Ready for class, boys and girls? Good. The word of the day is tween. What in the name of Bugsy Siegel is a tween, you say? A tween is a girl between the age of 8 and 13. And according to the newsboys, they're responsible for hundreds of billions of consumer bucks spent each year. And the advertising boys are after them.

The new marketing gig is to find out which dame is the "alpha girl" and have her host a slumber party at her house with a bunch of her friends, see? The alpha girl acts like a secret agent for the marketers to tell all her friends how big-time the new stuff is. Before you know it, wee ones are being exploited and wallets are being exploded to buy all the junk for the kids.

Anyone else have a problem with this? Kids need to learn how to save money, invest money and give money away, not spend their formative years as cheap labor for some bigshot tech, toy and T-shirt companies. Get your kids to do the Dave Ramsey thing with the dough, like make a budget and do those three things from above. Simple, simon.