Has Government Adopted My New Macro Model?

October 4, 2013 By Mark Skousen 6 Comments

“How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?” – Robert Heinlein

For several years now, I have been advocated the need for adding a new national aggregate statistic called Gross Output (GO) that measures total spending at all stages of production and not just the final stage (GDP).

I believe that GO fills in a major piece of the macroeconomic puzzle. It establishes the proper balance between production and consumption, between the “make” and the “use” economy, and one that is consistent with growth theory.

Most importantly, GO and my 4-stage model of the economy are compatible with standard national income accounting and neo-classical macroeconomic analysis. You don’t have to rewrite the textbooks, just add it into the chapters.

Now for the good news. I recently received a letter from Steven Landefeld, the director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the official government agency that releases GDP data every quarter. He wrote me that starting next year, the BEA will begin publishing an expanded aggregate statistic that is similar to my own GO, every quarter along with GDP. [Read more…]

Last Chance to “Crash the Party!”

October 2, 2013 By Mark Skousen 1 Comment

Come “Crash the Party,” Saturday, Oct. 19, Westin LAX: Martin Truax, a long-time friend and senior vice president at Raymond James, is organizing a one-day “Crash the Party” seminar on Saturday, October 19, 2013, at the Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel in recognition of the 1987 crash and my birthday. This is an ideal location, as travelers can simply fly into LAX and take the Westin shuttle to the hotel (only $109 a night). In addition to Martin Truax and me, speakers include Wellington Letter editor Bert Dohmen, Washington insider Floyd Brown, money manager Adrian Day, #1 real estate guru Jack Reed, coin expert Van Simmons and Everbank President Frank Trotter. We’ve also just confirmed Jeff Phillips, venture capitalist and investment banker extraordinaire, who has made many of us (including me) extremely wealthy with his cheap stock picks. He’s going to give us two recommendations at our one-day seminar. The price is only $99 per person, with $50 for additional guests, for this event. Come crash the party! Find details at www.lainvestmentconference.org. To register, call Steve at 678/333-5361, or email [email protected].

Record 2,500 Gather at “Best FreedomFest Ever”

July 23, 2013 By Mark Skousen 3 Comments

By Mark Skousen

“FreedomFest was a gigantic conference. It drew many academics, journalists, activists of all ages, vendors, investors, and a huge variety of professionals in all fields. And of course, Laissez Faire Books was there in full force. The level of fun was totally over the top. But the content of every session I attended was just spectacular.” – Jeffrey Tucker, president, Laissez Faire Books

Everyone seems to agree: Our 7^th FreedomFest was the “best ever” according to the many emails I’ve received – from Alex Green, Floyd Brown, Susana Etcheverry, Bert Dohmen, Brian June, and Gene Epstein, economics editor at Barron’s. Dinesh D’Souza said that FreedomFest has rapidly become “the premier libertarian gathering.”

We broke all kinds of records this year – number of attendees, sales of books at our official bookstore (Laissez Faire Books), and CDs/MP3s. Numerous sessions, panels and debates at Planet Hollywood were standing room only. And for the first time we had a major TV network, Fox Business at FreedomFest, along with C-SPAN. (Plus a nice mention by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News in his interview with John Stossel.) [Read more…]

Head to Head: “Public Vs. Private Spending: How to Get the Economy Growing Again”

June 28, 2013 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

Today’s Orange County Register published a point-counterpoint debate between Mark Skousen and Robert Kuttner on “Public vs. Private Spending: How to Get the Economy Growing Again.” See the attached file, that includes an ad to this year’s FreedomFest.

Public vs. Private Spending: How to Get the Economy Growing Again

Announcing My Latest Breakthrough Book – “A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street”

June 15, 2013 By Mark Skousen 2 Comments

I’m very proud to announce the publication of my latest book, “A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street: Austrian Economics for Investors,” published by Laissez Faire Books. See the letter from LFB publisher Jeffery Tucker below, and check out all the details of the book here.

Dear Readers:

The central message of the Austrian school of economics, writes Mark Skousen in this new and wide-ranging book, is that economics is about human beings. That outlook has direct implications for financial markets and personal investing. And this is why the Austrian school has had a huge impact Wall Street.

A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street, then, is a tutorial on both economics and investment that sheds new light on both fields.

Consider the opening metaphor of the dance. This is the image that Skousen uses to illustrate the direction of prices in financial markets. It is not random, but neither is it entirely scripted. There is a great deal of improvisation and uncertainty. But what makes it all work is that great institution of the mutual benefit of buying and selling. This is what makes markets dance.

Economics and investing are the two fields that Skousen has followed closely during his long career. This book weaves the two together to show how you can use good economics to anticipate market turns. But just as importantly, it shows how you can use investing knowledge to understand economics.

You can download the e-book here.

CONTENTS

What Is the Austrian School?
Carl Menger: Subjectivism and the Marginal Revolution
Eugen Böhm-Bawerk: Saving, Interest Rates, and the Theory of Capital
Friedrich von Wieser: The “Great Man” Theory
Ludwig von Mises: Human Action
Friedrich Hayek: The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle
Schumpeter and Creative Destruction
Kirzner and the Discovery Process
Murray Rothbard and the “Hard-Money Movement”
The 2008 Financial Crisis: Austrian Response to the Chicago School of Milton Friedman
Murray Rothbard As Investment Advisor
What Every Investor Should Know About Austrian Economics and the Hard-Money Movement
The Economist As Investment Advisor
Keynes As a Speculator
Who Predicted the 1929 Crash?
Financial Economics
A Tale of Two Dollars
Austrian Economics: Newsletters, Books, and Services

We hope you enjoy this wonderful book, and thank you for being a member of the Laissez Faire Club!

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Tucker

George Gilder Wins Leonard E. Read Book Award

June 13, 2013 By Mark Skousen 1 Comment

FreedomFest, “the world’s largest gathering of free minds,” is pleased to announce that George Gilder has won the Leonard E. Read Book Award for his new work Knowledge and Power (published by Regnery). This annual award is granted to the “libertarian book of the year” which best advances the principles of liberty.

“Knowledge and Power is a revolutionary work in the tradition of Hayek’s famous essay ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ and Thomas Sowell’s influential book Knowledge and Decisions,” states Mark Skousen, economist and producer of FreedomFest. “Gilder makes the argument that decision-makers must reject the deterministic/mechanistic systems of human behavior and build their policies and economic models on the concepts of human creativity, free will and the unexpected.” His entire book is built around his thesis that “the freer an economy is, the more this human diversity of knowledge will be manifested….Capitalism is not chiefly an incentive system but an information system.”

The Leonard E. Read Book Award will be presented to Mr. Gilder at this year’s FreedomFest, July 10-13, 2013, in Las Vegas. The award also comes with a gift of a one-ounce American eagle gold coin, valued at approximately $1,500. For more information on the annual conference, which attracts over 2,000 attendees each year, go to www.freedomfest.com.

About Leonard E. Read

The Read Book Award is named after Leonard E. Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), the first modern free-market think tank in the United States, and its monthly publication The Freeman. Mr. Read (1898-1983) is the author of hundreds of essays, his most famous being “I, Pencil.” He was a voracious reader and his FEE library contained thousands of books. For more information on the Foundation for Economic Education, go to www.fee.org. (Note: This award is not affiliated with FEE, and the selection of the Read Book Award is exclusively a decision by FreedomFest.)

About George Gilder

George Gilder is one of the original pillars of supply-side economics and author of several bestsellers, including Sexual Suicide, The Spirit of Enterprise, Microcosm, and the Israel Test. His 1981 bestseller, Wealth and Poverty, had a major influence on the Reagan Administration in the 1980s. He is editor of the Gilder Technology Report, and a senior fellow at Seattle’s Discovery Institute, where he directs Discovery’s program on high technology and democracy. Gilder is a frequent writer for major business publications, including Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.

The Rise of the Commercial Society: The Business Leader as Hero

April 22, 2013 By Mark Skousen 4 Comments

By Mark Skousen
Editor, Forecasts & Strategies

Keynote Address at Annual International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE), April 18, 2013, Orlando, Florida

“It is business that creates wealth, not countries or governments. It is businesses that decide how well or poorly off we are.” —Shlomo Maital, MIT managerial professor

Tomorrow my wife Jo Ann and I celebrate our big 40th (ruby) anniversary. We were married on April 19, Patriot’s Day, in 1973 in Utah.

Last week we went to Hawaii to celebrate. When we arrived at the Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort in Honolulu, we were given a small room with only a queen size bed and no view of the famous Waikiki Beach. I asked the desk clerk if there was any chance we could have a room with a king bed. He said nothing was available.

I suspect he knew that we used Priceline to get a discount on the room. [Read more…]

Second Review of John Mackey’s Revolutionary “Conscious Capitalism”

April 18, 2013 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

Whole Foods’ Better Business

Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, John Mackey and Raj Sisodia, Harvard Business Review Press, 368 pages

By Mark Skousen • April 10, 2013

Ever since the robber barons stalked the earth and Balzac expostulated that “behind every great fortune is a crime,” the media has attacked Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and anything to do with corporations. In the latest Gallup poll on the trustworthiness of various professions, business executives come out little better than lawyers and used-car salesmen, far below the ethical standings of medical doctors, engineers, and police officers.

Even as the global marketplace has raised the standard of living a hundredfold in the past century, the accusations keep pouring in—that capitalism promotes inequality, materialism, greed, environmental degradation, and short-termism on Wall Street, and that fraud, deception, and corporate welfarism would run rampant if it weren’t for Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank, and a host of government regulatory agencies. [Read more…]

Announcing the FreedomFest Slogan Winner

March 29, 2013 By Mark Skousen 1 Comment

We are delighted to announce Daniel Brackins as the winner of the FreedomFest Slogan Contest for his suggestions “FreedomFest: For the 100%!” We believed his slogan concisely summed up the inclusive nature of FreedomFest — we welcome all people, from all parties of thought, for coherent, insightful and open discussions…all while having tons of fun in Las Vegas. We also believe that the true principles of liberty are a benefit to everyone in the world.

Daniel will receive a genuine silver dollar, the symbol of FreedomFest, as his prize for coming up with the winning slogan.

Other slogans that made the top round for selection:

“FreedomFest: It’s not about left or rights. It’s about what’s left of our rights.”

“The Barbarians are at the Gate”

“Round up the usual suspects.”

“We the Market.”

“Breath freedom.”

“Live FreedomFest, or Die Hard”

We hope to see all of you at FreedomFest for our first conference at Caesar’s Palace, July 10-13, 2013. This year’s theme is “Are We Rome?” and it promises to be the absolute greatest FreedomFest yet. To register and find out the latest news on planned events, speakers and debates, plus the incredible Anthem Film Festival, visit http://www.freedomfest.com

Huge Response to Our Latest FreedomFest Promo

February 26, 2013 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

Dear FreedomFest Friends,

We’re getting a huge response to our announcement that John Stossel is bring his #1 Fox Business show to FreedomFest, with hundreds of attendees signing up so far.

And that’s just the beginning of what the Washington Post calls “the greatest libertarian show on earth.”

One of the reasons people keep coming back to FreedomFest is to enjoy our unique panels and debates you won’t find at any other conference. Here’s 11 new events for this year’s show, all in keeping with our theme this year “Are We Rome?” [Read more…]