About No, They Can’t:

From the myth that government can spend its way out of a crisis to be mistaken belief that labor unions protect workers, Stossel, a true libertarian, provides evidence that the reality is very different from what intuition tells us. His evidence leads to the taboo conclusions that:
· Government already dominates health care—and that’s the problem.
· The state keeps banning foods, but food bans don’t make us healthier.
· Government-run schools and teachers’ unions haven’t made kids smarter.*

The event will take place at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta, GA. For ticket information and sponsorship, visit: www.fee.org/stossel.

Dates & Times:

Monday April 2, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM – Welcome Reception

Tuesday April 3, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM – Entrepreneurship

Wednesday April 4, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM – Free Enterprise

Thursday, April 5, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM – Limited Government

Featured Speakers: Lawrence W. Reed, Dr. Burt Folsom, Representative Ed Setzler, Alastair Walling,  and more!

This mini-seminar will take place at the Georgia-Pacific building auditorium in downtown Atlanta. Monday evening will feature a dinner reception and keynote presentation by FEE President Lawrence W. Reed. Parents are strongly encouraged to attend the reception to become acquainted with the themes of the event (registration required). Tuesday through Thursday, the seminar will focus more on student audiences, featuring a catered lunch, activities, and lectures designed specifically for high school students.

Cost: This seminar is provided free of charge to the first 80 accepted applicants, thanks to the generous support of FEE donors. Participants are responsible for their own transportation and lodging.

*For questions or to volunteer to help staff this event, please contact Aaron Ensley at aensley@fee.org

Accepting applications now through March 15, 2012.

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

FEE seeks candidates who may be unfamiliar with the ideas of a free and prosperous society, but are eager to discover the driving forces behind the maximization of human potential. We strive to impart these principles to our students in order for them to articulate, debate, and defend them when they return home.

For a third consecutive year we will host seminars in our branch office location: Atlanta, Georgia. Taking place in the Georgia Pacific building, our exciting Freedom University seminar series are designed to introduce college students to: Austrian economics, history and current events. For the first time this year we offer a summer seminar only for FEE alumni. Communicating liberty is designed to teach FEE alumni techniques of how to become effective communicators and spread the ideas of liberty.

Our Advanced Austrian economics seminar will take place at the FEE headquarter office in Irvington, NY.

Beautiful Salt Lake City will be the home of two seminars specifically designed for high school-aged students.

The goal of our seminars is not only to educate and engage students with the ideas of the free and prosperous society, but also to create life-long associations between our alumni and the Foundation for Economic Education.

Please visit the seminars page to download and complete the application, and do a friend a favor by forwarding this link!

May you have a prosperous and liberty-filled New Year!

Dear Friend of FEE,

A short time ago, a good friend and supporter of FEE explained the importance of what we do. I could not say it better myself, so I share his thoughts with you:

What FEE truly offers are intellectual lifelines for people who are drowning in the contemporary educational system. The painful isolation of being surrounded by left-wing orthodoxy, the thirst for politically-incorrect educational material that just isn’t available in many of our high schools and colleges, the courage of local parents looking for ways to help their children out, the kids’ gratitude at finding the rich resources at your website and finding both mentors and companions for their intellectual journey. There is a lot at stake emotionally that people can relate to from their own experience.

Plenty is also at stake when it comes to educating the future generation of leaders. The U.S. Department of Education last conducted an assessment of economic knowledge for 12^th graders in 2006. Of the 11,500 students surveyed, only 42 percent were rated as “proficient” in economics by the study. A mere 36 percent of students could identify the federal government’s primary source of revenue. And only 46 percent could determine the effects of a price control. Of course, being a government test, it was biased from the beginning. The questions go on about abstractions like interest rates, unemployment rates, and trade agreements without ever mentioning that economics is the study of real people. Ludwig von Mises would be horrified to know this is how the knowledge of human action is tested. This is why FEE’s educational services are needed.

To read the rest download the 2011 Year-End Appeal in PDF:

Having trouble downloading the PDF? Try clicking here:
http://www.fee.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/FEE_EOY_LET_Online_PROOF1.pdf

The Foundation for Economic Education is a leader in the liberty movement. Through our seminars, books, publications and lecture series and on behalf of our generous donors we are working to counter the efforts that threaten our freedoms.

Invest in Freedom. Make a Difference. Support FEE.

DONATE

Download and print out your own flyers
OR
Fill out this form and we’ll send you a packet of flyers and posters!

Click here to download the one page Summer Seminars flyer.

Click here to download the front page of the Summer Internship flyer.

Click here to download the back page of the Summer Internship flyer.

“The Foundation for Economic Education is a fantastic resource for students in the liberty movement. My experience at their Austrian Economics summer seminar was excellent. Not only did I learn more that week about economics than I have my whole time as a student, but I had fun while doing it!” – Morgan Freeman, Students For Liberty Campus Coordinator & FEE Alumna

Reed served as the president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy for twenty years and founded the “Champions of Freedom” award fifteen years ago. He has been president of the Foundation for Economic Education since leaving the Mackinac Center in 2008.

The Mackinac Center issued a Press Release which, in part, reads:

The award was conferred unanimously by the Center’s Board of Directors. It reads in part, “Lawrence W. Reed has championed the virtuous circle of self-help and civil society, maintaining, as he once wrote concerning the dozens of oppressed nations he had risked visiting: ‘We need to take time to assist our brothers and sisters who are laboring in the same vineyards, on behalf of the same causes. When we strengthen others, we all grow stronger.’”

Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman introduced Reed, saying, “Larry Reed is a good man, but he’s also a great man. He’s been my friend and professional mentor for 17 years. His resume is stuffed with great achievements that you don’t hear him blowing his own horn about.”

Read the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Press Release about the award here and watch the ceremony here.

Since 2008, Kofi has managed the Africa Youth Peace Call (AYPC), an independent, non-profit, research and educational organization devoted to the principles of individual liberty, private property rights, free markets, the rule of law and limited government. Kofi’s Facebook page (which I invite you to visit) declares that AYPC “is dedicated to the study and advancement of classical liberalism in Africa.”  Much like FEE, AYPC seeks “to change ideas and opinions by research, seminars and publications.” Its goal is nothing less than “to become the leading libertarian organization in the freedom education of young people in Africa.”

Through its “Liberty and Entrepreneurship Camps,” AYPC seeks “to arm students with ideas to be self sufficient instead of looking to the state to employ them after graduation.” Kofi says that, “Giving these future leaders the right ideas will free them and many others from the lies and depravity of socialist ideals which are so pervasive in Africa, especially in our institutions of higher learning.”

FEE publications have been a regular feature at AYPC’s camps and other programs. A favorite is the classic essay, “I, Pencil” by our founder, Leonard Read. As you can see from the accompanying pictures, copies are in the hands now of promising young students who just might change the future of Africa in the right direction. In a note to me in early November, Kofi wrote:

“I‘m proud to say that your moral, spiritual and financial support to the camps are paying off. In his speech at the last camp, Chris Kuranchie affirmed that we can only win the battle against poverty and tyranny if we expose our future leaders to free market principles at a very tender age. He’s collaborating with AYPC and his teacher colleagues to set up more clubs in other schools and communities. After showing John Stossel’s video on Greed, the leadership and the 12-to-16-year-old attendees affirmed a new motto: Liberty: Do Harm to No One; Take From No One His Own; Gold is Coined Freedom.

A reading session featuring “I, Pencil” at AYPC’s camps involves the students reading and discussing the essay one paragraph at a time. Kofi says it’s “amazing” how it teaches the students an appreciation for the “spontaneous order” of free markets.

If friends of FEE wish to communicate and/or donate to AYPC, feel free to write directly to Kofi at kofi@aypcghana.org. The organization’s web site is http://www.aypcghana.org/.

Kofi’s next Liberty and Entrepreneurship Camp is scheduled for January and as of today, AYPC is about half-way toward its fundraising goal for it. With only a $5 donation toward his “chip-in fundraiser,” you can help him spread liberty in Africa via this link: http://aypc2011finalpush.chipin.com/african-peace-youth-call-ghana

The Foundation for Economic Education has been hosting these Evenings With FEE for several years with speakers like Robert Levy (Chairman of the Cato Institute’s Board of Directors), Steve Horwitz (Professor of Economics at St. Lawrence University), and John Blundell (Former Director General & Ralph Harris Fellow at the Institute for Economic Affairs).

Couldn’t make it to the Evening At FEE? Watch it in HD here: http://youtu.be/v4nbgZH3xrQ

FEE is offering cash prizes to the top three student-produced YouTube videos based on this essay about the Great Depression. Here are the rules, which you should feel free to forward to anyone:

“Great Myths of the Great Depression” Video Contest

1.     Maximum length of a video: 8 minutes. No minimum length, though the shorter a video the better chance of more views on YouTube. It should be concise, in good taste and visually appealing. Must be in English.

2.     Video must explicitly mention FEE and the essay the video is based on, though other sources may certainly be used as well, if properly cited.

3.     Video may be a synopsis or the entire essay or it may focus on one or more particular aspects of the Depression. It doesn’t matter which of these two possible courses a student may choose to pursue.

4.     Description section must include link to FEE.org, the “Great Myths” essay on the FEE website, as well as a link to the FEE Facebook page.

5.     Video must have active hyperlink to FEE’s website.

6.     Multiple people may be involved in the production of a video though only one person will receive payment if selected as a winner.

7.     Video must not be political in any way, i.e., favor a particular candidate for election, or bill before congress.

8.     Infringements of copyright will disqualify a video. Please cite all sources and use other elements legally.

9.     Participating students must be between the ages of 14 and 24 or otherwise a full-time student in high school or undergraduate college/university.  Winners will be asked for proof of age.

Deadline for submission of YouTube link is midnight, January 15, 2012 EST. Students are to notify us of their posting on YouTube, via e-mail to greatmyths@fee.org by including: first and last name, phone number, e-mail address and link. Questions about the contest not answered here should be sent to that same address.

Judging by a panel of experts selected by FEE will begin February 15th after each entrant has had a full month to promote his or her video. Winners will be announced in the month of April.

Each video will be judged by the following criteria:

·      Qualitative assessment by FEE judges–how effectively and creatively it conveys the major points and message of the essay. In other words, “Is this persuasive? How well does this video keep its audience, educate and inspire them?” – 75% weight.

These additional criteria will be given a combined weight of 25%:

·      Number of hits on YouTube;
·      Number of “Likes”;
·      Number of comments;
·      Number of favorites.

First Prize: $1,500

Second Prize: $1,000

Third Prize: $500

Honorable Mentions if appropriate.

Thanks and Good Luck!

Writers of all ages are invited to address the following:
“Should the Federal Reserve be abolished? What monetary system should replace it?”

Deadline: Midnight, Dec. 31, 2011
Length: 2,000 words. No footnotes or endnotes.
Email Word file to: essaycontest@fee.org
(One entry only.)

The winner will be awarded $2,000 and have his or her essay published in The Freeman.

Eligibility: The Eugene S. Thorpe Writing Competition is open to writers from around the world, including students, freelance writers, teachers and professors, and business professionals. There is no minimum or maximum age for entrants. FEE employees (and their immediate family members), trustees, and Freeman editors and columnists are not eligible.

Eugene Stephenson Thorpe (1913–2001) was born in Elroy, Wisconsin, and graduated from Cornell University with a degree in civil engineering. An early critic of FDR and the changes his policies made in the fabric of American life, Mr. Thorpe’s core beliefs included hard work, free trade, small government, and self-reliance.  He was a longtime supporter of the Foundation for Economic Education and a devoted reader of The Freeman. His children have fittingly established the Eugene S. Thorpe Award as a tribute to his life and ideas.

September 29 is the 130th anniversary of Ludwig von Mises’s birth.

Click here for a selection of Mises’s Freeman writings.

See also:

“The Philosophy of Ludwig von Mises,” by Edmund Opitz

“Salute to von Mises,” by Henry Hazlitt

“Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973): A Prophet without Honor in His Own Land,” by Bettina Bien Greaves

For more: search on “Mises” in our archive.

Many of Leonard Read’s works, including “I, Pencil,” which was subsequently featured in Read’s book Anything That’s Peaceful, can be found in our Archives.

Read passed away on May 14, 1983 at the age of 84. He is greatly missed by those who knew him but his legacy continues to live on through the work of the Foundation for Economic Education.

Learn more about Leonard Read here Leonard E. Read: A Portrait and here Leonard Read, the Founder and Builder.

Anna has been with the Foundation for Economic Education for over a year and in that time has proven to be an integral part of the FEE team. She began her career with the Foundation as the Assistant Director of Programs and, just months ago, added the responsibilities of FEE’s new alumni outreach and retention initiative.

In her new position Anna will continue to oversee alumni relations but will also manage the programs department; mainly by ensuring the continued success of FEE’s high school and college summer seminars.

“Nobody looks forward to working with students more than Anna. Her passion for educating, inspiring and connecting future leaders through FEE programs is contagious. Congratulations, Anna, for your commitment to youth and for helping FEE’s donors get the biggest bang for their bucks in the liberty movement!” said Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education.

From all of your friends at FEE, Congratulations Anna!

Capital without labor means machines with no operators, or financial resources without the manpower to invest in. Labor without capital looks like Haiti or North Korea: plenty of people working but doing it with sticks instead of bulldozers, or starting a small enterprise with pocket change instead of a bank loan.

There may be no place in the world where there’s a shortage of labor but every inch of the planet is short of capital. There is no worker who couldn’t become more productive and better himself and society in the process if he had a more powerful labor-saving machine or a little more venture capital behind him. Capital can refer to either the tools of production or the funds that finance them. It ought to be abundantly clear that the vast improvement in standards of living over the past century is not explained by physical labor (we actually do less of that), but rather to the application of capital.

This is not class warfare. I’m not “taking sides” between labor and capital. I don’t see them as natural antagonists in spite of some people’s attempts to make them so. Don’t think of capital as something possessed and deployed only by bankers, the college-educated, the rich, or the elite. We workers of all income levels are “capital-ists” too—every time we save and invest, buy a share of stock, fix a machine, or start a business.

And yet, we have a “Labor Day” in America but not a “Capital Day.”

Like most Americans, I’ve traditionally celebrated labor on Labor Day weekend—not organized labor or compulsory labor unions, mind you, but the noble act of physical labor to produce the things we want and need. Nothing at all wrong about that!

But this year on Labor Day weekend, I’ll also be thinking about the remarkable achievements of inventors of labor-saving devices, the risk-taking venture capitalists who put their own money (not your tax money) on the line and the fact that nobody in America has to dig a ditch with a spoon or cut his lawn with a knife. Labor Day and Capital Day—I don’t know why we should have just one and not the other.

Happy Capital Day, America!

Lawrence W. Reed

Larry has compiled this list of resources especially for viewers and listeners who would like to learn more about Grover Cleveland, the hard decisions he made, and the uncommon courage that made him the man he was.

Grover Cleveland, The Last Libertarian President by Paul Whitfield
Why Grover Cleveland Vetoed the Texas Seed Bill by Robert Higgs
Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character by Lawrence W. Reed
Was Grover Cleveland Freedom’s President? by Lawrence W. Reed
Grover Cleveland, The Veto President by Burton Folsom
Realignments to Remember by Lawrence W. Reed
My Kind of President by Lawrence W. Reed
Clinton vs. Cleveland and Coolidge on Taxes by Lawrence W. Reed
Just Say No to Farm Subsidies by Burton Folsom
Presidents and Poverty by Lawrence W. Reed
A Supreme Court to be Proud Of by Lawrence W. Reed
U.S. Presidents and the Money Issue by Greg Kaza
Grover Cared by Lawrence W. Reed
Grover Cleveland: Could He Be Elected Today? By Lawrence W. Reed
The Silver Panic by Lawrence W. Reed
VIDEO: The Panic of 1893 by Lawrence W. Reed

Two wonderful ladies, Juli Dalton and Ginger Hancock of the Yavapai Center for Constitutional Principles in Prescott, Arizona, organized local funding and brought several local students to Freedom Academy II in Estes Park, Colorado. During the week, the students did live interviews by phone on Prescott’s KYCA Radio about what they were learning. Upon their return, three of them appeared in the station’s studio to sum up their life-changing experience.

We hope you will be impressed with what these three young people have to say and with the teaching FEE provided. We are changing the future by turning lights on in the young minds of today!

The interview is 43 minutes (commercials have been deleted). Several people called in during the show and made some great comments.

Here’s the link: http://www.kyca.info/includes/audioPlayer.php?showAudio=KYCAPM_2011-08-10

Thanks to FEE’s founder, Leonard Read, FEE has been able to educate and inspire thousands of students around the world; including Congressmen Paul and even Hollywood alpha-male John Wayne.

As a a tribute to Leonard Read’s work to advance freedom, we have created a commemorative t-shirt available in our newly opened merchandise store.

We’re very excited to announce the launch of our online merchandise store where you can find t-shirts, posters, coffee mugs and even iPod Touch cases.

For a short time you can use the promo code ‘DECKYOURDORM‘ to get 50% off the poster of Leonard Read. The discount expires at Midnight (PST) on September 1.

The following conditions apply:

1. Authors nominated must be members in good standing with the SDAE (check the Society’s website for information on how to join).

2. The books and articles nominated must have been published between January 1, 2009 and August 31, 2011.

3. Nominated articles should be emailed as an attachment or as a URL to the article to Chris Coyne – ccoyne3@gmu.edu

4. Nominations for the book prize should include the title and all other relevant information (publisher, date of publication, ISBN #) and be sent to the above email address. Those nominating books need not send copies. Edited volumes and short monographs are not eligible for the award.

5. All nominations must be received by Chris Coyne no later than October 15, 2011.

6. Self-nominations will not be accepted.

Each prize comes with a cash award of $500 thanks to the generous support of the Foundation for Economic Education. Recipients will be required to submit a short blog post on their winning book or article for posting on the FEE website.

Winners will be announced at the annual banquet of the SDAE, this year in Washington, D.C. in conjunction with the Southern Economic Association meetings from November 19-21, 2011. The SDAE dinner will be held on Sunday, November 20.

Questions may be directed to Chris Coyne at ccoyne3@gmu.edu

Chris Coyne
SDAE Vice President

Reed’s keynote speech is titled “Great Myths of the Great Depression” and is based on his 23-page essay of the same name.

Students For Liberty is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide a unified, student-driven forum of support for students and student organizations dedicated to liberty. This year SFL is hosting 12 regional conferences at universities across the nation, and a representative of the Foundation for Economic Education will be at each one to help introduce students to the freedom philosophy and explain how free markets lead to free and prosperous societies.

In this new role Tsvet will focus on expanding, deepening and formalizing relations with free market economics scholars, managing the Idea Room – a web-based forum to interact with The Freeman contributors, and directing the Advanced Austrian Economics seminar along with Board of Trustees member and GMU economics professor Peter Boettke.

He will also work as a mentor for undergraduate and graduate students in economics who are alumni of FEE seminars, providing them with academic and career advice.

Congratulations, Tsvet!

“Anna has been with FEE for over a year, and she has shown herself to be a highly motivated team-member with great organization skills and a passion for bringing people together to learn at our annual Summer Seminars,” according to FEE Executive Director Carl Oberg.  “We want Anna to take those same skills and apply them to our massive and growing list of alumni.  FEE has been around for 65 years and has produced numerous leaders in every part of the country.  We need to reach out to those people and keep them refreshed with the newest ideas so they can accomplish even more.”

The book, edited by Greg Forster and C. Bradley Thompson, is a compilation of papers presented at a 2008 conference sponsored by the Foundation for Educational Choice (formerly the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice) and the Clemson Center for the Study of Capitalism. (Additional chapters have been added.)

Drawing on Austrian and Public Choice theory, Richman’s chapter argues that as long as government is involved in the finance of education in any manner — even through vouchers or tax credits — the market’s entrepreneurial process will be stifled and education will fall short of what could be achieved in a truly free environment. The quotation in the title is from Joseph Priestley, whose views on education Richman discussed in a TGIF column last year.

In the book’s foreword Harvard University professor Paul E. Peterson writes:

In the strongest statement of all, Sheldon Richman draws upon classic economic theory to make the case that any government involvement–even school vouchers and tax credit subsidies–will ‘forbid the full blossoming of the entrepreneurial environment that is indispensable for optimal education.’ Better than any partial solutions is a commitment to letting the current system implode so that the country, in final desperation, will finally return to free market principles. One wonders whether the charitable tax deduction, an important prop for education’s private sector, survives Richman’s strict prohibition on any government involvement at all….

…We all benefit from Richman’s clear iteration of market theory, as he makes so utterly clear the distance school choice has yet to travel before it even begins to approximate that ideal.

The book, to be released on June 7, is available on Amazon for pre-order here.

Spend a full or partial day at one of our Freedom University Summer Seminars getting to know more about economics and FEE as an organization.

Please visit our summer seminar webpage for more information and a detailed schedule.

Pick a date from the schedule below that works for you and come experience first-hand all that FEE Summer Seminars have to offer!

OPEN HOUSE REGISTRATION FORM

Thursday, June 2, 2011 – Freedom University: Basic Economics

9:00 am – 10:15 am: Index Card Activity (FEE staff)

10:30 am – 11:45 am: Public Choice (Frank Stephenson)

11:45 am  – 1:00 am: Lunch

1:00 pm – 2:15 pm: Protectionism (Bob Ewing)

2:30 pm – 3:45 pm: Protectionism Skits (Staff)

4:00 pm – 5:15 pm: Monopoly and Antitrust (Ivan Pongracic)

5:15 pm – 6:15 pm: Dinner

6:15 pm – 8:30 pm: The Cartel (movie)

Friday, June 10, 2011 – Freedom University: Introduction to Austrian Economics

9:00 am – 10:15 am: Austrian Economics Today (Steve Horwitz)

10:30 am – 11:45 am: Institutions, Policies, and Economic Development (Frederic Sautet)

11:45 am – 1:00 pm: Lunch

1:00 pm – 2:15 pm: A Critique of Protectionism (Lawrence W. Reed)

2:30 pm – 3:45 pm: Austrians and Other Schools of Thought (Frederic Sautet)

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Hot Seat (with Faculty Involvement) (FEE staff)

5:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Action Plan Activity (FEE Staff)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 – Freedom University: History

9:00 am – 10:15 am: Foundations of Economics and Prosperity Reading Discussion

10:30 am – 11:30 pm: Money & Inflation (Lawrence W. Reed)

11:30 pm – 12:00 pm: Activity

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm: Lunch

1:00 pm – 2:30 pm: Competition & Monopoly (Edward Lopez)

2:30 pm – 3:45 pm: The Meaning of Liberty During the American Founding (Brad Birzer)

4:15 pm – 4:45 pm: Student Tests

4:45 pm – 6:15 pm: Amazing Grace / Cinderella Man

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 – Freedom University: Current Events

9:00 am – 10:15 am: Public Choice (Matthew Mitchell)

10:30 am – 11:45 am: Business Cycles (Ben Powell)

11:45 am – 12:15 pm: Team Tests Activity

12:15 am – 1:00 pm: Lunch

1:00 pm – 2:15 pm: The Housing Boom and Bust (Ben Powell)

2:30 pm – 3:45 pm: Money & Inflation (Anthony Carilli)

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Skit Activities

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm: Dinner

6:30 pm – 8:30 pm: The Cartel (movie)

OPEN HOUSE REGISTRATION FORM

Brian Aitken, Director of New Media at FEE, won the Reformer Award for his brave decision to fight back against unconstitutional gun laws after being wrongfully charged, tried and convicted of illegal possession of firearms in the state of New Jersey. Brian refused to accept plea bargains with prosecutors and, after a highly controversial trial which withheld exculpatory evidence and relevant law from the jury, Brian was sentenced to seven years in State prison. After serving four months of the sentence he was released from prison by Executive Order of NJ Gov. Chris Christie, but his legal battle continues to clear his name from the conviction, as well as change the gun laws in New Jersey.

The Foundation of Economic Education staff is excited to celebrate Brian’s award and pubic acknowledgment of his courageous act.

Our guest Robert Levy, senior legal scholar in constitutional studies and chairman of the board of directors at Cato Institute, spoke about how twelve Supreme Court cases radically expanded government and eroded freedom. His articles on law, investments and public policy have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, National Review, and many other publications. Robert Levy holds PhD in finance from the American University in Washington, DC and juris doctor degree from George Mason School of Law in Arlington, Va. He has been a long time friend of the Foundation for Economic Education.

Don’t want to miss out on future events? Follow us on Twitter and sign up for the In-Brief, our daily email dose of free-market philosophy!

We’re hosting our inaugural Evening with FEE in Atlanta this Wednesday at 6:45 p.m. at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, starting with a reception in the International C room.

Our guest Robert Levy, senior legal scholar in constitutional studies and chairman of the board of directors at Cato Institute, will speak on how twelve Supreme Court cases radically expanded government and eroded freedom. His articles on law, investments and public policy have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, National Review, and many other publications. Robert Levy holds PhD in finance from the American University in Washington, DC and juris doctor degree from George Mason School of Law in Arlington, Va. He has been a long time friend of the Foundation for Economic Education.

Robert Levy also played an integral part in financing and serving as co-counsel for the landmark case, District of Columbia v Heller. The court decision affirmed that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to gun ownership and paved the way for McDonald v Chicago and a slew of constitutional challenges against State and local schemes prohibiting individual firearm ownership.

The event is free to the public and, if you haven’t registered already, you can sign up by filling out this short form. We’ve almost reached maximum capacity for the event so please be sure to RSVP as soon as possible!

See you there!

Beautiful Estes Park, CO will be the home of the two Freedom Academy seminars for high school-aged students. These seminars are specifically designed to teach students at that level about the economic system that respects individual rights and human dignity.

Our new branch office location: Atlanta, Georgia will be the home of summer seminar series designed to introduce college students to: basic economics, Austrian economics, history and current events.

The goal is not only to educate and engage students with the ideas of the free and prosperous society, but also to create life-long associations between our alumni and the Foundation for Economic Education. We would like to welcome all our applicants to the liberty community with FREE 3 month subscription to The Freeman.

If you would like to be on our mailing list and receive notifications from FEE on seminars and other high school and college events, please go to our seminars page and sign up.

Last year, after a controversial trial, Brian was convicted in New Jersey for transporting his lawfully owned firearms and sentenced to 7 years. After serving four months, his sentence was commuted by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. More on the case and Brian’s experience can be found on his blog briandaitken.com.

Watch the video segment of Brian’s appearance on Fox News here.

Follow Brian on Twitter here.

Lawrence Reed, of the Foundation for Economic Education, explains [spontaneous order] this way:

“Spontaneous order is what happens when you leave people alone — when entrepreneurs … see the desires of people … and then provide for them.

“They respond to market signals, to prices. Prices tell them what’s needed and how urgently and where. And it’s infinitely better and more productive than relying on a handful of elites in some distant bureaucracy.”

The column continues with a discussion of FEE founder Leonard E. Read’s “I, Pencil.”

Another way to understand spontaneous order is to think about the simple pencil. Leonard Read, who established the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote an essay titled, “I, Pencil,” which began, “[N]o single person on the face of this earth knows how to make [a pencil].

Read the column here.

To watch the video segment with Mr. Reed on Stossel’s Show click here.

[.]… the deficit that matters most is not denominated in dollars at all. Its currency is of the heart and mind. It’s a manifestation of the values with which we circumscribe our actions, our purposes, and our values. I speak of a deficit of character, which arguably is the root of all of our major economic and social troubles today.

Describing it as a very different kind of deficit, Mr. Reed focuses on the key ingredients of strong character: “honesty, humility, responsibility, self-discipline, courage, self-reliance, and long-term thinking” and how a free society is impossible without having these traits in widespread practice.

The full commentary in The Christian Science Monitor here.

More of Mr. Reed’s thoughts on liberty and moral character from his recent participation in the Idea Room here.

To watch the webinar click here.

Set as an hour-long online lecture, “The Great Myths of the Great Depression” generated a lot of interest from the participants. Time limit didn’t allow for answers to all questions. Below are Mr. Reed’s answers to questions he did not have time to address during the webinar.

1. From Nikola: “Seeing as the 2008 crisis is Keynesian in nature, can it be solved by laissez faire/Austrian policy (non-interventionism), or should we paradoxically, seek Keynesian remedies?”

Answer: If you drink poison and it hurts you, you don’t drink another gallon of it to get better. I see nothing in the Keynesian formula of politicians squandering other people’s money and burdening future generations with unconscionable debt and tax burdens that could possibly fix the problem. We must unequivocally junk Keynesianism wholesale as bunk from its very inception. Henry Hazlitt’s classic, “The Failure of the New Economics” should have settled the question decades ago but Keynesianism remains popular with economists who don’t do their homework or think they can reduce human action to equations that some over-paid charlatan central planner flunkies can manipulate. It’s also popular with those politicians who seek a veneer of plausibility to gloss over their irresponsibility. When we learned that the sun didn’t revolve around the earth and the earth wasn’t flat, we set those failed theories aside. So it’s long past time to take the junk science that Keynesian represents and toss it on the compost pile.

2. From Abel: “If there were competition in money, what monetary policies would your money of choice follow?”

Answer: Competition in money. This is indeed the ideal we should seek. Money is an invention of the marketplace of exchange in the first place, not the invention of kings, queens, parliaments and presidents. The essential task of monetary reform today should be to take money out of the realm of politics and place it squarely in the realm of market forces, supply and demand, consumer choice and sound, unsubsidized banking. This is not so radical as it may sound. I would recommend precisely the same solution if we were talking about any other commodity or service. For example, if governments had produced our shoes for us, I would argue that the market should be in charge, that politicians have neither the knowledge nor the proper incentives to produce shoes that people want at prices they can afford. Some might say that money is different and too important. I believe money is too important to trust to politicians! Their track record really ought to speak for itself.

So to those who still cling to the voodoo of government monopoly money, I urge you to get over it. Look at the record. Question your misplaced, mystical faith. Trust the market. Wake up. And if your teachers in high school told you government must be in charge of money and never acquainted you with any other side of the debate, please consider filing an educational malpractice lawsuit.

This question also raises others about how do we get to where we ought to be with regard to money, what does the transition look like, what do we do with the money that government has already created and foisted on us, and how and when do we rid ourselves of those harmful government institutions like the Federal Reserve System and endless other bureaucracies and regulations that play God with our money? All good questions which I and others have addressed in many other venues, but beyond the scope of the question I am answering here or the time I have to answer. As an Austrian economist, let me say that I shy away from all attempts at central planning so I am not going to say that this or that should be our money.

I am very friendly to gold because it has passed the market test of reliability as a superb media of exchange through the centuries, but I also believe that no commodity should be granted any special privileges (legal tender laws, for example) that would bias its choice as money in the marketplace. I think there are strong and good reasons to assume that in a free and competitive market, gold would once again emerge as a dominant media of exchange but I would favor that only if the market were truly free and competitive so as to not prevent the emergence of other forms of money that market participants may choose.

3. From Scott: “As the money supply grows and malinvestments gather in the economy, what is the straw that breaks the camel’s back and causes the bust? As in, why do all the malinvestments collapse at one time?”

Answer: Let’s assume from the start that what you are referring to, Scott, is a growth in the money supply that occurs because of government policy, not natural forces in a free, healthy, responsive and competitive money market. I think that indeed is what you are implying because it is precisely that scenario that produces the subsequent “malinvestments” you are referring to.

Keep in mind that many different, usually unpredictable “straws” can break the camel’s back, so to speak, and cause a bust or downtown to begin. Monetary policy that is artificially inflationary and driven by government authorities certainly sets us up for that day to eventually happen, but the unsustainable directions that bad policy puts into place creates an inherent instability that can reverse because of any number of shocks that could take place, such as panics in other markets, wars, additional bad government regulatory policy, etc. But generally speaking, the bust commences after a period when monetary policy has reversed, that is, became less expansionary or even contractionary. The earlier, temporarily “stimulative” effect (especially in capital goods) of the expansionary policy wears off and dissipates throughout the economy, interest rates begin to rise, projects that seemed affordable but now become increasingly costly to continue to finance, and investors grow less confident of the future. The smart money sees these changes first and begin to sell and disinvest. Later, a stampede can begin as the masses of people sense change in the air.

In hindsight, the malinvestments seem to have occurred at about the same time period, as you suggest. This very fact is evidence of a systemic problem, not a particular economic sector problem—which is to say, it’s evidence that unwise monetary policy (which affects everything) is the culprit, not cycles peculiar to particular industries (there’s a natural boom and bust in tomatoes, for instance—lots of activity at planting time, a little less during growth, lots of activity again during harvest time, then nothing until the winter’s over, but that doesn’t produce economy-wide swings). Malinvestments are fostered in the first place by the false signals sent by inflationary monetary policy that suggest—falsely through low interest rates—that people’s time preferences have changed when they may really haven’t, that it will pay to borrow money now at artificially low interest rates to finance long-term, capital-intensive projects that will yield sufficient happy, paying customers down the road. But that’s a short-term phenomenon. It sends business in directions they wouldn’t have gone without the falsification of interest rates and relative prices caused by the monetary policy. When that policy changes, or wears off, or is reversed, it knocks the bottom out from the house of cards and many business plunge at about the same time.

This seeming failure of a primary entrepreneurial function—anticipating future market conditions—cannot be explained by casually asserting that a lot of business people at about the same time suddenly became bad planners. At any given time in even the freest and healthiest economies, some entrepreneurs will get it wrong or be overtaken by events or smarter competition or surprisingly reluctant customers, and they will go bust. That’s healthy. But when great numbers of them at about the same time fail, that’s evidence of something exogenous, namely the falsification of interest rates and relative prices caused by the systemic, economy-wide manipulation of money and credit.

4. From Alejandro: “How did the Wagner Act affect the rights of individual workers during the 1930s and how does it affect workers rights as of now?”

Answer: The Wagner Act took labor disputes out of the ordinary courts of law and put them under jurisdiction of a national, presidentially-appointed board called the National Labor Relations Board. That in itself was revolutionary. It has meant that the settlement of labor disputes now are far more subject to the whims of a handful of political cronies and much less predictable than a true rule-of-law approach (a fair field and no favors with the rules spelled out clearly in advance and just for all parties’ rights). The Wagner Act also empowered organized labor, under certain conditions, to possess exclusive rights for organized labor to represent workers collectively at a work site, even if large numbers of those workers might not want a union’s representation or actually be harmed by it. It replaced individual bargaining with collective bargaining when those conditions are present (such as 50% +1 voting for the union and then being able to impose it on the remaining, reluctant work force). It has resulted in less freedom in the worker marketplace, less freedom for managers to manage, higher costs of labor and therefore fewer jobs offered in those industries.

It must be understood that ultimately, productivity is what determines wages (wages can only be paid out of what is produced) and most of the time, unions empowered by the Wagner Act are not involved in boosting productivity; through strikes, threats and work rules, they can force some wages up but it means lower wages elsewhere, and fewer workers employed in those very unionized industries than would otherwise be the case. Fortunately, later additions to the law, such as Taft-Hartley, gave state governments the right to enact “right-to-work” laws which mean that in those states (22 of the 50 at the moment), no worker can be compelled to join or pay dues to a labor union as a condition of employment. In right-to-work states, wages have been rising faster, jobs have been growing faster, costs of living have risen more slowly, and employers have opened more work sites than has been the case in typically rust-belt non-right-to-work, high cost union states like Michigan, New York and California. Businesses and job creators are moving far more decisively to right-to-work states than they are to the compulsory-union states.

5. From Efrem: “How did the economy recover after World War II with the high income tax rates, which were maintained until the 1960s, still in place?”

Answer: Personal income tax rates did indeed remain high for a while after the war. Eisenhower cut the top rate a mere 1% from 92% to 91% in the 1950s. But by 1960, John Kennedy, a Democrat, campaigned on a platform calling for more robust growth. He rightly asserted that the economy of the 1950s was more sluggish than it needed to be and part of his solution to it was to bring that top rate down to 70%. Later, under Reagan, who rightly argued that 70% was way too high and a massive disincentive, cut the top rate down to 50% and then down to just 28%, a big reason for the sustained economic boom and remarkable innovations and entrepreneurship of the 1980s.

But the economy after the war did benefit from some major, positive things that allowed for a post-war boom: a) in 1945, the top corporate income tax rate was lowered massively, from 90% to just 38%; b) we had the greatest reduction in federal spending in U.S. history (largely because of war demobilization), which meant that resources tied up by government were now released to be deployed more efficiently for consumers (we started making refrigerators and cars instead of tanks and guns); c) war-time price controls and rationing were abolished; d) the “regime uncertainty” as Prof. Robert Higgs would put it, was substantially relieved when FDR checked in at the pearly gates for whatever reward awaited him and there was much less “attack business” demagoguery spewing forth from incompetents in Washington.

6. From Andrew: “How did they get away with the gold seizures?”

Answer: The “state of emergency” during the several depressed economy provided an atmosphere wherein such unwarranted and totalitarian measures could be imposed with little public opposition. Moreover, as a sad commentary on judicial independence, wisdom and constitutional fealty, no court ever reversed the action and ruled that seizing our gold was unconstitutional. It was finally undone by Congress and private gold ownership was once again permitted in 1974.

7. From Hilmar: “The European Union intends to regulate speculation of agricultural goods in order to decrease prices now. What do you think of that?”

Answer: Not much. Speculation has long been a bogeyman to ignorant and demagogic politicians. They fail to understand that speculators perform valuable functions in a free market. For instance: If there’s good reason to expect that future supplies of something will be more or less plentiful relative to demand than is the case now, the action of speculators tends to smooth out price swings. If it looks like a freeze in Florida might cut the orange crop in a few days, for instance, speculators push up prices right now. Some say, “That’s awful because it doesn’t reflect current supply demand. The speculators are profiting off of the future misfortune of others!” But by boosting prices today for today’s supply, it tends to curtail today’s demand and push some of today’s abundant supply into the future when it will keep prices lower than would be the case if the freeze does happen. And of course, speculators are assuming risk here than many of us are not willing to take, and if the speculator’s speculations prove wrong, they will suffer the losses.

Beyond that, I have utterly no confidence in the silly central planners of the European Union. They are pretentious politicians who respond to political pressures, charlatans who fall for fallacies that keep themselves busy and holding jobs while others labor to overcome their stupid policies. Many of them, like our own politicians, might even be unemployable in the absence of a government sinecure. They should be fired and the market should be allowed to work.

8. From Constantin: “What are some of the primary causes of the upcoming depression? What can be done to avoid it”

Answer: If another Great Depression comes, it will be once again because we have allowed politicians and their appointees to possess a commanding height of the economy, namely, control of our money and credit supply. Secondarily, another Great Depression could also come, or be exacerbated by, extraordinary uncertainty and high costs (taxes, regulations, tariffs) imposed by politicians and the rapacious, largely unaccountable bureaucracies they create. There may be no way to completely avoid a serious downturn in the future even if we pursued the proper policies of ending the Federal Reserve System and massively cutting the spending and intrusions of government, unleashing the entrepreneur and reviving civil society and personal character. You can’t get drunk without a hangover, but at least you can stop imbibing the intoxicants, dry out, and get a new, sound, and sustainable foundation for growth, sound money and honest living.

The Kindle version for this book is available here.

The full version of the “Great Myths of the Great Depression” is available here.

Historically governments inflated their currencies because they benefited in various ways. For example, they spent the new money, gaining the purchasing power lost by holders of the depreciating currency. This gain, called seigniorage, is an implicit tax on the people’s cash balances.

Another way government can gain is in its role as a debtor. If inflation is unanticipated, interest rates will not have risen enough to compensate lenders for the decline in purchasing power. Net debtors gain, and net creditors lose. Government, of course, is the economy’s biggest debtor. During the Great Inflation of the 1970s private investors holding long-term U.S. Treasury securities actually earned negative real returns despite receiving positive nominal interest. So from 1946 to 1982, while the government’s nominal debt to the general public rose from $242 billion to $925 billion, in 1946 dollars it had actually fallen to $201 billion.

If in the past inflations were able to ease the government’s financial problems, this is less true now since globalization gives investors more options.

Globalization, with the corresponding relaxation of exchange controls in all major countries, allows them easily to flee to foreign currencies, with the result that changes in central-bank policy are almost immediately priced by exchange rates and interest rates. Add to this the ability to purchase inflation-indexed government securities, and it becomes highly unlikely investors will be caught off guard by anything less than sudden, catastrophic hyperinflation (defined as more than 50% per month)–and maybe even not then.

Thus it would take a mighty and unexpected inflation indeed for the U.S. government to benefit in its current fiscal predicament–but at what cost?

The full commentary in Forbes here.

Hummel’s original Freeman article on government’s diminishing benefits from inflation is here.

I say hero. When a government secretly engages in such consequential activities as aggressive wars justified by at best questionable and at worst fabricated intelligence, covert bombings and assassinations, and diplomatic maneuvering designed to support such global meddling, the people in whose name that government acts – and who could suffer retaliation – have a right to know.

The full op-ed is here.

Questions?  Email informant@fee.org.

“We are pleased that Dr. Boettke has accepted our invitation. Pete has long been associated with FEE as both a writer and a speaker. His scholarship is exceptional and his knowledge of FEE’s distinguished history is considerable. He will provide many valuable insights and advice as a member of our governing body.”

Dr. Peter J. Boettke is the Deputy Director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, and a professor in the economics department at George Mason University. Boettke was born and raised in New Jersey. He received his BA in economics from Grove City College and his PhD in economics from George Mason University.

Before joining the faculty at George Mason University in 1998, Boettke held faculty positions at Oakland University, Manhattan College and New York University. In addition, Boettke was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University during the 1992-1993 academic year. He has been a visiting professor or scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena, Germany, the Stockholm School of Economics, Central European University in Prague and Charles University in Prague.

FEE played an important role in the early development of Boettke’s economic thinking. “At the suggestion of my professor Hans Sennholz,” he says, “I made the trip from Grove City College to FEE more than three decades ago. That weekend proved to be a pivotal moment for me as a student and later as a teacher in the classroom. FEE is the home base for free market economics throughout the world. It is a privilege for me to be associated with FEE and its core educational mission.”

Boettke’s three-year term as a FEE trustee begins immediately. He joins 11 other distinguished individuals whose backgrounds include many years of experience in business, academia, banking, philanthropy and investments.

Fresh from his victory in last week’s Kentucky Republican senatorial primary, Rand Paul found himself caught in a whirlwind when MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act properly outlawed racial segregation at privately owned lunch counters. Speaking circuitously if not evasively, Mr. Paul finally said:

“[O]ne of the things freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized. But that doesn’t mean we approve of it.”

The conference will feature two sessions. Session one from 9:30 to 10:20 a.m. will address President Obama’s entrance into office during the worst recession since the Great Depression and his efforts with the economic stimulus. Professor Steve Horwitz of St. Lawrence University and Professor Gerald Friedman of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst will discuss the impact of the stimulus package so far and what is needed in the future.

The second session from 11:00 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. will discuss the health care system. Professor Gerald Friedman and Sheldon Richman of the Foundation for Economic Education will discuss the number of firms eliminating or reducing benefits as well as rapidly rising costs. They will also explore why the American health care system has become the most expensive in the world.

Details here.

1. I resolve to sell liberty by appealing to the self-interest of each prospect, rather than preaching to people and expecting them to suddenly adopt my ideas of right and wrong.

2. I resolve to keep from being drawn into arguments or debates. My purpose is to inspire people to want liberty — not to prove that they’re wrong.

3. I resolve to listen when people tell me of their wants and needs, so I can help them see how a free society will satisfy those needs.

4. I resolve to identify myself, when appropriate, with the social goals someone may seek — a cleaner environment, more help for the poor, a less divisive society — and try to show him that those goals can never be achieved by government, but will be well served in a free society.

5. I resolve to be compassionate and respectful of the beliefs and needs that lead people to seek government help. I don’t have to approve of their subsidies or policies — but if I don’t acknowledge their needs, I have no hope of helping them find a better way to solve their problems.

6. No matter what the issue, I resolve to keep returning to the central point: how much better off the individual will be in a free society.

7. I resolve to acknowledge my good fortune in having been born an American. Any plan for improvement must begin with a recognition of the good things we have. To speak only of America’s defects will make me a tiresome crank.

8. I resolve to focus on the ways America could be so much better with a very small government — not to dwell on all the wrongs that exist today.

9. I resolve to cleanse myself of hate, resentment, and bitterness. Such things steal time and attention from the work that must be done.

10. I resolve to speak, dress, and act in a respectable manner. I may be the first libertarian someone has encountered, and it’s important that he get a good first impression. No one will hear the message if the messenger is unattractive.

11. I resolve to remind myself that someone’s “stupid” opinion may be an opinion I once held. If I can grow, why can’t I help him grow?

12. I resolve not to raise my voice in any discussion. In a shouting match, no one wins, no one changes his mind, and no one will be inspired to join our quest for a free society.

13. I resolve not to adopt the tactics of Republicans and Democrats. They use character assassination, evasions, and intimidation because they have no real benefits to offer Americans. We, on the other hand, are offering to set people free — and so we can win simply by focusing on the better life our proposals will bring.

14. I resolve to be civil to my opponents and treat them with respect. However anyone chooses to treat me, it’s important that I be a better person than my enemies.

Read the article here.

See Also:

“Herbert Dow and Predatory Pricing” by Burton Folsom Jr.