Two years ago, my co-author Ed Stringham and I won a First Prize in the Templeton Enterprise awards, all thanks to Ed’s initiative.  Now another lucky co-author has Stringham to thank for a big prize:

Trinity College Associate Professor of American Business and Economic Enterprise Edward Stringham, and his student Gavin Romm, a senior economics major from Rye Brook, NY, submitted the winning Generational Theft Contest entry to PJTV. Based on their default assumption calculations, the $10 trillion 2008-2009 bailout alone will cost the average 22-year-old a total of $148,035 or $280 per month until they are 79. In March 2009, PJTV launched the Generational Theft Contest on its website at www.PJTV.com and invited college students to join forces with their professors to calculate the financial impact of the current economic environment on a 2009 college graduate. In particular, PJTV sought the best method or tool to forecast a bachelor’s degree holder’s annual income in 2014, 2019, 2024 and 2034 after factoring in the cost of current government programs, including TARP and TALF, and stimulus packages, including their associated interest payments, health-care reform, inflation, taxes, etc. “I had been concerned with all of the government bailouts, so PJTV’s challenge for college students and their professors to calculate the cost of all of the government’s deficit spending intrigued me,” Stringham said from his Hartford, CT office. “After we put together all of the formulas and did the actual calculations, I was shocked to see how much these bailout programs are going to cost the average young person.”

Congrats to Ed and Gavin!