Goodman, former host of “Adam Smith’s Money World,” dies at 83

George Goodman, who hosted the personal finance show “Adam Smith’s Money World” in the 1980s and 1990s, died Friday in Miami at the age of 83.

David Henry of Bloomberg News writes, “Goodman continued to carve out his niche in business journalism by giving Americans a grounding in economics and finance through his TV series ‘Adam Smith’s Money World,’ which premiered in 1984 on Public Broadcasting Service. Borrowing his nom de plume from the 18th-century Scottish philosopher, Goodman covered one topic per show. The 30-minute documentary series ran for 13 years.

“A contributing editor and vice president of New York magazine, he began using a pseudonym to keep his revelations of Wall Street anonymous. Goodman, who went by ‘Jerry’ among his friends, became an editorial-board member at the New York Times in 1977, was executive editor of Esquire magazine for three years, and editorial chairman of N.J. Monthly during the late 1970s.

“‘He changed the way we think about financial journalism,’ Peter Landau, who succeeded Goodman as editor of Institutional Investor, said in a profile on TJFR Group/MasterCard’s Business News Luminaries website. ‘Instead of being told that the Dow Jones Industrials declined two points or something equally boring, all of a sudden we were awakened to the fact that exciting things happen on Wall Street.'”

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