Ben Stein

Ben Stein is the closest any man comes these days to being a true renaissance man. His impressive resume includes career achievements ranging from speechwriter for President Nixon to the pop icon who starred as Ferris Bueller's teacher. An exceptionally gifted economist, his market analysis is sought by companies and organizations across North America. The recent Nobel Prize winner in Economics, George Akerlof, has cited Stein's securities work as "inspiring".

Stein has been a poverty lawyer for the economically disadvantaged in New haven, Connecticut where he went to law school, a demonstrator for civil rights in Maryland, a university teacher on politics and the media, and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of thirty books, including the major best seller How to Ruin Your Life, and the more recent Can America Survive.

An extremely well known actor in movies, TV, and commercials, he is perhaps most notorious for his part of the boring teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That cameo was recently ranked as one of the 50 most famous scenes in American film. His long running hit comedy quiz show on Comedy Central, Win Ben Stein's Money, has won seven Emmies. Stein can be seen regularly as a financial commentator for the Fox News Channel.

Ben Stein offers audiences laughter and insight, occasionally moving them to tears with his touching and endearing anecdotes. Armed only with his curmudgeonly persona and his offbeat, dry delivery, he tackles the economy and tells you how to balance life's priorities while offering an eye-opening tour of life's absurdities.

• Ben Stein on Life:

  Ben Stein is a profoundly unique individual who has had the good fortune to have "been there and done that" in a myriad of professions that many of us only dream about, see on television, or read about in the news. Always entertaining, always informative and possessing expertise in everything from law to laughs, Ben Stein will leave your audience with useful insight and inspiration.

• American Culture, Politics and Social Life

  Ben Stein's quirky lectures are a fascinating foray into American culture, politics, and social life. He is known for his deadpan sense of humor and brilliant comedic timing, and audiences are thrilled to spend time with one of the country's smartest, funniest, and most intriguing celebrities. Known as a gadfly of the political right, Stein's lectures bring much needed levity and humor to stuffy political debates and discussions.

• On behalf of Lamar State College-Orange, Texas, I want to thank you for making last night a special occasion. Your lecture presentation went well beyond our expectations—it struck just the right balance between humor and serious reflection. I have had numerous positive comments this morning from students, faculty, and staff. I especially want to express my appreciation for your willingness to visit with our guests and sign autographs. Your warmth and 'approachability' impressed everyone.
  Lamar State College
• You were a joy to work with, a total pleasure, and I hope you enjoyed your stay with us. Thank you for speaking to our clients, for being so lovely to work with, for being such a gentleman, for being so kind and accommodating and just for being you.
  Suntrust
• Your balance of humour and serious commentary struck just the right balance... you are the first person I ever met to find humor in a subject like epitaxial deposition!
  Semiconductor Industry Association

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  March 2011

  The Little Book of Alternative Investments

  Bestselling authors Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth know that investors are bored with their typical 60/40 stock & bond portfolios and curious about whether some of the new variations going around might be right for them.  At the same time, many alternative strategies are going down-market and opening to the retail investor. Stein and DeMuth recommend that investors look outside of the box to hedge funds, real estate, gold, commodities, and even art as sources of investment income. Stein and DeMuth interview the leading experts in the industry, take you on a guided tour of this Ripley's museum of new and strange offerings, explain in simple language how they work (or don't work), and tell you how you can use them to manage risk and boost returns in the privacy of your own home.  The authors specialize in making the technical seem simple, the esoteric, accessible, and the dry, entertaining.

  
  
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  April 2009

  How You Can Sell Anyone Anything

  Life is about selling. There is simply no aspect of life that does not include selling yourself, your products, your services, your values, or your lifestyle. This book shows you how to do it so you can close the deal and feel good about yourself and your buyer. It is all about empathy, preparedness, and a sense of your own power and your own humility. Best of all, it works. It is from Ben Stein, who knows about just about everything; and Barron Thomas, one of the most successful sellers of airplanes on the planet, who has seen the rough and the smooth places of sales and has learned from them both.

  
  
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  July 2008

  How to Ruin the United States of America

  On the heels of his very successful books, How to Ruin Your Life, How to Ruin Your Love Life, and How to Ruin Your Financial Life, Ben Stein, in collaboration with his pal Phil DeMuth, has tongue firmly in cheek once again as he comes up with surefire ways to ruin the greatest nation in the history of the human race. Try a few of these on for size: - Trust the United Nations to protect us and our security. - Make it unlawful to worship God or even to show images of the Ten Commandments. - Convert our universities into fortresses of anti-Americanism, hatred of freedom, and centers of confusion and ignorance. - Encourage contempt for the family and for the community. - Allow Hollywood to brainwash us into believing that only suckers and criminals fight for their country. - Treat the military, the police, firefighters, and teachers as losers and pay them starvation wages. Hey, does any of this sound familiar? Maybe that's because it's already happening Ben and Phil give you all the information you'll ever need in order to successfully ruin the USA even further Sardonic, humorous, but also angrily emphatic, this is a book every old-fashioned patriot really needs to read

  
  
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  February 2006

  Yes, You Can Be a Successful Income Investor

  ith the bursting of the stock market bubble, and after 13 rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, yields on CDs and Money Market funds tread at historic lows—a negative return after inflation. With smaller savings coupled with lower returns on what savings remain, retirees and others living on fixed-income investments watch in horror as their income checks shrink with each passing month. However, there are investments that still earn a significant rate of return—and do so reliably and consistently. These fixed-income securities include bonds, real estate investment trusts, preferred stocks, and emerging market debt, among others. As 70 million Americans reach retirement age in the next 15 years, fixed-income investing will become a sociologically inevitable megatrend. This book shows you how you can safely secure the highest possible yield from your savings.

  
  
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  September 2004

  Yes, You Can Time the Market

  Economist, actor, author, and former quiz show host Ben Stein teamed up with investment psychologist Phil DeMuth to examine a century of stock market data and discovered a profound and original investment truth: Yes, you can time the market! In their instant investment classic Yes, You Can Time the Market!, Stein and DeMuth show investors simple, readily available measurements that tell them when it''s time to invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, or cash. Written for the investor who wants to preserve capital and build wealth steadily, this book offers prudent, bedrock advice for anyone who can no longer afford to play games with their money.

  
  
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  July 2004

  Can America Survive?

  In Can America Survive? authors Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth examine this anti-American rage, providing plentiful and outrageous examples from campuses to foundations to Democratic candidate debates to liberal "fund-raisers" that openly tout hate as their message. The authors then attempt to plumb the psychological wellsprings that generate this anger: Is it infantile narcissism? Is it a desperately incomplete maturation process? Is it competition with patriarchal figures?  The authors attempt to create a psychological road map that explores what the psychological roots of this national self-loathing might be. This is a unique approach, attempting to explain political beliefs in terms of psychological background, and the authors believe that it’s the only approach that works, since a realistic appraisal of America would not allow as much rage as we see in daily political discourse.

  
  
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  September 2002

  How to Ruin Your Life

  How to Ruin Your Life is a powerful self-help tool in the form of a work of humor. It is sardonic advice, presented with tongue in cheek, explaining how people can "ruin" their lives. The essays cover topics such as "Convince Yourself You''re the Center of the Universe, " Think the Worst of Everyone, " and "Make the People Around You Feel Small." Seriously, though, to anyone who reads this book, it is an earnest warning about falling into traps of self-destructive behavior that can ruin any man or woman''s life. More than that, it comprises 35 steps that -- if read and understood -- provide a road map to making life work in the most effective way possible. It is humor and self-help all in one, delivered by Ben Stein, a man who has witnessed more than his share of people who did ruin their lives -- as well as those whose lives have been wildly successful.