«Financial literacy»

In a very specific meaning, becomes by little some kind of new popular motto. My old good friend (who is a businessman) gave me the whole pile of thick books on the subject, written by businessmen too. I’m reading them now as a soporific.

But my basic emotion during reading is now some kind of astonishment: what a great difference between a business-style view, on the one side, and a professional economists view which I’ve got already accustomed to, on the other. There are two different planets here.

That’s because the business-view teaches you mainly to focus on your own interests and doings, when the economists try to analyze the consequences of such doings for the market as a whole.

What will happen with the market? «Frankly, my dear, i don’t give a damn» — answers a businessman to an economist with the words of Rhett Butler; …and that’s why it’s a great mistake to commit the economy policy to a businessmen.

However, it’s too widespread mistake, especially in our latitudes.