Doug Clark: Scientology has nothing on Clarkonomics

National studies reveal that average Americans know less about money matters than the Octomom knows about family planning.

This may explain why the nation is now in an even bigger financial mess than Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.”

In that documentary on capitalism, a pre-Scientology Cruise had to become a whoremaster in his own home in order to raise his bailout money.

Members of my baby boomer generation never gave much thought to economics. We were too busy ushering in a new era of peace and harmony through song lyrics, like …

“In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey.

“Don’t you know that I’m lovin’ you?

“In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby.

“Don’t you know that I’ll always be true?”

As a result our understanding of financial matters was based mostly on two concepts.

1. Easy Credit Payments.

2. Buy High. Sell Low.

But now that we’re creaking closer toward retirement – aka “The Drooling Years” – many of my aging rocker peers are beginning to have second thoughts about those waterbeds and mood rings and other stuff they bought on time with higher interest rates than what a Mafia loan shark would charge.

I only have myself to blame.

My Old Man tried to teach me about economics through a series of loud daily lectures that sometimes came with a rap to the back of my skull.

Unfortunately, while telling me about the importance of saving money and how he survived the slums of Chicago during the Great Depression, all I could hear was …

“Ob-la-di ob-la-da

“Life goes on, bra.

“La la how the life goes on.”

I do remember my Old Man saying once that I had “champagne taste and a Kool-Aid wallet.”

I immediately made a mental note to go charge a bottle of really good bubbly on my credit card next time I passed a liquor store.

But it’s never too late to become informed. That’s why I have enrolled all of you in my School of Clarkonomics.

For today’s lesson, we will define a few economic terms that keep popping up in the media.

•Bull market – Phrase used for when Congress is in session. Usually preceded by the words “Load of.”

•Ponzi scheme – Wild and crazy ideas hatched by Henry Winkler on the old “Happy Days” TV sitcom.

•APR – Abbreviation for “annual percentage rate.” Credit card companies use many innocuous terms like this to hide the fact that they’re gutting you like a fish.

•Inflation – Condition promised by the wonder drug Cialis. If this condition lasts more than four hours, however, manufacturers urge you to consider going into the bordello business like Tom Cruise.

•Downsizing – A term fat cats (i.e., CEOs, corporate managers, administrators, publishers …) use to make tossing good and loyal workers out in the cold sound friendlier. This is similar to the way the military uses “neutralizing” to describe bombing helpless human beings to bloody smithereens.

•AIG – The entertaining sound a stockbroker makes when he does a header out a 12-story window after losing all his clients’ money. As in: “AAAIIIGGGGG …” Splat!

•Retirement fund – Something a whole bunch of us used to have.

•Stimulus package – See inflation.