Sesame Street Begins Teaching Children Fiscal Responsibility In Response To The Recession

video

by Jon Bershad | 3:29 pm, April 15th, 2011

» 12 comments

After the financial crisis hit, there was a lot of talk about how it would affect both Wall Street and Main Street. However, no one was paying attention to Sesame Street. The New York Times has an interesting report out today about the seminal show’s attempts to teach “financial literacy” to all of those children the politicians keep warning are gonna get all our debt.

The program comes as part of a partnership with PNC Bank and will include a series of videos an educational materials that can be downloaded for free or picked up at the bank. The videos will include stories like Elmo wanting to buy a “Stupendous Ball” toy and having to decide whether to buy lesser things now or save up for what he really wants later.

It’s an cool idea and one that will hopefully prepare our children for the economic hellscape that all of our elected officials are predicting for them. Really though, can any of these videos teach kids about money problems better than the lesson they’ll eventually get once the government cuts PBS’ funding and Sesame Street loses its felt budget?

You can watch the video report on the program (including and interview with Elmo himself!) below and read Ron Lieber’s interesting article on it here.

BadGenome

“Really though, can any of these videos teach kids about money problems better than the lesson they’ll eventually get once the government cuts PBS’ funding and Sesame Street loses its felt budget?”

Nope. *snip, snip*
timzank

“It’s an cool idea and one that will hopefully prepare our children for the economic hellscape that all of our elected officials are predicting for them.”

JON: Who do you think is going to pay back the Chinese? Seriously question, Jon, who will be paying back those trillions? The Unicorns?

It’s not a prediction by politicians, it’s a mathematical certainty. Obviously you don’t have children.
Arch

I’m not saying Sesame Street can do no wrong, but, wait… that’s exactly what I’m saying. Sesame Street is the greatest!
http://www.facebook.com/SinghNitish nitish

if PBS / Sesame Street converted to the traditional broadcast model, many of the current sponsors
@ http://www.sesameworkshop.org/fundingpartners
along with many more would line-up to advertise on Sesame Street, the NewsHour, Ken Burns documentaries, etc.
alternatively, they could go the syndication route and sell programming to the highest bidder
Yoda002

Too bad PBS will be part of the budget cuts.
timzank

Yoda002 said:
Too bad PBS will be part of the budget cuts.

Shouldn’t affect the broadcasts of PBS at all. It’s a measly $340 million, I would think 34 Hollywood liberals could pony up a million a piece pretty easy couldn’t they?
Judge Mental

Hallefreakinlujah. Now if we could just get the politicians (I’ll keep my comment non-partisan) to watch Sesame Street.
WaterLoo

Why teach fiscal responsibility? According to Michael Moore, we’re not in debt at all. No, actually, the real story is, the rich people are hoarding all the money and they owe us, the people, all their hard earned money. Makes sense right? The money the wealthy people worked hard for throughout their lives is actually, in reality, the other peoples’ money, not theirs. Here is what Sesame Street should be teaching our kids. Don’t make money, get money!!!
http://www.nutraslimhca.com/ nutraslim

so elmo now gets an allowance?
weenadd01

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Yoda002

timzank said:
Shouldn’t affect the broadcasts of PBS at all. It’s a measly $340 million, I would think 34 Hollywood liberals could pony up a million a piece pretty easy couldn’t they?

You may want to recheck your math!
Davo

It’s great that PBS is looking like it’ll have forced taxpayer-funding stopped. I will be much better for the kids NOT to have Liberals spreading their financial irresponsibility concepts over to them.