Rick Kelo – Engaging People in the State of Our Economy

When discussions about the United States economy arise in casual conversation, most people’s eyes immediately gloss over. This is for two reasons. First, the vast majority of Americans have only a superficial understanding of the United States economy and that can make these types of discussions very disarming. Second, there is a serious apathy that exists around discussion about the nation’s economic wellbeing, despite being arguably the most important topic in our culture. The sources for these two problems are arguably the education system and deeply ingrained aversion in our society towards talking about important topics. So how can we change this negative aspect of our society?

For economists and educator such as RickKelo, education is a priority. Helping people to better understand what is going on around them has a natural effect of making them care more. On his blog, Rick Kelo writes about important topics such as “The Minimum Wage Issue”, “What is the Optimal Progressive Tax?”, “Answering for the 2008 Global Economic Crash”, and “Free Market Capitalism and the Drive Towards Progress”. Before you let your eyes glaze over at those titles, he has also published articles such as “Socialism and Star Wars” in which he compares traditional socialist theories to the political structure of the Star Wars universe. By writing about economics in engaging ways, he is helping people understand the issues in our society and encouraging people to voice their own opinions.

He has also used social media and the digital world as his primary means of communicating. This has had a significant impact on the response to his writings. Many millennials, and in fact more than 60% of all people in the United States, get their news exclusively from social media. Because of this, it is crucial that thought-leaders and those who care about the economy take to the web as a battleground for sharing information. By getting information out there to the majority of people, Rick Kelo and other economists like him are making sure that our country is more informed, even if it is in a relatively small way.

Finally, for Rick Kelo, exposing thefault lines of our economies is a crucial step in getting people to care about our country. It is easy to remain apathetic when you think that everything is okay, or only slightly bad. When articles such as “American Poverty vs. African Wealth” show that the United States standard (specifically in Detroit) is lower than that of some African nations, it’s hard not to be upset and care about the situation.