[Ken Stalter,
Tuesday April 19, 2005 at 11:18pm]
Life Skills Classes
Neo-Libertarian reports, citing Club for Growth, that Americans wasted 6.6 billion hours working on their 2004 tax returns.
Pondering that and the fact that many people will find that their time was doubly wasted when the IRS “discovers” some grievous error in their return, I recalled an idea I’ve been formulating for some time. It’s not just tax returns that are eating up people’s time—paperwork of all sorts, ill-informed financial decisions and purchases, debt, misunderstandings and mole-hill to mountain disputes are eating up people’s time, money and happiness.
This is why high schools should have a “modern life skills” curriculum. Not one course offered in my high school taught us about getting good insurance, filing taxes, negotiating with car salesmen or real estate brokers, reading basic contracts, looking critically at the media and advertising, dealing with debt, standing up to swindlers and self-proclaimed “experts” or any of the other skills you need to spare yourself from getting fucked over in life. Most of you reading this are probably clever enough to play it by ear or learn what you need from books, but there are a lot of people out there learning these skills in the school of hard knocks. And every time someone gets fucked over or falls through the cracks simply because they don’t know how to work the system, resources are wasted. Competition is at the heart of prosperity, but people who would otherwise be productive and creative shouldn’t be kept from the starting gate simply because their talents lie somewhere other than dealing with bureaucracy.
For the libertarian-leaning among you who respond that reducing government would alleviate the situation, I agree and applaud your efforts. But take a moment to reflect on the examples I gave above. Remember, too, that not only government, but also businesses and non-profits generate confusing paperwork and convoluted procedures and in general take advantage of the individual.
If any of you went to a school that offered a course or courses such as I advocate, please let me know what your experience was like and if you found it valuable. The closest my school came was teaching us to balance our check-books in home economics (after we finished sewing our pillow cases).
Pondering that and the fact that many people will find that their time was doubly wasted when the IRS “discovers” some grievous error in their return, I recalled an idea I’ve been formulating for some time. It’s not just tax returns that are eating up people’s time—paperwork of all sorts, ill-informed financial decisions and purchases, debt, misunderstandings and mole-hill to mountain disputes are eating up people’s time, money and happiness.
This is why high schools should have a “modern life skills” curriculum. Not one course offered in my high school taught us about getting good insurance, filing taxes, negotiating with car salesmen or real estate brokers, reading basic contracts, looking critically at the media and advertising, dealing with debt, standing up to swindlers and self-proclaimed “experts” or any of the other skills you need to spare yourself from getting fucked over in life. Most of you reading this are probably clever enough to play it by ear or learn what you need from books, but there are a lot of people out there learning these skills in the school of hard knocks. And every time someone gets fucked over or falls through the cracks simply because they don’t know how to work the system, resources are wasted. Competition is at the heart of prosperity, but people who would otherwise be productive and creative shouldn’t be kept from the starting gate simply because their talents lie somewhere other than dealing with bureaucracy.
For the libertarian-leaning among you who respond that reducing government would alleviate the situation, I agree and applaud your efforts. But take a moment to reflect on the examples I gave above. Remember, too, that not only government, but also businesses and non-profits generate confusing paperwork and convoluted procedures and in general take advantage of the individual.
If any of you went to a school that offered a course or courses such as I advocate, please let me know what your experience was like and if you found it valuable. The closest my school came was teaching us to balance our check-books in home economics (after we finished sewing our pillow cases).