Three presidential debates and none of the candidates are talking about what I think should be one of the next administration’s top education priorities: financial literacy.

Look at what’s happened to the economy: credit and equities markets have tanked in great part because many people borrowed to live beyond their means. And with the economy in trouble, now a lot of people are poised to make huge mistakes by pulling out of their 401(k)s or “putting their money under a mattress” where inflation would render it worth little to nothing as the years go on.

In San Diego, the schools have realized that learning how to handle your money is as important as knowing how to read and now require students to take a financial literacy course to graduate.

Isn’t it about time the rest of the country caught up?

Would you pay for a concert by two people you wouldn’t normally care to see if it meant helping a cause you supported?

Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are doing a fundraiser concert in New York for Barack Obama’s campaign this month. My guess is there aren’t too many people on BET.com lining up to buy tickets for that one. But if you support Obama, would you kick out the cost of a ticket?

Other celebrities like Oprah and John Legend who support Obama, but I don’t know if John Legend is touring right now and if Oprah’s doing fundraisers I know I couldn’t afford the plate.

And does it matter to you whether celebrities support a candidate or not? Who could get you to donate to a candidate if you weren’t already planning on doing so?

Barack Obama says John McCain won’t give most in the middle class any tax relief. John McCain says Barack Obama will only raise taxes and hurt the economy more? Who’s right?

Here’s an analysis of Obama’s claims against McCain that says he’s right that more than 100 million people won’t get a tax benefit from McCain but wrong that McCain has no other tax proposals for the middle class.

Here’s McCain talking about his own tax plan.

What’s your opinion

Since this is the second week of the political conventions, I figured I’d post about each candidate’s views on the economy.

Obama’s been running a commercial accusing John McCain of being out of touch with most Americans because McCain defined the line between being middle class and being rich as $5 million a year. It does make Johnny Boy sound all kinda crazy — I mean, $5 million?

But was he onto something?

I talked to ESPN.com writer Jemele Hill last week about what defines “middle class”. I said you need to be checking at least 80 grand a year these days. Anything else and you’re probably struggling, especially if you’re in a coastal city and if you have a family. But Jemele has an aunt who’s a tax accountant who said that middle class for a family of four these days is probably closer to $250k a year or so for a family.

To a lot of people, I’m sure that sounds just as crazy as what McCain said, but think about it: inflation is higher than it’s been in years, and wages haven’t gone up for most workers in a long time. Plus, there was at least half a decade of ridiculous housing prices that still haven’t come down to reasonable levels in many places. Gustav’s messing it up for everyone, so $4 a gallon gas is probably coming back before the end of the year, and food prices are still up.

So  how much do you have to make these days to be part of the middle class, and what’s the difference between that and being rich?

Last week Barackstar gave a speech in which he said he doesn’t support reparations for the descendants of slaves in the US — in other words, he doesn’t think black folks should get a check from the government to pay them back from the legacy of slavery.

The reparations movement has been going on for a while; before he died Johnnie Cochran filed suit against several companies for their involvement in slavery and some members of Congress have sponsored reparations legislation. The House voted last week to apologize for slavery but the apology came with no financial strings.

So is Barack in the right for believing “that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed”?  Or is there a stronger argument to be made in favor of reparations? After all, many Jews received compensation following the holocaust and formerly interned Japanese were given reparations after World War II. And there’s no arguing that one of, if not the most impactful legacies of slavery is economic: in a society where success and progress are based on the ownership and accumulation of capital, people who for centuries were used as capital and for years afterward were denied access to capital for housing, investments and businesses are sure to be playing catch-up at best.

So what’s the answer, and will Obama be hurt at the polls by his stance on reparations?

I was going to post a follow-up on athletes wasting money today, but that was until I had my first experience with unaffordable prescription drugs. Last week my doctor prescribed allergy meds for me and I went to pick them up last night. The cost: $69.99 for one bottle that’d have lasted me a month!!!! I told the pharmacist check again, my insurance information is on file there. He pointed to a sticker that said “NOT COVERED”. Wow.

So, I’m paying $120 a month for health insurance that won’t even cover something as basic as allergy medicine? I did what any bewildered person would do: called my mother, who takes high blood pressure medicine. She laughed. “You’re only responding like that because you’ve never been sick and you don’t have to take medicine. People go through worse than that every day.”

I can’t imagine. I can actually afford the $70 allergy pills, but I’d rather sneeze all day than pay that much for medicine when I already pay for insurance. But what if you were like my moms, who absolutely needs what she’s prescribed and is far more expensive.

Presidential candidates, are you listening?

Gas prices are up, interest rates might climb, inflation’s a near certainty and people are out of a job all over the place. And this is an election year, which means three things: promises, promises, promises from both candidates about what they’ll do to turn things around and make sure your bank account is healthier in the next year.

So Fortune magazine this week has two covers: one with Republican nominee John McCain and one with Democrat Barack Obama. Both covers say the same thing: “How I’ll Fix the Economy.” There’s a great chart in there that I’m going to liberally quote from that shows where they stand on:

• Taxes: McCain wants to cut the corporate tax rate by 10 percentage points and keep the long term capital gains tax at 15 percent, while Obama would keep corporate taxes where they are and raise the capital gains tax by 10 points, to 25 percent. Obama also favors repealing the Bush tax cuts for wealthy individuals and using the money to pay for things he said would help the middle class.
• Housing: Obama wants a $20 billion package to help families facing foreclosure; McCain wants $10 billion.
• Health care: McCain wants “tort reform” — in other words limits on lawsuits against doctors and insurers, which he thinks will bring the cost of health care down. He also “would shift the burden from employers to individuals to shop and pay for plans”, according to Fortune. Obama wants to spend billions to expand public health care programs but wouldn’t  require you to buy health care coverage.

So which plan works better for you?

So the Fed lowered rates again today, but what else is new? The government is scrambling to try to keep the economy from going further into the tank, but over the last week all the election coverage has been about what Barack Obama’s former pastor said. After opening my mailbox yesterday, I want to see more discussion of Obama and Clinton’s healthcare plans — since I got a taste of what it’s like to be uninsured in the mail.

Read more »

It’s Super Tuesday, so no matter you political affiliation, be sure to vote. For those whose minds aren’t made up,  this might help you out. It shows where all four remaining candidates are on taxes and an economic stimulus package.

On another note, those of you struggling to hold onto that New Year’s resolution to spend less might find my homegirl’s blog useful. The Frugalista has resolved to spend as close to nothing as she can for one full month, and is chronicling it for the world to see. I know for a fact it’ll be at the least informative, Ms. Frugalista happens to be a friend who I know to be partial to mass-marketed flyness.

As expected, Dubya dove right in on the economy in his last State of the Union speech. But from talking to most of my friends last night, I may have been the only black person in America watching (most people I know boycotted. One had this as her status message on gmail: State of the Union — a disaster. Mr. Bush, please leave office immediately).

That about sums up how most folks I know feel about the 43rd prez, but either way he did put some ideas on the table regarding the economy:

“To build a stronger economy, we must trust people with their own money.”

Translation: I need this economic stimulus plan to pass so the government can hand out checks to everybody and hopefully you’ll all go out and spend it right away. (Nevermind that I’ve been spending it all and then some on two wars for a few years now.)

To show he trusts us with our own money, Dubya wants a few things from Congress, notably making his tax cuts permanent and a plan to issue tax-free bonds, the proceeds from which would go toward funding mortgage refinancing (this I found really peculiar since risky mortgages that were packaged together and sold to investors as bonds are a HUGE part of what weakened the economy to begin with).

But really, what Bush wants for the economy might be of little consequence. He’s a lame-duck president with Congress controlled by the other party and even candidates in his own party distancing themselves from him. It’s unlikely he’ll get much of what he asked for, save for maybe the tax-rebate stimulus plan.

So here’s a more important question: What do you think would work best to turn the economy around? Let us know in the comments section.