND government with aligned with the same incentives, watch out!
Big Finance is in bed with Big Government, so at the most broad level, there is a desire to keep the status quo of money ignorance among the populace.
The best case in point would be the evil partnerships involved in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That was basically government and business colluding to push for unsound mortgage lending. That set the precedent and moral pass for companies like Countrywide to do the same.
Big business and big government have a lot of power through legislation and media to mold public perceptions. They could both switch course and start to promote sound money and financial education if they wanted to, but they both see that as counter-productive to their end goals.
Like you, I didn't know anything about money until the meltdown. What a schooling I went through! Now that I do know what these bastards are up to- I write about it a lot.
There is just a huge amount of people that are apathetic and don't care...and unfortunately as long as they outnumber us, nothing can change.
You and I are, so there is a couple of cases in point.
One thing is for sure, there are no more barriers to keep people from educating themselves.
The internet is not all that old. It means so many things, but one big thing it means is that nobody can be kept in the dark any longer if they seek information.
I do think things are changing for the better because now we have this big giant whistle for the lone whistle-blower. Hopefully, this means more citizen oversight and more watchdogs to make it harder for big companies and big government to hide what they are doing.
It's anybody's guess whether it will work out that way or not, but historically the powerful have always abused power by keeping information. The printing press certainly changed things for the common man in regards to those in power. I think we are seeing it with this new technology now.
Responsibility is a good thing. It starts with personal responsibility, but institutions will be held responsible now that it is so hard to cover up misdeeds.
I'm hoping....
Prior to the internet, there was simply no way to exchange important information. Letters to the editor are screened, filtered, and shitcanned depending on the content. They were censored.
Now all of the sudden people can educate themselves, read and write without censorship. We can publish ourselves. We can find out about that crooked FED and supporting evidence. We have access to all of the crooked info on politicians, subpoenas, who contributes to their campaigns, how they voted on any given issue.
For the first time in a long time, we have access to each other. That is a HUGE deal. We can communicate without these bastards interfering. And that is going to help us police them. The web is a game changer.
It's a lot harder for them to blow smoke up our asses when we have access to the facts. Unity is the only way we can beat these bastards back. This is our country. We didn't give it to a bunch of crony politicians and Harvard judges. They serve at our pleasure and I am damned tired of them thinking we serve them.