I see from a post at Marginal Revolution that Dr. Robert Heilbroner has passed away due to an extended illness.

This brings back memories.

In my heady undergrad days, one assignment given in an econ class was to write a letter to an actual, living, breathing economist and ask him questions about stuff.

This was in the early 90's (1991?). Balanced budgets were all the rage; the phrase “Gramm-Rudman” was known by many who weren't into politics or economics (oh that we could be in a similar place now ... Phil Gramm, please do something!). I was a balanced budget zealot. So I chose to send a letter to Dr. Heilbroner asking him how in the world one could advocate deficit spending as a viable fiscal policy.

Not too long after I sent the letter, I received a handwritten response (on a postcard) from Dr. Heilbroner. I'm fairly sure I still have it; I'll see if I can dig it out of my old college papers tonight and post an image of it here sometimes over the next few days. I don't remember exactly what Dr. Heilbroner wrote, but it did have the effect of calming me down a bit.

Update: I went home for lunch, and took a quick look in my old stacks. I found the letter immediately. I had (most likely for a class) finished reading The Debt and the Deficit by Dr. Heilbroner and Peter Bernstein. The assignment to write to an economist came at about this point in time. According to the copy of the letter I sent him, I asked Dr. Heilbroner whether or not the government had a “moral obligation” to repay its debts.

Below are the front and back of the card he sent. The card is typewritten (not handwritten as I earlier mentioned) but is signed. I wrote my letter to him on November 25, 1991. His response is postmarked December 3, 1991. Clicking on either image will open a larger version of the graphic.

and the front of the card:

Note to you young'uns out there: This is how we did things before email (and blogs).