Early years
Stein was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Mildred (née Fishman), a homemaker, and Herbert Stein, a writer, economist, and presidential adviser. He is Jewish and grew up in the Woodside Forest neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland. Stein graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in 1961 along with classmate journalist Carl Bernstein; actress Goldie Hawn (class of 1963) was two years behind. Actor Sylvester Stallone was a schoolmate at Montgomery Hills Junior High School. He went on to major in economics at Columbia University's Columbia College, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi society and the Philolexian Society. After graduating with honors from Columbia in 1966, Stein went to Yale Law School, graduating in June 1970. He says that he did not have the highest grades in his class at Yale, but was voted valedictorian by the students because he was most popular.
Legal and academic career
He was first a poverty lawyer in New Haven, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. before becoming a trial lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission.
Stein's first teaching stint was as an adjunct professor, teaching about the political and social content of mass culture at American University in Washington, D.C., and then at University of California, Santa Cruz. He also held classes on the political and civil rights of the United States Constitution at UC Santa Cruz. At Pepperdine University in Southern California, Stein taught libel law and United States securities law and its ethical aspects. He was a professor of law at Pepperdine University Law School, from about 1990 to 1997.
Stein was the commencement speaker for the Liberty University 2009 graduation on Saturday, May 9, at Williams Stadium. At this ceremony, the University awarded him an honorary degree. According to the school, Stein "delivered a message of creationism, patriotism and value for humanity to graduates and their families."
Writing career
Stein writes frequently on a variety of topics, including politics, investing and economics. He writes a regular column in the conservative magazines
The American Spectator and
Newsmax. He has also written for numerous publications including
The Wall Street Journal,
The New York Times,
New York Magazine,
Penthouse,
Los Angeles Magazine and
Barron's Magazine, where his discussion of the Michael Milken Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond situation, as well as the ethical dimensions of management buyouts, attracted heavy US national attention in the 1980s and 1990s. He wrote a regular biweekly column for
Yahoo! Finance online, with his last article dated August 7, 2009. His bestselling books (with investment advisor Phil DeMuth) include
Yes, You Can Retire Comfortably,
Can America Survive?, and
Yes, You Can Time the Market. In 2009, he published a collection of essays,
The Real Stars.
Stein was fired from his position as a Sunday Business columnist at
The New York Times in August 2009 due to a policy forbidding writers from performing product endorsements or advertising. Stein had recently become an advertising spokesperson for credit information company FreeScore.com, and according to a
Times statement, had assumed there would be no conflict provided that he did not discuss credit scoring in general or FreeScore.com itself in his column. However, the publication felt that it would be inappropriate for him to write for them while he was involved in advertising, and terminated his contract. Writing in
The Spectator, Stein states his belief that the real reasons for his firing were budget cuts at the
Times, his criticism of President Obama, and pressure from those critical of
Expelled, who "bamboozled some of the high pooh-bahs at the
Times into thinking there was a conflict of interest".
Political career
Stein began his political career as a speechwriter and lawyer for President Richard Nixon, and later for President Gerald Ford. On May 3, 1976,
Time magazine speculated on the possibility of Stein having actually been Deep Throat. Stein responded over the years by not only denying he was Deep Throat, but by going further and accusing journalist Bob Woodward of falsifying the famous secret source. In the May 14—21, 1998, edition of the
Philadelphia City Paper Stein is quoted saying, "Oh, I don't think there was a Deep Throat. That was a fake. I think there were several different sources and some they just made up." After Mark Felt's identity as Deep Throat was revealed, Stein stated that Richard Nixon would have prevented the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge if he had not been forced to resign. For his actions leading to that resignation, Stein said:
In 2005, Stein said in the
American Spectator:
On June 24, 2008, Stein received the Freedom of Expression Award at the Entertainment Merchants Association’s Home Entertainment Awards for "his outspoken economic and political beliefs."
Career in the media
Stein became a Hollywood consultant before he moved into acting. His film career was launched by his performance as the monotonic economics teacher in the 1986 movie
Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In one scene, he gives an unscripted economics lecture, relying on his own experience in economics. The topics covered in his lecture are the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 and the then-current debate over supply-side economics. When director John Hughes told him to speak about something he knew well, Stein decided to "just run with it." The only scripted lines are those in which he calls attendance, repeating "Bueller?...Bueller?" in a monotone voice.
Stein played similarly bland and unemotional characters. He had a recurring role in the TV series
The Wonder Years and played himself in
Dave.
He also appeared in several television commercials, most notably for Clear Eyes throughout the 1990s and 2000s
("The difference is clearClear Eyes.")—many ads spoof movies of the day, such as one where Stein is a painter (a play on
The Da Vinci Code). Stein's deadpan, monotone deliveries stand in stark contrast to the more typical enthusiasm of commercial personalities. Before this, he appeared for a Godfather's Pizza ad in 1987 and as a bland science teacher in a 1990 ad for Sprinkled Chips Ahoy Cookies.
In 1997, Stein was given his own game show by Comedy Central titled
Win Ben Stein's Money along with co-host Jimmy Kimmel (replaced by Nancy Pimental and later by Sal Iacono). True to its name, the money that contestants won on the show was subtracted from the $5,000 Stein earned per episode (in addition to his salary). The show won five Daytime Emmy awards before ending its run in 2003.
In 1999, during the height of
Win Ben Stein's Money's popularity, Comedy Central gave Stein another show, a talk show with celebrity guests entitled
Turn Ben Stein On. One of the mainstays of the show was Stein's dog, Puppy Wuppy, who had free run of the set.
Other movies and television shows in which Ben Stein has appeared include:
Charles in Charge,
Seinfeld,
Full House,
Casper,
A Spirited Beginning,
Casper Meets Wendy,
The Mask and its sequel,
Son of the Mask as well as the TV show,
The Animated Series,
Earthworm Jim,
Star Search,
MacGyver,
Richie Rich,
Game Show Moments Gone Bananas,
Cavuto on Business,
The O'Reilly Factor,
CBS News Sunday Morning,
Planes, Trains and Automobiles,
Family Guy, the Michael Berger-hosted version of
Match Game,
Fairly Odd Parents,
Duckman,
Married... with Children,
The Emperor's New School,
My Girl 2, and the intelligent design vs. evolution documentary
No Intelligence Allowed.
In addition, Stein's voice roles include The Pixies, magical creatures on the animated series
The Fairly OddParents, Mr. Purutu on the animated Series
The Emperor's New School, Professor Wisenstein in
Bruno the Kid, the birthday party clown on "Boy Genius" and Pip on
Animaniacs. Stein also voiced a psychiatrist, again named after himself, in the USA TV series Duckman; he once appeared in the sitcom Married with Children as a receptionist in the animal afterlife. He also made a cameo appearance in the comic book Young Justice; as Ali Ben Styn. Another cameo appearance was in the Family Guy episode
When You Wish Upon a Weinstein. Stein also voiced the character Sam Schmaltz in the 1996 computer adventure game
Toonstruck.
In addition, Stein has written for the television industry, including outlines for the TV movie
Murder in Mississippi and for the lengthy ABC miniseries
Amerika. He has also contributed to the creation of the well-liked TV comedy
Fernwood 2-Night.
Ben Stein hosted a show on VH1 called
America's Most Smartest Model. "America's Most Smartest Model" (2007) The show aimed to find the smartest among fourteen models through a series of challenges. reality blurred + VH1 plans America's Most Smartest Model, The Salt-N-Pepa Show, Danny Bonaduce's Child Star, and Click!
On May 14, 2006, during an appearance on the Fox News program Your World with Neil Cavuto, Stein called for a tax increase of 3.5% for wealthy Americans, to be earmarked for soldiers and military initiatives. Indeed, Stein wrote an editorial for
The New York Times critical of those who would rather make money in the world of finance than fight terrorism.
On December 28, 2009, Stein appeared on CNN's Larry King Live with Dr. Ron Paul to discuss the attempted bombing of an American plane on Christmas Day 2009. Stein said that Dr. Paul's stance that the United States were "occupiers" in Iraq and Afghanistan "is the same anti-Semitic argument we've heard over and over again." The comment started a shouting match between the two men and prompted anger from Dr. Paul's supporters and those who believe Stein went too far in calling Paul's argument anti-Semitic. Stein issued an apology on December 30, 2009.
He is an occasional political and economics commentator on CNBC's
Kudlow & Company.
Financial advice prior to 2008 stock market crash
On March 18, 2007, in a column for
CBS News online version of CBS News Sunday Morning, Stein famously proclaimed in the beginning of the subprime mortgage crisis that the foreclosure problem would "blow over and the people who buy now, in due time, will be glad they did," the economy was "still very strong," and the "smart money" was "now trying to buy ... not sell ... as much distressed merchandise" in mortgages as possible.
On August 18, 2007, on Fox News Channel's
Cavuto on Business, Stein appeared with other financial experts dismissing worries of a coming credit crunch. The lone dissenter was Peter Schiff, who predicted that the mortgage sector would create a crisis leading to massive recession, a view that produced laughter from the other experts. Stein strongly recommended investing in then-troubled financial institutions.
Ben Stein: The credit crunch is way overblown. The [financial institutions] are being given away; they're so unbelievably cheap...The subprime problem is a problem, but it's a tiny problem in the context of this economy...It's a buying opportunity, especially for the financials, maybe like I've never seen before in my entire life.
[...]
Peter Schiff: This is just getting started. It's not just subprimes. This is a problem for the entire mortgage industry. It's not just people with bad credit that committed to mortgages they couldn't afford. It's not just people with bad credit who are going to see their home equity vanish... This is going to be an enormous credit crunch...
Neil Cavuto: You must be a laugh-riot at parties.
(LAUGHTER)
[...]
Ben Stein: ...subprime is tiny. Subprime is a tiny, tiny blip.
Peter Schiff: It's not tiny. And again, it's not just subprime. It's the entire mortgage market.
Ben Stein: You're simply wrong about that... Defaults for the whole mortgage market are tiny.
[...]
Ben Stein: I think stocks will be a heck of a lot higher a year from now than they are now.
A year and a month later, in the Global Financial Crisis of September 2008, global stock markets crashed, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the US government, AIG was bailed out by the Federal Reserve, Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America Corporation, and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs confirmed that they would become traditional bank holding companies.
In a Yahoo! Finance article written on October 17, 2008, Stein explained that his understanding of the debt obligations based on real estate loans was less than the "staggeringly large" amount of obligations that were created through trade in derivatives of those, and so why it wasn't as similar to collapse of junk bond empire in early 1990s as he'd thought it would be: "Where I missed the boat was not realizing how large were the CDs based on the junk mortgage bonds."
