Katie Couric's Notebook: Banking
That was the first sentence of FDR's first fireside chat.
It was 1933.
There was widespread panic about the economy and millions of Americans were removing their cash from banks. They needed someone to explain in plain English what was going on.
Banking, like everything else since 1933, has gotten increasingly complicated. Derivatives, hedge funds, subprime -- the words make your eyes glaze over.
As Anna Quindlen wrote in Newsweek, "the great unspoken issue is that Americans don't understand the basics of the economy."
That's where the panic comes from -- a lack of understanding exacerbates a lack of confidence.
Today's hearth might be the TV, or a Web site, but President Obama should think about reviving FDR's tradition and become Professor Obama.
We could all use a little Finance 101. Maybe if we understood the problem, we could understand the solution.
That's a page from my notebook.