Money bites. Bite back.

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So why are you reading this?

No, seriously, why? If you are a student, you are a “NINJA”: No Income, No Job, No Assets. What do you care about money? Heck, what do you care about the “real world” and making money?

Money may not be the most important thing in our lives right now, but it will be soon enough. The Eagle has launched the Money blog because it touches on a universal concern. Money knows no color, gender, creed, party or clique. All it knows is who is willing to grab it.

I write about business for a living. I write a newsletter for the Commodity Markets Council, a trade association of futures exchanges and end-industry users. Once a week, I write for executives who know far more about the subject than I do. Now, I want to try something I know well: personal finance and general business news.

My blog has three goals:

•helping young people make educated investment and consumer finance decisions
•update you on business and economic news, and how it affects your life
•offer practical advice on money, such as where to shop, how to start investing, and how to protect your wallet (something I learned the hard way).

Let me give you an example on the former, how business news affects your life. Earlier this month, Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw argued that technological change has, for the first time, outpaced increasing education standards as a whole. In this piece nicely summarized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Mankiw points to an economic analysis of education levels and technology in the 20th century.

Technology grew constantly in the 20th century, making many workers obsolete. However, the growth of universities and the GI bill kept society well-educated, and skilled laborers weren’t paid much more than unskilled ones. That relationship broke down at the end of the century. Says Mankiw:

The cohort of workers born in 1950 averaged 4.67 more years of schooling than the cohort born in 1900, representing an increase of 0.93 years of schooling in each decade. By contrast, the cohort born in 1975 had only 0.74 more years of schooling than that born in 1950, an increase of only 0.30 years per decade. That is, the pace of educational advance [of society] has fallen by 68 percent.

That may be bad news for the country, but it’s great news for those with college degrees. Those with bachelors degrees can better use new technology, and employers value them more than those with less education. In other words, your wages will be higher than many others. Much higher. To me, this is all the more reason to invest in continuing education, maybe even an advanced degree.

Money is at the root of more than evil. Money can be at the root of a lot of things. The coming blog posts will explore how money and business affects your life, and how you can affect money’s life (assuming money has a soul, that is).

That being said, here is my question to you: How much do you follow money-related issues? Are they something you want to learn more about?