ConsumerEducation

ConsumerEducation is the education of consumers. All persons are consumers. Consuming is an inescapable part of human life. Education is intellectual development. Education makes people smarter. Smart consumers drive a hard bargain. This is good, because most consumer goods are obtained from the marketplace, which is a venue for marketing. Consumers need to be as innocent as doves and as wise as serpents. ConsumerEducation is how they get that way. ConsumerEducation is part of the curriculum in many schools. While these classes alert kids to the most flagrant abuses of consumers, they do little to increase the intelligence of their students. They tend to be implemented as curricular fluff, with little analytical content. It might be wise to take a more multidisciplinary approach to consumer education. [Consumers' Union] has introduced empirical methods to consumer education. This is a good start. Hopefully we can add some of the following resources:

• published (especially SamIzdat published) research on the consumer marketplace.
• DataMining. Consumers and their behavior are constantly the subject of [[|http://bear.cba.ufl.edu/centers/ciber/workingpapers/Agencyth.html data mining||http://www.kroger.com/faqs_shopperscard.htm]]. They would do well to become principals of it.
• mathematical modeling of the retail industry.
• recruiting [[|http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.04/idees.fortes2.html volunteers||http://www.brightidea.com/obviewidea.asp?ideaid{7643717A-C33F-419C-9DC6-45CBCB0A77FE}