I.O.U.S.A - Addison Wiggin [47]
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Part Two
THE INTERVIEWS
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THE INTERVIEWS
We interviewed two former Fed chairmen, two former Treasury secretaries, one former commerce secretary, and two former presidential candidates.
We talked to the two ranking senators on the Senate Budget Committee and the fi rst director of the Congressional Budget Offi ce. We talked to the richest man in the world, several best - selling fi nancial authors, leading policy makers, bankers, and businessmen. We talked to journalists and editors of leading fi nancial publications.
We came to refer to the list of experts who agreed to sit for the movie interviews as the “ Mt. Rushmore Crowd ” for their contribution to American economics. Those who accepted, frankly, exceeded our expectations. Because they gave us a wide range of opinions far beyond the scope of the fi lm, we ’ ve published the complete transcripts of their interviews right here in this book.
Although this group of economic heavy hitters comes from a wide range of educational backgrounds, political persuasions, and economic training, something the illustri-ous cast of I.O.U.S.A. can see eye - to - eye on is this: The U.S.
economy cannot sustain its current path. And if we don ’ t do something now, our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay for our mistakes.
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Interviews
Featured Interviews
Alice Rivlin
William Bonner
Robert Rubin
Peter G. Peterson
Ron Paul
Paul A. Volcker
Dr. Alan Greenspan
Warren Buffett
James Areddy
Paul O ’ Neill
Bonus Interviews
Arthur Laffer
Steve Forbes
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Alice Rivlin
Alice Rivlin has been surprising teachers and peers since college, when she switched majors to study economics after taking a summer school class. Known as a “ defi cit hawk ” with Robert Rubin on the team that balanced the budget during the Clinton Administration, she served as the fi rst director in 1975 of the Congressional Budget Offi ce, an impartial, quasi - governmental agency created by the Congress as a source of reliable, untainted numbers on the economy. Today she works at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C.
Q: The fi eld of economics feels like a very male - dominated world.
How did you get into this?
Alice Rivlin : I got into economics sort of by accident, but maybe everybody does. I took a course in summer school, when I was between my freshman and sophomore year, and I loved it. I had a charismatic teacher who was very good at explaining, and sort of turned us all on to economics. And then I went back to my regular college and said, “ Here I am. I want to major in economics. ”
And I did.
Q: What is it about economics that you fi nd interesting?
Alice Rivlin: Well, I think what fascinated me is not so much economics, per se, but public policy. I really care about how things like taxes and budgets and policies on welfare or health policy, how they affect people and how they affect the economy.
Q: Do you ever feel that the American economy and the world economy are something you are never really going to completely fi gure out? Is that part of what makes it appealing, or is that part of what makes it frustrating?
Alice Rivlin: I do not think anybody thinks they can fi gure out everything in economics. It is very complicated. Economies are 99
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100 The
Interviews
complicated. They are the result of what individual people and companies do. And nobody is ever going to be able to predict that absolutely. But that is why it is interesting. In a way, I think it is like medicine. The human body is very complicated, and doctors are always trying to fi gure it out, and they are never certain. And that is why economics is interesting to me.
Q: You were the fi rst director at the CBO. How did that come to be?
Alice