Your kids can have fun and learn useful life skills this summer at camp..

[Fumesucker]

I had to scrape my jaw up off my truck floor when I saw this one, if it hadn't been in the middle of a traffic jam I'd never have gotten a shot.

How would you like to have gone to *this* camp when you were ten years old, eh?

Some of you who are are old enough might remember this line..

Hello muddah

Hello faddah

[MindPilot]

1. From where I sit right now it would be a lot more useful than my childhood summer camp

Sure I can build a nativity scene out of popsicle sticks, but that is not going to finance my retirement.

[Fumesucker]

2. I've owned my own business for well over twenty years..

Indeed, I grew up in a small business environment, both of my parents owned their own businesses.

From that perspective I can tell you that the great majority of people do not have the aptitudes and skills necessary for being business owners.

Not to mention that the skills and aptitudes required for starting a business are often considerably different from those needed to maintain an ongoing operation.

Just check out the statistics on the failure rate of small businesses, it's heartbreaking.

It's people who have been trained in "business schools" who have been largely responsible for the current financial debacle our nation finds itself in, more of the same, starting earlier is not going to save us.

[SoCalDem]

3. My son went to computer camp one summer

:)

[Fumesucker]

4. I don't think that is quite the same thing..

Your son was most likely interested in computers, I strongly suspect the kids that go to this "camp" will not have a great deal of interest in business and investing at ages 10-13, it will be the parents who will pick out this "camp".

This comment isn't aimed at you but more generally: It isn't what we don't know that hurts us so often, it's that which we *think* we know that isn't so. "That gun is not loaded" is a prime example.

A "camp" like this is going to produce a great many kids who think they know more than they do and much of what they do "know" is going to be flat out wrong.

[notesdev]

5. It depends on what they're teaching

If this camp is teaching kids the fundamentals of money, personal finance, saving for buying a home, having a family, and retirement - that's a really good thing. I wish I had gone to such a camp, would have saved me a lot of grief. And I don't think anyone can argue that this country doesn't lack for education about money.

On the other hand, if this is simply giving a new set of rogues an early start on how to manipulate markets to fleece the rest of us... well, that career path isn't looking very promising right now.

[Fumesucker]

8. This is for 10 to 13 year olds..

I could understand if we were talking 15, 16, 17, kids at that age are starting to get a bit of sophistication.

They're going to teach high finance to a ten year old?

:rofl:

[AngryOldDem]

6. I really see nothing wrong with that.

Managing money and investing intelligently are necessary skills these days. It should be a required subject in school, IMHO -- looking back I would have benefited MUCH more had I had to have taken a basic economics course in high school over the required shop class or home ec.

Now...if this camp is run by Jim Cramer...

[Fumesucker]

7. How does one "invest intelligently" when the system is being gamed by the biggest wheels?

Lots of the little people who did everything they were supposed to do to invest wisely have lost huge amounts of money.

That is the basic purpose of the stock market these days, fleecing the little guy and enriching the big wheels.

When some players are wealthy enough to swing the markets there is no way the little guy is going to get an even break.