Legal and academic career in 2003 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. He subsequently taught classes at the
University of California, Santa Cruz on political and
civil rights under the
United States Constitution. At
Pepperdine University Stein taught
libel law and
United States securities law and its ethical aspects. He was a professor of law and economics at
Pepperdine University Law School from about 1990 to 1997.
Writing career Stein writes a regular column in the conservative media outlets
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. 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 owing to a policy prohibiting writers from making product endorsements or advertising. Stein had recently become an advertising spokesman 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 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 in 2008 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 not only by 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 as 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 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:
Career in the media in 2008 Stein acted as the monotonous economics teacher in the 1986 movie ''
Ferris Bueller's Day Off''. In one scene, he lectures on the
Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 and the then-current debate over
supply-side economics. Stein played similarly bland and unemotional characters. He had a recurring role in the TV series
The Wonder Years as science teacher Mr. Cantwell, who would narrate 16 mm films in monotone. Stein also played himself in
Dave. He appeared in several television advertisements, such as for
Clear Eyes eye drops throughout the 1990s and 2000s,
Godfather's Pizza in 1987, a bland science teacher in 1990 for
Sprinkled Chips Ahoy! cookies, and in 2013 for small business accounting service firm 1-800Accountant. From 1997 to 2003, Stein hosted the
Comedy Central game show ''
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 pay that Stein earned per episode (in addition to his salary). The show won five
Daytime Emmy Awards before ending its run in 2003. In 1999, Stein also hosted the
Comedy Central talk show
Turn Ben Stein On. One of the mainstays of the show was Stein's dog, Puppy Wuppy, who had free run of the set. In 2001, Stein appeared on a celebrity episode of
The Weakest Link entitled "TV Hosts Edition" alongside other television hosts and was voted off in round 6 despite being that round's Strongest Link.
Anne Robinson's quip was that while he "might win Ben's money; you're NOT taking ours!". Other movies and television shows in which Stein has appeared include
Charles in Charge;
Seinfeld;
Full House;
Casper;
Casper: A Spirited Beginning;
Casper Meets Wendy;
The Mask and its sequel,
Son of the Mask as well as the television show,
The Mask: Animated Series;
Earthworm Jim;
Star Search;
MacGyver;
Tales from the Crypt;
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 1998–2004 version of Hollywood Squares; the Michael Berger-hosted version of Match Game; The Fairly OddParents; Duckman; Married... with Children; The Emperor's New School; My Girl 2; Ghostbusters II; and the intelligent design documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed''. in 2019 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, Mr. Giggles, on The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; a bingo caller on Rugrats; Francis "Pip" Pumphandle in Animaniacs; and H.A. Futterman in Freakazoid!. 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 as Rabbi Goldberg in the Family Guy episodes "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" and "Family Goy". Stein also voiced the character Sam Schmaltz in the 1996 computer adventure game Toonstruck''. 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 talk show parody series
Fernwood 2 Night. Stein hosted a show on
VH1 called ''
America's Most Smartest Model''. The show aimed to find the smartest among 14 models through a series of challenges. 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. 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
Ron Paul to discuss the
attempted bombing of an American plane on Christmas Day 2009. Stein said that Paul's stance that the United States were "occupiers" in Iraq and Afghanistan was antisemitic. The comment started a shouting match between the two men. Two days later, Stein clarified that "if Rep. Paul says he is... not an anti-Semite, I believe him". Stein's political and economics commentary has appeared on
CNBC's
The Kudlow Report and
CNN.
Commentary in the lead-up to and during the Great Recession In the months before the
late-2000s recession, Stein made frequent and vehement claims about the economy's good health and the relative unimportance of the mortgage-derivative market; these would shortly be proven dead wrong. Examples include: • On March 18, 2007, as the
subprime mortgage crisis began, Stein wrote a column for the online version of
CBS News Sunday Morning. He proclaimed that the foreclosure problem would "blow over and the people who buy now, in due time, will be glad they did," that the economy was "still very strong," and that the "smart money" was "now trying to buy—not sell—as much distressed merchandise" in mortgages as possible. • In an August 12, 2007, column in
The New York Times, titled "Chicken Little's Brethren, on the Trading Floor", Stein—while acknowledged that "I don't know where the bottom is on subprime. I don't know how bad the problems are at Bear
[Bear Stearns]"—claimed that "subprime losses are wildly out of all proportion to the likely damage to the economy from the subprime problems," and "[t]his economy is extremely strong. Profits are superb. The world economy is exploding with growth. To be sure, terrible problems lurk in the future: a slow-motion dollar crisis, huge Medicare deficits and energy shortages. But for now, the sell-off seems extreme, not to say nutty. Some smart, brave people will make a fortune buying in these days, and then we'll all wonder what the scare was about." • On August 18, 2007, on
Fox News Channel's
Cavuto on Business, Stein and other financial experts dismissed worries about a coming credit crunch. Thirteen months later, at the peak of the
2008 financial crisis, 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 January 2008, business commentator
Henry Blodget wrote a piece for
Business Insider entitled, "Ben Stein is an Idiot", which stated that Stein's criticism of those with bearish views and positions on the market was either "delusional" or a deliberate and "shrewd" attempt to create false controversy and increase web traffic. In a
Yahoo! Finance article published on October 17, 2008, Stein said his wildly incorrect claims were due to his expectations that the real-estate market would roughly resemble the
collapse of junk bonds in the early 1990s. He said he failed to understand that debt obligations based on real estate loans were less than the "staggeringly large" amount of obligations that were created through trading in derivatives of those: "Where I missed the boat was not realizing how large were the CDS
[credit default swaps] based on the junk mortgage bonds." == Personal life ==