Over and out at the Philly Inquirer

One of my favorite economics writers is calling it quits. Andrew Cassel has written his last column for the Inquirer. And he goes out on a tall note calling for better economic education for students.

A smart financial-education program would give kids the tools to understand that, and also help them avoid investment fads and emotion-laden financial sales pitches down the road.

But economics learning doesn't - or shouldn't - end with investing and personal finance.

At its core, economics isn't about managing money at all; it's about making choices, balancing risks and rewards, and creating wealth in the broadest sense.

The primary focus, in fact, should be on developing what economists call "human capital" - a fancy term for whatever each of us has to offer the rest.

In my own idealized economics-education program, kids would learn mainly about investing in themselves, and only secondarily about investing in stocks and bonds.

They also would learn that markets and commerce - which for many still carry a bad odor of greed and exploitation - are neither immoral nor amoral, but simply a way for human beings to cooperate with one another as strangers.

If we want to get along with people we'll never meet, competition and trade are the keys. The former spurs us to do our best, and the latter lets the whole world share in the fruits of our effort.

Hear! Hear!

An archive of his columns can be found here.