cramer meltdown

[Quincy]

as cramer was saying:

AP

Dow Plunges 387 on Subprime Concerns

So the solution to the problem of fast & easy money in the past is to make money fast & easy again?

Cramer just didn't want to see his investment bank buddies lose their bonuses.

Moose, I'm with ya! Teach compounding, and the importance of being on the right side of it. And don't just teach it once, give reminder/refreshers every year. Toss in a few important financial equations, and again give refreshers. And try to some probability too. Actually a little of all of this does get touched on, or was with me in high school. But too often one just learns this stuff for a test and forgets it. Better to try to give a refresher for a few days or a week each year from junior high thru high school. (Yeah I know, at the expense of what?)

[alocispepraluger102]

as cramer was saying:

AP

Dow Plunges 387 on Subprime Concerns

So the solution to the problem of fast & easy money in the past is to make money fast & easy again?

Cramer just didn't want to see his investment bank buddies lose their bonuses.

Moose, I'm with ya! Teach compounding, and the importance of being on the right side of it. And don't just teach it once, give reminder/refreshers every year. Toss in a few important financial equations, and again give refreshers. And try to some probability too. Actually a little of all of this does get touched on, or was with me in high school. But too often one just learns this stuff for a test and forgets it. Better to try to give a refresher for a few days or a week each year from junior high thru high school. (Yeah I know, at the expense of what?)

i agree completely, but cramer is at least acknowledging the scope of the problem.

[Guy Berger]

as cramer was saying:

AP

Dow Plunges 387 on Subprime Concerns

So the solution to the problem of fast & easy money in the past is to make money fast & easy again?

Cramer just didn't want to see his investment bank buddies lose their bonuses.

i agree completely, but cramer is at least acknowledging the scope of the problem.

From what I've seen, Cramer was exaggerating the scope of the problem.

Guy

[alocispepraluger102]

as cramer was saying:

AP

Dow Plunges 387 on Subprime Concerns

So the solution to the problem of fast & easy money in the past is to make money fast & easy again?

Cramer just didn't want to see his investment bank buddies lose their bonuses.

i agree completely, but cramer is at least acknowledging the scope of the problem.

From what I've seen, Cramer was exaggerating the scope of the problem.

Guy

we all pray that you are right.

[Guy Berger]

Beyond ensuring that people who take out mortgages aren't bamboozled by the details of their loans, I'm not sure what can really be done.

Guy

Do we really need to insure our citizens against stupidity?

Dealing with "reality", we will insure them if "Wall St" will be damaged. What a bag of crap.

decent mandatory basic economics courses for high school students (and high school teachers) would be a good place to start.

AMEN!!! The fact that a large segment has difficulty understanding basic money matters is not a matter of stupidity, it's just ignorance. Ignorance can be 'cured' through education. and it's a damn shame that we aren't teaching kids basic money skills, nutrition, etc. I hate to admit it, but these skills would be a lot more useful to most of the population than the quadratic equation or even Shakespeare. In truth, I'm not really arguing for 'instead of' but rather than 'in addition to', but as parents can't seem to educate their kids on these matters (mainly because they, themselves, never learned), it would really be a boon to our society for the schools to step in and take up the slack.

I agree 100%. (Also with Quincy's comment that students need to have basic probability drilled into their heads.)

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the results of this report (I had very low expectations):

Only about half of high school seniors know that commercial banks use deposits from checking accounts to make loans to other customers, while most of the rest believe the deposit simply sits in a bank vault until depositors withdraw the funds.

That’s one of the findings from the first national report card on economics education by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The test of 11,500 12th grade students from 590 schools, a nationally representative sample, determined that 79% had a “basic” understanding of economics. That meant they could recognize the inverse relationship between the market price of a product and the amount buyers are willing and able to purchase. (About 42% of high school seniors are “proficient” in economics, able to explain the role of shortages in causing prices to change, and 3% performed at an “advanced” level.)

Among the responses:

# 72% were able to describe a benefit and a risk of leaving a full-time job to further one’s education

# 60% identified factors that lead to an increase in the national debt

# 36% identified the federal government’s primary revenue source

# 33% explained the effect of an increase in real interest rates on consumers’ borrowing

# 11% analyzed how a change in the unemployment rate affects income, spending and production

(Sample questions and answers are included at the back of the report.)

Education officials releasing the report said it showed plenty of room for improvement for high school economics education. About two-thirds of high school graduates have taken an economics course, according to a 2005 study of high school transcripts, up from 49% in 1982. –Sudeep Reddy

Edited August 9, 2007 by Guy

[Jazzmoose]

AP

Dow Plunges 387 on Subprime Concerns

Bull. Dow Plunges 387 is all they know; anything else is pure speculation. I hate economic reporting; everyone knows exactly what happened after the fact...

[MoGrubb]

Only about half of high school seniors know that commercial banks use deposits from checking accounts to make loans to other customers, ...

....

That's what peeves me off, then the bank turns around and pays you like 2% or less interest on your savings account.

[Guy Berger]

Only about half of high school seniors know that commercial banks use deposits from checking accounts to make loans to other customers, ...

....

That's what peeves me off, then the bank turns around and pays you like 2% or less interest on your savings account.

They're not running a charity...

Guy

[MoGrubb]

No shit.