In June, from 9:50 a.m. to noon every day, I will be teaching principles of macroeconomics. A good portion of this course covers fiscal and monetary policy, and I would suggest that politicians, columnists and others who are inclined to criticize our current efforts at stemming this recession should take the class. It's quite clear there is a lot of misunderstanding about what the administration and the Federal Reserve are trying to accomplish.

The current monetary base expansion by the Fed and fiscal stimulus package of the government is taught to our students as the appropriate policy during a recession. The ideas are not new but rather concepts that have been taught and debated for over 75 years. Mostly, they stem from John Keynes' writings in the first third of the 20th century, but this is not to say these applications have been thoroughly tested. There is still considerable debate among economists about the best policy, but I think it's safe to say that what we're seeing right now might be called "conventional wisdom."

While there are legitimate criticisms that can be leveled at the current policy approach, some comments are just plain dumb. The one I hear the most is that we are mortgaging our children's and grandchildren's futures with huge current budget deficits that contribute to the national debt.

Somehow, the implication is these poor kids are going to have to pay back trillions of dollars that we are borrowing today. While this sounds terrible, it's not true.

The largest percentage increase in the national debt occurred during the 1940s. Those of us who are children or grandchildren of the parents of that era inherited their debt. Yet, we didn't pay it back. How much sleep have you lost over the debt? Do you think our kids will be any different? The fact is so long as people are willing to loan money to the U.S. government - and it seems there is no shortage of that - the debt doesn't need to be paid back. Further, more than 80 percent of the debt is not owed to foreigners but to ourselves and government agencies. That's what makes it so different from the debts you and I owe and less of a concern.

The stimulus package is not necessarily a permanent increase in government spending. Most of it seems to be one-time expenditures on expanding and repairing infrastructure in the U.S., something that is sorely needed, or on short-term aid. If that's true then the fears of a permanently expanded government sector leading to socialism are considerably overstated. Undoubtedly, government spending is increasing, but the difference between large government and socialism is great and misunderstood. This, too, is covered in my class.

This focus on the national debt troubles me for another reason. When I go to the credit union to borrow money, I fill out a financial statement and list all of my debts. But I also list all my assets. The difference between the two is my net worth, and hopefully it's positive. We don't do this for the federal government. All we do is look at what the federal government owes - our national debt - but we never look at the national asset. Some get alarmed because the debt is so high yet forget our federal government owns so much. How much is the interstate highway system worth? How much are all of the properties, dams and federal buildings worth? How much is our military hardware worth? How much is Washington, D.C., worth? It seems inappropriate to focus so much on the national debt and not try to calculate our national net worth. Some attempts at this have been made and they vary widely, but the general agreement is our national net worth is positive.

There are some reasons to be concerned about the current monetary and fiscal policy, but nobody seems to be talking about them. For example, there is a real possibility that when the economy turns around we could be faced with strong inflationary pressures unless our policymakers act wisely and quickly. And interest on the national debt is expensive.

Instead of the uninformed criticism of our current approach to combating this severe recession, the critics would be better served by learning some economics. To enroll in my class, please contact the UNI registrar.