Sean Hayes on American’s financial literacy

Recently, I criticized Sean Haye’s for saying that “Everything happens for a reason,” which is a stupid thing to say and believe.

I return again with another Sean Haye’s criticism, despite the fact I still like the guy a lot. But on a recent episode of the podcast “Smartless,” he said to author Michael Lewis:

“Most Americans – most citizens – don’t have the time, energy, resources, anything – to learn about or educate themselves about how money works because they have families and have to go to work.”

I was so angry about this ridiculous statement that I began shouting in response. Stomping around the house, yelling at his disembodied voice in my headphones. The gist of my barbaric yawp went something like this:

You elitist jackass.

Americans don’t have the time?

Americans have plenty of time to educate themselves about how money works. They may spend their time elsewhere – Netflix, social media, baking, dragging their children to endless Little League practices, hiking, dating, napping, pub-crawling, vacationing, frolicking – but they certainly have the time to learn about finance if they wanted.

Americans don’t have the energy?

Do you think Americans are dragging themselves home everyday from work, seven days a week, barely making it through the front door before collapsing on the sofa? Americans have plenty of energy. They may expend that energy elsewhere, but they certainly have enough to learn about finance if that was their desire.

Americans don’t have the resources?

Americans have the internet, you idiot. Podcasts and Youtube channels and millions of webpages and online services devoted to the topic. Never in human history was learning made so easy and information so readily available.

Americans spend enormous amounts of time learning and doing lots and lots of new things. We’re not a beleaguered nation of shuffling, ignorant zombies, bereft of time, energy, and resources. If a person doesn’t understand how money works, it’s simply because their interests lie elsewhere.

My wife, Elysha, for example, doesn’t know a lot about finance. She might not be able to articulate the difference between a stock or bond. She probably can’t explain the poison pill that the Twitter Board of Directors recently used to protect themselves from Elon Musk’s buyout offer. She’s not following the Fed’s recent decisions on interest rates and probably doesn’t know the name of the person chairing the Fed today.

But she knows everything about nearly every kind of music. She possesses an enormous storehouse of knowledge about food. She’s steeped in feminism and its history. She reads. Plays the ukulele. Knits and sews and cross-stitches. Gardens. Cooks and bakes with great expertise. She’s an expert on pedagogy. Knows how to make large groups of small children behave and learn. She writes brilliantly. Understands fashion. Understands the ridiculous machinations of health insurance. She has a keen eye and understanding for design. Knows the history of art. She can walk through a museum and identify who painted and sculpted each piece simply by looking at it.

She doesn’t know a lot about how money works because it doesn’t interest her. Also, she knows I do.

But if she needed to know why a company might initiate a stock split or why share buy backs can increase shareholder value or what EDITDA stands for, she could certainly learn. Money is not rocket science, though if Elysha wanted to understand rocket science, she could probably do that, too.

Anyone could. The resources available today are extraordinary.

Sean Hayes implies that money is a subject that only the privileged few have the time, energy, and resources to comprehend. He insinuates that money is so complex and opaque that only the best and brightest could possibly understand it.

This is a ridiculous and insulting insinuation.

It belittles the average American. It perpetuates a myth that money is too complex for the average person to comprehend. It hurts those who want to learn more about money but think the subject is inaccessible to them.

I love you, Sean Hayes, but you need to think more highly of the average American and their capacity to learn.