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Economist and TV personality Ben Stein speaks at UMW's Fredericksburg Forum Date published: 10/21/2009
BY JEFF BRANSCOME Ben Stein, best known for a small role in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," talked about the economic crisis and other issues last night at the University of Mary Washington's Fredericksburg Forum. Stein, an economist, has been a presidential speechwriter, actor, game-show host and filmmaker. People filled Dodd Auditorium for Stein's appearance. He gave a speech and answered pre-written questions from the audience. He said the recession is over for Wall Street but not for everybody else. Still, he said, it will eventually end. "I would like for this to be your takeaway--we will get out of this somehow, we always do," Stein said. In response to a question, he said the country would be in "serious, serious trouble" if the government hadn't bailed out banks. "We have to have a functioning banking system, so we had to bail them out," he said. And on a lighter note, he said his favorite job was his role as a boring teacher on "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." He even re-enacted the scene in which he calls roll and drones, "Bueller, Bueller, Bueller." Stein sat down with The Free Lance-Star for an interview yesterday afternoon before his talk at UMW. Here are some of the questions and answers from that exchange. Who is responsible for the economic downturn and who's responsible for fixing it? I believe that this is the first recession in the history of the United States to have been caused not by a mistake of government monetary policy but by a gigantic error, or series of errors, in the private sector. Certainly, it's the first recession in the last 100 years to have been caused by a colossal series of blunders in the private sector and not by mistakes by the Federal Reserve or the Treasury. That being said, the only person or group that can rescue it is the government, and they are doing that to some extent, although it's not working perfectly. The government, I'm afraid, is going to have to keep on pouring liquidity in until there's just so much liquidity in the banks that they actually start to lend some to the ordinary citizen. What's your take on the economic impact of any health care reform?
I've known a lot of soldiers who were in for credit counseling at one point or another so it can't be paying that much. But what kind of advice can you expect from someone who endorsed an outfit which offered free credit score but charged $30 a month to see the report behind the score (consumers can already get a free online report under federal law)
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