Believe it or not, there’s a lot more to Ben Stein than just sarcasm spouted forth by a monotone voice.
For those who attended the annual Bakersfield Business Conference and only know Stein as the host of the quiz show “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” or as the nasal-toned, lifeless teacher in the film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” it may have come as a surprise to hear him expertly speak of the economy and family values.
But he did, and along the way managed to still get some laughs out of the audience.
What many of the attendees may not have known is that Stein is the son of Herbert Stein, an economist and writer. Like his father, Stein is also a notable economist, and spoke to the audience about the country’s present economic situation.
“Here’s what’s going on in the economy in a nutshell,” Stein said. “We are either just in or just out of a small recession, and it’s a very unusual recession because it hardly raised unemployment at all … So for large segments of the economy there was basically no recession at all, and in a few segments of the economy … it was a catasprophe.”
Stein said some of the reasons for this was because the manufacturers are now a small part of the economy, the telecommunications sector collapsed, WorldCom is bankrupt, and AT&T, as well as America Online, are barely alive.”
He said he is hopeful the economy will start to build up again.
“The stock crisis, I think, has reached its bottom. It won’t be a smooth up-turn from now on, but in a rocky way they’re going to make their way back.”
He also argued against several negative perceptions of America.
“This is a country which is better to its own people than any other country in the whole world, than any other country has ever been in history,” he said. “When I watch the pictures on TV of the demonstrators in London saying what a big bully America is, I keep thinking, ‘Where would you have been if this big bully hadn’t come along and helped you in 1941?’ When I see the pictures of those demonstrating in Paris about what nasty, fascists we are, I think, ‘You jerks, we saved you from the real fascists over and over again, how many times do we have to do it again before you get it right?’ ”
Showing a softer side, he spoke of the importance of appreciating one’s family.
“There is one thing I can do better than anyone else in the world, I can be really, really good to my family and friends,” Stein said.
He told the audience that when he realized this he was living in Los Angeles and his parents lived in Washington, D.C. He decided to visit them a week each month, just to spend time with them. He listened to the stories of his father in the Navy during World War II, and of his mother growing up in a small town in upstate New York.
“I would be a son to them,” he said. “Nobody else is ever going to be a son to them except me. I’m their only son. And I could be a good son to them. They were never going to bring in competition from Taiwan or Mexico to be a son to them, I can do that better than anyone else.”
Stein said shortly before his mother died, she wrote him a note saying he had restored her hope in mankind because he had been so good to her. When she died, his father was lonely, so Stein started taking long rides and walks through Washington with him.
“He wrote me an e-mail shortly before he died, on my birthday, that said, ‘Happy Birthday to the best son in the world, my confidante, my adviser, my support, my friend.’ That is the most valuable piece of paper that I own. I would crumple up and throw away my diploma from Yale Law School in a second compared to keeping that letter from my father.”