Economic Education: Making the Half-Truths Whole

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure and a privilege to address you today, both for professional and personal reasons. On the professional side, economic education is a subject close to my heart. There are few higher callings in this life--at least from the perspective of a professional economist and policymaker like me--and I can't overstate the importance of your work. In today's world, our nation's economic policies can either unleash the creative energies of average citizens and raise the quality of our lives or do the opposite--often with astonishing force and speed. Poor economic outcomes, of course, are the result of poor economic policies, and poor economic policies, in turn, usually rest on economic half-truths or worse. Economic education offers our best chance to make the half-truths whole. You teachers--with the support of the South Carolina Council on Economic Education, state and local government, and the business community--are helping your students understand economic policy and the markets through which it works. I applaud all of you as loudly as I possibly can. Just as the Fed must be ever-vigilant to the threat of inflation, you must be vigilant to the threat of economic illiteracy. And our missions are not separate--for economic illiteracy is the seed from which inflation and other economic and financial problems grow.