Everyperson economics
Everyperson economics. If you think that economics are none of your bisness, then this course is fit for you. Become a smarter consumer,
investor, employee, or entrepreuner.
Many of us have distorted views about financial issues. This cource is intended for employees whose jobs don't usually require economical issues.The idea is to eludicate things by ecamples, games, assigments etc.
In short, crystallize the right way of thinking in marketing and finance in order to people to be more intelligent consumers, and possibly become intrestedabout the subject. Let's build the course on some very simple main ideas.
Root out the false assumptions by games and examples. One might be: financial things are managed by brokers and bunyips there somewhereand we should do something else -> all depends on inter-people agreements and in the big picture all human interaction reflects on financial solutions.
Why money has so much power? -> Money defines the rights of to have different things. A game in which is considered how things would be arranged without money
What does competition mean? Why one should always change and improve? Why should eyes kept open always for open for new ideas? (The view of National economy,global problems, motivating people and fighting for survival, finding the meaning for life, changing of the world (What was before and what it is now)).
Why time is money and money is time? Why should economics be studied? Aren't we selling ourselves for our employers?
Why do you have to sell?
Why to be active, enthusiastic and take initiative?
Ideas for national economics text-book, Rich Dad Poor Dad etc.
How economics work in different countries? (some pictures and examples).
Recommend people some different books to read. If possible, those books can be sold during the course and make a small revenue.
Financial literacy is indeed important, already for children. There is a guy called Andrew Heiniluoma who is interested in putting up an independent financial services company in Finland and part of that would be increasing financial literacy. Another friend, Jukka Blomberg, was elaborating on the idea saying that if we could help the poor (i.e. not Finns) to "use the system" for their benefit we could get them out of poverty.
If someone is interested in contacting these fellows I'll link you with them. Just send an email to tomi(at)feelovation.com and we'll take it from there.
-Tomi
PS. I'm still confused which language to use on this forum...
Dodo has done something like this:
http://www.dodo.org/sinsibere
They helped women in Mali to set up communities where everybody pays a monthly membership fee and from those fees micro-loans are given to members who want to start or improve their own business.
They also provided entrepreneurship education as support. Mika is also doing entrepreneurship education in Equador:
http://www.mantengalosimple.com/
There must be thousands of other educational projects going on in developing countries. One with the focus on skills to use the economic system for own benefit could do quite a lot for development.
Maybe the best way to organize this would be to train trainers so that each village would have at least one person who has been to the course and also learned how to organize it for others. Follow up needs to be organized and the trainers held accountable for really training other villagers.
In Dodo's Sinsibere project the education for 200-300 women from 8 villages cost a few thousands of euros. By training trainers this could be doable for about 100 villages with the same amount of money. Money could come from the profits of organizing same kind of course in developed countries.
E.g. some Finns would for sure pay for a course in financial literacy and "using the system", especially if they know where the profit goes. The western version of the course could focus also quite a lot on ethical economic practices and how they benefit the individual.
Paljon kansantajuista taloustietoa löytyy osoitteesta www.maailmantalous.net
I have some experience in this field. I have worked 14 years in the financial adviser-fund broker field before starting Apila Group. After appx 7 years in the field I realized I would like to find some books teaching basics that I could recommend to my clients. I searched for a year but could not find any good ones, so I descided to write one myself- Elämäsi rahat. Joka kodin talousopas (Pengar för livet). The book got pretty much publicity and has sold fairly well. I wrote it together with a collegue, Johan Hultkrantz and we got many additional ideas.
As time passed, we started to realize that these issues are really so important in most peoples lives, that it is really crazy it is not taught in schools. Is it more important to paint than to know how to handle personal financial descisions?
People around the world, in wealthy countries as well, seem to consume all money they get. Instead of putting some part aside to have a financially secure future or to make it possible to make their money working for them or to create their own jobs as enterpreneurs in the future.
At the time I wrote the first edition of Elämäsi rahat ('The money of your life'), I had not found books like Rich Dad Poor Dad. Now I have found many and I have ideas for new ones myself. A book that would be written for children, like a 'saga' , i e a story or a comics, would probably be the best idea. In Sweden, 50 years ago there was a childrens comics that had two main characters, two children called 'Spara' and 'Slösa'. It was a best seller and taught wisdom to all swedish children. Now the time would be rady for a modern story, plus maybe movies and e-learning around the same story :)
Björn
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