I was channel flipping today when I came across this corporate propaganda - aimed at kids and on public television! It depicted young kids - preteeens - taking out business loans, and encouraged other kids to do the same thing! Their interest rates were terrible at that! The last thing we need to do is raise ANOTHER generation of debtors. Luckily, I think most parents today realize this is a bad idea, given their own economic problems and the economic crisis in general. But when I, and probably parents, turn on PBS, I think there is going to be some level of neutrality and sound educational material for children. The kind of stuff you can let your kids watch without having to explain to them that the information they're being fed is biased and shouldn't be taken at face value. Sadly, that seems to not be the case. It's fine to teach people to manage their money, pay back their loans (IF they do decide to take them out - we need to stop assuming that everyone should or has to take them out), build their credit (although our reliance on credit scores also encourages a debt culture), and so on, when they're old enough to make these decisions based on their own needs and assets. We shouldn't be normalizing debt to young kids!
Review of Biz Kid$
