One of my nephews literally squatted at my house during the dotcom years. He was in his middle teens. He sat with me and my brothers on many days watching CNBC. He became interested in what was going on at the time, and, with one of his male cousins, began trading penny stocks at tiny dollar levels. It went on for a couple of years. He made money until the last dying days of the 90s boom.
When he went to college, he went to business school. While most of his classmates struggled with the rudimentary terminology and concepts, he breezed through it like first grade. He literally coasted through his upper classes and got a 3.6, which was not bad considering that his interest was difficult to keep while covering ground that seemed so routine for him.
He learned by immersion. Macroeconomics was like a first language. By the time he was 17, his grasp surpassed anything 0bama will have in his lifetime. Because during his youth, 0bama wasted his time on weed and basketball. His struggles yesterday to articulate the most basic economic terms was comical, until one realized that this a—clown is the figurehead for our nation.
I've always said personal finance and the market should be mandatory classes beginning in junior high school.
Your story of your nephew reminds me of the book entitled “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. His basic premise is that there is a certain amount of time required for an individual to excel at any skill. This book was an ok read. I esp enjoyed his first book “The Tipping Point”.