This week’s EconTalk is an interview with George Shultz. He and Milton Friedman are the two most lucid folks in their late 80’s I’ve ever spoken to. Maybe it is something in the water at the University of Chicago. Or something in the air. I like to think that staying mentally active holds off mental aging. Shultz remains physically imposing. He is tall and looks and moves like someone much younger.
You can tell from the interview that he’s been interviewed a few times before. Any attempt to pin him down on a tough question is deftly parried. Listen to when I try and get him to discuss the tension in foreign aid between moral aims and narrow national self-interest.
