Stuff I'll Never Know Why I Never Knew

Today involved waking up at approximately 4:45 a.m. to get to the Capitol for a briefing before all the Senators arrived at 9 a.m. Yes, rather awesome. It was also a nice, comfy 94 degrees out, which really works out well in business attire...

Anyway, though there wasn't a whole lot of interesting stuff involved in the Capitol visit, I'll describe tonight's very impassioned economics lecture.

For econ, we've got a really great and tough Sicilian professor with a 50 percent Southern and 50 percent Italian accent. When I signed up for this program, I was kinda expecting a bit of a liberal bent. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. He's a free-market fanatic.

I don't know why every student doesn't take an economics like this. For my entire school career, I was fed a meager, unreasoned dose of economic thought, all leading to the general concept that FDR was a saint and welfare is a godsend. At home, the parents always voted not to raise taxes, but I had no good reason to defend that.

After tonight, I am convinced that the rising minimum wage is the sinister tool of unions. That farm subsidies are senseless. That heavy taxes are perpetuating poverty and destroying our quality of life.

I'm rather angry about this, not just because of the monetary implications of it all. I'm rather upset that 90 percent of my peers will never learn about their economy, never understand what they're voting for. We're not really doing well as a democracy if my generation is forever in financial ignorance.