Comment by DrNosferatu
18 days ago
Basic personal finance, like interest rates, simple statistics (namely about casinos), sure.
BUT, during the European austerity footgun days, they put an animated talking bear on tv teaching this “financial literacy” and illustrating the “run your country as a thrifty household” tale as meritorious and not a fallacy, among other stuff like that.
I saw this YouTube video recently that said there are four main categories to spending money:
A. Your own money A1. On yourself A2. On others (not necessarily the same others)
B. Other people's money B1. On you B2. On others (not necessarily the same others)
It is kind of a wordy way to describe the principal agent problem.
Problem is that we can't really wrap our heads around large numbers. I get overwhelmed just thinking about how the relatively small town I live in manages its finances. I don't think I have the mental model to fit how the US economy functions much less how it should function.
Talk to some political scientists. You're never getting a polity that understands the issues and votes largely based on policy. Won't happen, not even remotely close. They'll always be voting on forehead-slappingly dumb shit like "running government like a business is a good idea", or more likely on a dozen extremely stupid misconceptions at once, plus just "do I perceive that bad things are happening, generally, regardless of whether they have anything to do with the office I'm voting for".