Bob Murphy's Interview of Me, December 2018.
On how I got into economics and how I got the job at the Council of Economic Advisers.
Usually I’m good at giving crisp answers to questions. In this case, though, Bob Murphy seemed to welcome my very long answers to questions. It was hard not to go long. Part of it is that Bob is such a genial conversationalist. The other part is that I can tell you exactly how I got into economics and how I became a college professor (those were the first things he asked about) but I can’t do it briefly without leaving out a lot of important detail.
Ditto with how I got to the Council of Economic Advisers.
Here’s the link. It also gives links to the various articles, etc. that we discussed.
One of the fun discussions is about my writing for Antiwar.com while an economics professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. Another is about asking Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta a tough question about war. Here’s the link. Go to about the 43:40 point of the link.
P.S. I made a few little errors. The one I remember is my mention of buying a house in Arlington in 1982. No way. We rented. The combined net worth of my wife-to-be and me, including our cars and retirement assets, was under $10,000.
Interesting advice from Milton Friedman about letting politics be an avocation, not a career, so you won't be corrupted by a political paycheck. He always answered my letters, and I interviewed him on the phone twice. Early on, I confessed: "I'd really like to work at the Hoover Institution someday." And he said: "Don't gear up for a specific avenue of employment, but follow your heart." And that's what I did, and it all turned out for the best.
This is a fantastic interview! By the way, I too was going to go for an advanced degree in economics, but I foolishly thought that USC would be a better choice than UCLA, because I thought I should go to a private school, and not give a state school money. I'd had a good undergrad teacher at USC, who used the Alchian and Allen textbook, but grad school was dreadful. My first professor seemed to want us to prove that a socialist system was best. "Where's Art Laffer," I asked. "He's in the business school." Anyway, I had to take a computer science class and two calculus courses I'd never had, and it was 1980 and I saw how computers were revolutionizing everything, so I switched to a second undergrad degree in comp sci, dropping out when I realized I'd never be a good programmer. But I bought my first computer in 1983 and embarked on a whole new adventure, enjoying an internship at the National Journalism Center and then working with Donald Lambro on a book.