This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 14, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Basic lessons in economics can help us, if nothing else, detect when politicians are

either ignorant or more often the case

disingenuous.

Lawrence Reed heads the foundation for economic education.

He also founded the Mackinaw Center for Public Policy in Michigan. We spoke about the value of basic

economics education for every American.

Economic education is indispensable to a free society. If you are well trained in economics you understand such things as

everything has a cost, nothing is really free, you begin to ask questions like

what is it going to cost and who's going to pay for it. You understand that the federal

government is never a fountain of free goodies and you understand such things as free trade is very beneficial and that protective tariffs are harmful to an economy.

The problem these days is that economics is not taught very widely and not taught well

when it is taught.

And students are often graduating from high school and even from some colleges,

understanding very little about the important pillars of how a free economy operates.

Brian Kaplan in his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, goes through a bunch of survey data to find

out that the public doesn't agree on certain principles where there is very

high agreement among economists.

That is, wage and price controls are bad and things like that.

But even when we go into the polls, even if we know those things,

we sometimes don't vote as if those things are true.

...