Jill Schlesinger challenges money myths and risky business-buying advice

A 29-year-old who has been out of work for four years says he no longer believes in the American dream or the stock market, and that is exactly the kind of hopelessness money influencers can monetize. Jill Schlesinger’s new CBS News podcast, Money Moves with Jill Schlesinger, is a counterweight, promising clear, actionable guidance with “no jargon” and “no judgment,” while co-host and producer Mark Talercio helps turn the show into a place where financial myths can be challenged in plain English.

Why financial nihilism spreads so fast

The frustration behind that 29-year-old’s view is not hard to understand. A Gallup poll found that less than half of Americans ages 15 to 34 felt like it was a good time to find a job in 2025, and the April employment report showed the economy added only 115,000 jobs while the unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent. That combination, a cooling labor market and weak confidence among younger workers, creates the perfect opening for online pitches that promise escape through investing hacks or business ownership shortcuts.

Schlesinger has already addressed that mood in her earlier work on young workers, saying they can still improve their odds by leveraging their networks to find work. That advice is less glamorous than the algorithmic confidence of social media finance, but it is grounded in the reality that job searches still run through people, referrals and reputations, not just screens.

What Schlesinger is trying to do differently

CBS News launched Money Moves with Jill Schlesinger to answer listeners’ questions, offer advice, break down financial news and challenge money myths circulating online. The show is updated semiweekly and focused on saving, investing, buying a home, managing a career and deciding how to spend hard-earned dollars. It is also available in audio and video formats, which helps Schlesinger reach an audience that increasingly gets financial advice in short-form clips rather than long-form explanations.

Schlesinger’s tone matters as much as the format. She has described her on-air mission as calling out “dopey financial advice” and providing “clear, actionable financial guidance” with “no jargon” and “no judgment.” That stance fits a broader need in the market: people who feel locked out of asset ownership often do not need another fantasy about overnight wealth, they need a clearer map of what is actually available, what is risky, and what can be done next.

Her credibility comes from long experience. Schlesinger began her financial-journalism career on April 6, 2009, and has since covered the economy, markets and investing for CBS News.

The business-buying pitch that sounds easier than it is

That reality check becomes especially important when the advice turns to small-business acquisition content. Ben Kelly, who brands himself “Acquisition Ace,” has publicly promoted a “buy your first business with $0” strategy. In a Nov. 3, 2024 YouTube course titled “How To Acquire Your First Business With $0 (FREE COURSE),” he described using SBA loans and no money down to buy a first business.

Kelly doubled down in a Feb. 18, 2025 blog post titled “4 things I wish I’d known before buying an accounting firm,” where he framed his lessons as coming from building an accounting-firm portfolio “without being a CPA.” In a LinkedIn post, he said he bought a CPA firm for $1,800,000 and claimed it cash flows $400,000 per year. He wants to buy 20 accounting firms by 2027.

For a person who feels shut out of wages and markets, the pitch is seductive: borrow money, buy a boring business, and let cash flow solve the problem. But the advice skips over a major issue: accounting firms are not ordinary assets, because licensing and registration rules shape who can own and operate them.

Where the rules collide with influencer optimism

Buying an accounting practice can hinge on state-level rules that determine whether a deal is even permissible, and under what structure. The AICPA guide “Is Buying an Accounting Practice Right for You?” frames that question. North Carolina State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners rules on forms of practice take effect June 1, 2026, and Georgia has a chapter on registration requirements for accounting firms.

Those rules are the kind of detail influencer advice tends to flatten out. An acquisition can be financed in creative ways, but financing does not erase licensure, ownership, registration or professional-ethics requirements.

A Reddit discussion in May 2025 questioned how non-licensed buyers could acquire licensed businesses such as CPA firms, HVAC firms and landscaping firms, which reflects how often social media glosses over the difference between buying a cash-flow story and buying a regulated operation. The more a pitch leans on “$0 down” and “without being a CPA,” the more carefully the underlying rules need to be checked.

What a credible next step looks like

For people who feel trapped between unemployment and influencer optimism, the practical answer is not to reject work, investing or entrepreneurship. It is to separate what can be controlled from what cannot, and to start with the least romantic part of the plan.

• If the goal is income, the first move is still a job search, especially through networks, referrals and direct outreach.

• If the goal is investing, treat the stock market as a long-term tool, not a shortcut to dignity.

• If the goal is business ownership, verify the licensing rules before you chase a seller’s pitch or a loan structure. The AICPA guide and state board rules in North Carolina and Georgia make clear that ownership is as much about compliance as it is about capital.