I retired today.
I’d like to thank the people at Mercatus, which has been by far the best job I ever had. Special thanks to program director David Beckworth, who is doing a great job. Also my program manager Pat Horan and my first manager Ben Klutsey, who were both a big help. And I should thank Tyler Cowen for encouraging me to come to Mercatus, as well as Ken Duda for providing generous funding to support my research on monetary reform. Despite a major setback in late 2021, I believe we are gradually making progress.
I plan to remain active promoting my ideas, and will continue my two blogs. I had hoped to restructure this blog, but that will take more time than I anticipated. I have a new book on monetary policy coming out this fall. The book has already been written and is current going through the editorial process. It will be different from my previous books:
1. It will only be available online.
2. It will be free.
3. It will be published in installments.
4. It will be continually revised over time, a living book.
5. It will be a sort of collaborative effort with my readers. The goal is to get feedback, and respond to that feedback in the book itself. Maybe I’ll let one of you contribute.
Not sure anyone is interested, but a few reminiscences on my work life:
I’ve worked almost continually from roughly age 13. I had no social life as a teen, so when I was not in prison — err, I mean when I was not in school — I was working. In retrospect, I would have been better off reading books. (I coulda been an intellectual!) I had a newspaper route for 2 1/2 years, and I did a lot of other jobs, including cutting grass, raking leaves and shoveling snow for many of my neighbors. I also helped people move. I painted houses and even one apartment building. A bit of construction too. I graduated from high school a semester early and worked in a canning factory.
All through college I had a work-study job, and the same in grad school. Almost zero financial aid. I am quite jealous when I read about the financial aid that modern PhD students get. I was living below the poverty line (millennials would be horrified by my consumption bundle), and could have easily qualified for food stamps. (I actually went to the government office on Chicago’s south side, and then decided I didn’t really belong there.)
After grad school I worked a summer at the AMA, and then was unemployed for a semester (the only time I was unemployed after age 13.) I taught a semester at UW-Eau Claire, and then a year at St. Bonaventure. I was just drifting though life, sort of aimlessly. Then I taught for 33 years at Bentley, before working the past 7 years at Mercatus. While at Bentley, I had two brief overseas teaching gigs, in the UK and Australia.
I’ve never had any career ambitions, but I’ve had enough intellectual ambition to produce a reasonable amount of research. In retrospect, my biggest mistakes in life were decisions to do things for money—being a landlord in Boston and writing a principles of economics textbook. I’m retiring so that when (if?) I get to 80 I don’t look back and wish I’d retired sooner. If I had not gotten the Mercatus job, my plan was to retire from Bentley at age 62. I’ll be 67 this month, and have aged more in 5 years than in the previous 30.
PS. Rereading this post makes my life seem bleak. I actually did develop a sort of social life once I got into my 20s. Not sure what Frank Capra would make of my life . . .