A Financial Responsibility Teach-in

The U.S. Treasury Department is represented in Madison today. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Education, Dan Iannicola Jr. addressed the 2005 National Institute of Financial and Economic Literacy teacher training session at Edgewood College. This organization was formerly the Wisconsin Institute of Financial Economic Education, but went national on paper in an effort to draw in attendees from outside the State. Rule #1 for making money: have people with money come to you and spend it.

Is there any irony in the government training people in the skills required for financial responsibility? Perhaps Governor Doyle should be running a seminar on how to create money from thin air. Hint: start with a piece of paper and your personal choice of White Out or a Black Sharpie.

This has me wondering what became of Madison's 2001 Walk Like A Duck Program. The Federal Government kicked in $6,000 and Madison anted up $5,900 in an effort to “improve both the perception and reality of pedestrian dangers in the city”. The Madison Police Department conceived a plan with four tactics including “posting pedestrian safety signs on police billboards, including “Quack, Quack, Quack”, and “You stop for Ducks, Why not for People?” and “It's nothing to quack about, Stop for Pedestrians”. Perhaps the MPD should have attended today’s little teach in.