I wish I could say that I am inspired by God to be honest. I would like to say I tell the truth for the good of mankind and want nothing but good for the world. I could pretend to be like a noble comic strip type character, Bat Man for example, noble in every regard.
The truth is that by nature I am about average in terms of honesty and integrity. That has been good enough to prevent me from ever spending a night in jail. Mostly I lean toward the truth because I am such a lousy liar.
When I was nineteen some friends and I were walking around in a discount store. I saw three fish hooks lying in a pile of dust. Without really thinking I picked them, put them in my pocket and forgot they were there. As we were leaving the store, I got arrested for shoplifting. My friends got arrested also as accomplices. At that point in life I realized I had no aptitude for a life of crime.
Back in the days when I taught algebra at a youth prison I would tell the students that story. Then I would explain that none of them were cut out to be criminals even if they enjoyed it. If they were already doing time at fifteen or sixteen years old, I explained that they should do something in life for which they had more of an aptitude.
On another note, with respect to economics, my theories would not work, if they were lies. Telling the truth is the only way I can make my theories unique. Economists normally get paid to lie on behalf of their employers in order to advance one agenda or another. Since I am such a lousy liar those kinds of jobs are not open to me. Nobody pays me to do anything so I have little to lose by telling the truth. I am not famous enough to be considered for the Nobel Prize so I just tell it the way it is.
Don’t get me wrong. I do have a conscience but it is no more pronounced than average. That being said, you can count on everything I say or do to be completely truthful. People can read me like a book. If I told a lie on this blog, it would be obvious to everyone, so I am not going to do it. I would like to be thought of as just a nice guy but I tell the truth out of self interest. I truly am the best economist in the world. I am also the world’s worst liar.