My Father and Alan Greenspan

By Robert Reich - June 21, 2010, 8:31AM

When I was a small boy at the start of the 1950s, my father gave me my first economics lesson. "Bobby," he said with obvious concern, "you and your children and your children's children will be repaying the national debt created by Franklin D. Roosevelt."

I didn't know what a national debt was, but I remember being scared out of my wits.

Dad was wrong, of course. Even though the national debt then was a much higher percentage of the national economy than it is today, it shrank as the economy boomed. My children have never mentioned FDR's debt. My granddaughter (almost 2) will never pay a penny of it.