the old programs mostly told you how to balance a checkbook. I can't imagine what a program would be like now, where they need to invest in stocks, manage a 401 k, consistently put a fraction of all earnings into something, and understand increasingly arcane financial products.

Sort of like teaching computers, from HTML and CSS to Github and all the related technologies. I think people don't realize how complex modern life has gotten in such a short time

It would need to cover:

1. time value of money (exponential interest)

2. the basics of double entry accounting

3. what stocks are and how they work

4. what bonds are an how they work

5. how loans work

6. how a business makes a profit

7. what "float" is

Arcana is not necessary, just the basic stuff. Ignorance, and even worse, misconceptions, form a large barrier to people wanting to move up in the world.

It's crazy that otherwise well informed adults are unable to distinguish "revenue" from "profit". Heck, I learned this when I was 10 and started buying and selling comics. I bragged to my dad how much I "made" from the sales. He laughed and punctured my balloon by pointing out how much I'd paid for the books.

I paid this forward years later when a friend was so pleased he'd "won" $250 with a lottery ticket. I asked him how much he'd spent on losing tickets, and his face fell. That was the end of lottery investing for him.

That's not an inconsequential amount to learn, especially teaching someone how stocks work in terms of buying or valuing them, or how to evaluate a business working or not working. I think it gets pushed up into college level courses, honestly; I don't know the best way to teach these subjects to the average 14 year old.

You can break it down to the proverbial lemonade stand. Set one up and let the kids run it. Or when the kids run a bake sale to raise money for the dance - there's a good opportunity to impart this information.

Using real money will pique their interest.

Probably the best episode of "The Apprentice" was the very first, where the teams had to each set up and run a lemonade stand for a day.