A few weeks ago I read a most unenlightened "My View" column that posited the value of additional taxation of the rich as one of the panaceas for our ailing economy. Sadly, this appears to be the prevailing view of most people, particularly those who aren't in the high-income category. It calls to mind a quote by playwright George Bernard Shaw, "a government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul." There seem to be a lot of Pauls out there.

One of the major factors contributing to our economic problems is the prevalence of economic illiteracy in this country. This, of course, is a by-product of our failed educational system. One would think that this form of illiteracy would be confined to the grossly under-educated, but it can be found throughout the population.

There are many individuals in high government positions who have absolutely no grasp of economics; to them it is just another political tool. Who are these folks? Certainly most congressmen must be economic illiterates; the secretary of the treasury speaks as one who is totally uninformed. The former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is either a crook or a fool. And one of our recent Supreme Court appointees demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge and discipline in the management of her own personal finances. To make matters worse, the president of the United States has demonstrated that he hasn't the slightest understanding of modern economics.

I can teach a 10-year-old the basics of economics and personal finance in a day; so why do so many Americans fail to understand the fundamentals? Shouldn't this be part of a core curriculum, at least in high school? What examination rates a student's proficiency in basic finance and economics? Or do they all have to learn the hard way?

During one of Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" episodes several years ago, he asked a young adult where the government got its money. The answer was "they print it." It was funny at the time, but little did we know how prescient that idiotic answer would be. By extrapolating that horrific grasp of economics, we come to the prevailing solutions for our economic woes: 1) spend more money; 2) raise taxes on the rich; 3) increase our debt burden. Add to that the redistribution of wealth and you have a recipe for disaster.

Three percent of American taxpayers (the so-called rich earning more than $200,000), already pay 52 percent of all income taxes. In the years following the Bush tax cuts (2003-2008), that same group paid 72 percent more in taxes, even though the tax rate declined. Of course, if you have no comprehension of how tax rates affect tax revenues, you may not fully appreciate this, but on the other side of the ledger, the consequences of spending money we don't have should be intuitively obvious to anyone with a third-grade education.

Now we get to the business of wealth redistribution. Heard any horror stories lately about the dummies who won the lottery and squandered their good fortune? Most people get rich because they are educated, motivated and creative. It is only in the minds of ideologues perpetuating class envy that the "rich" sit around spending an inheritance they didn't earn or getting richer by exploiting the "little people."

I believe that if all of the wealth of this country was divided equally today, it would revert to those from whom it was taken in a generation or two. That's not a law of economics; it's a law of life and common sense.

If we continue to pour functional illiterates into our population, our country will undoubtedly look like Greece in a few years — with people rioting to maintain entitlement payments from a bankrupt Treasury. I remember a quote from an Eastern European worker in the weeks following the breach of the Berlin Wall. He said "they pretended to pay us for work we pretended to do." In essence, they paid unproductive people with a worthless currency. Sound familiar?

Joseph L. Moure is a retired investment executive who lives in Santa Fe.