University of Missouri-St. Louis economics chair David Rose has been at UM-St. Louis since 1985. Dr. Rose is from St. Louis and received his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Virginia. Rose contributes often to on-air debates with radio and television networks, including KMOX.

The Current: What sparked your interest in going into the economics field?

David Rose: Most people have a hard time figuring out what they want to do in college, and my problem was that I wanted to do everything. I loved math, writing and the sciences. So there were all these different things I wanted to do and I was worried if I picked just one of them, I might miss the one true thing I was supposed to do.

Someone told me that because the way my mind worked, they thought that I should be a lawyer. So I went to a pre-law meeting and there they said there were specific majors that law schools really like but almost nobody chooses, and one of them was economics. So I took an economics course and liked it almost right from the start.

TC: How do you feel about the government bailouts?

DR: They may be helping a little bit, they may be hurting a little bit, but either way I think they are a bad idea. The bailouts that happened with the current situation are a legacy of bailouts that occurred in the 90s, and at the time, we were told that it was not going to make any difference; firms are not going to adjust their behavior. Yet in fact, many firms did bet on the fact that the government would bail them out, so that made the size of the bailout problem bigger. As these firms come to count on the government coming in to bail them out, they will engage in ever more risky behavior and increase the likelihood that they will need to be bailed out even more.

TC: Why are we not seeing much job growth right now?

DR: Two reasons: first and foremost, job growth is always the last thing to come in a recovery. People who run firms do not want to fire people, so they will not hire new people at the end of a recession until they have no choice. The fact that they probably just had to fire a bunch of people a year or so ago will cause them to be very reluctant to start hiring new people again.

The second reason is that the government is attempting to stimulate the economy in a number of ways. One of the big changes is obviously health care reform, and the problem with that is that it can have a dramatic effect on the cost of employment. Most people work for middle-sized firms … Many of these firms are just going to wait it out and see how it goes.

TC: How do you feel about the job market for college graduates over the next few years?

DR: It is going to be especially difficult for students who did not choose a serious major. When times are good and firms have a hard time filling job positions, it does not make much difference what your major is; as long as you are fairly smart and willing to work hard, you will still get a job somewhere. Times are difficult now and could be for even the next five years. A college student who has a major that does not generate specific skills that employers need is at a huge disadvantage and is looking at pretty grim prospects.