Mark Skousen, Author at MSKOUSEN.COM

FreedomFest 2012 “Wall to Wall Excitement”

July 16, 2012 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

Dear Investors and Friends of Liberty,

I just returned from the “one of a kind” conference, FreedomFest, where more than 2,000 investors and concerned citizens heard from over 150 speakers, including Sen. Rand Paul, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Steve Forbes, John Mackey, Peter Schiff, Alex Green, Robert Kiyosaki, and a host of other financial gurus. One comment overheard: “FreedomFest is wall-to-wall excitement!”

It was electrifying, beginning with standing a room-only (SRO) crowd, listening to Dinesh D’Souza talk about his latest film “2016: Obama’s America,” and ending with Robert Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” speaking on “Be The Fed: Gaining Your Unfair Advantage in an Unfair System.” The exhibit hall, “the trade show for liberty,” was abuzz with more than a hundred think tanks, freedom organizations, and financial services. C-SPAN was there to interview over a dozen authors (to be aired soon). [Read more…]

Fantastic Review of Maxims of Wall Street by Barron’s

June 7, 2012 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

I’m delighted to announce that Barron’s reviewed Maxims of Wall Street, my compendium of sayings, quotes and pithy witicisms about investing and the stock market, on June 2. Click here to read the complete review. My favorite quote is: “A cogent collection of quotations from the investing giants, phrasemakers, and chroniclers on the beguiling, heartless, and trying ways of Wall Street….a diverting reference for an avid investor or market-history buff.” You can get a copy of Maxims of Wall Street (a perfect gift for Father’s Day!) from Amazon.com or Eagle Publishing, www.markskousen.com or 800-211-7661. Enjoy!

New Video about FreedomFest

June 4, 2012 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

We’ve just posted an exciting 3-minute video about FreedomFest. It has powerful imagery and haunting music. Feel free to pass along to friends and encourage them to come to FreedomFest, July 11-14, 2012. “Where free minds meet!” https://vimeo.com/43399590

My Run In with the Irrepressible and Dangerous Paul Krugman in London

June 1, 2012 By Mark Skousen 7 Comments

I’ve been in Poland and England on a very successful speaking tour — all SRO crowds. In Poland, thanks for Jan Fijor, many of my books have been translated….In London I spoke at the Adam Smith Institute on “Austrian economics for Investors” and the Institute for Economic Affairs on “Hayek vs. Keynes: Who’s On Top?” Needless to say, in today’s crisis mode, Keynes and Keynesian economics are clearly on top.

Speaking of which……

This evening after my wife and I went to “Top Hat,” a fantastic new musical based on Irving Berlin’s film of the same name, we ran into Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize economist and foremost advocate of “crude” Keynesian deficit spending, who is here in London on a book tour. I asked him a series of questions: [Read more…]

How Keynes Changed His Investment Philosophy and Died Wealthy

May 24, 2012 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

by Mark Skousen, Investment U Research
Friday, April 27, 2012: Issue #1761

John Maynard Keynes: The Contrarian Investor

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – John Maynard Keynes

As longtime subscribers and readers of my books know, I’m no fan of John Maynard Keynes as an academic economist. His legacy is the welfare state, trillion-dollar unfunded liabilities and uncontrolled deficit spending. (See chapter 13, The Keynes Mutiny: Capitalism Faces Its Greatest Challenge of my book The Making of Modern Economics.)

But when it comes to Keynes the investor, it’s a different story, and the man deserves credit for being an outstanding stock picker during a period of war, uncertainty and depression… [Read more…]

A Visit to Morocco

April 30, 2012 By Mark Skousen 1 Comment

On April 19, my wife and I flew to Morocco for the Mont Pelerin Society meetings, the first to take place in an Arab country. We stayed at the Le Royal Mansour Meridien in downtown Casablanca, a first class hotel with great service, but surrounding the hotel was a lot of dust, litter, and construction. The city of 6 million did not live up to its romanticized exotic reputation, and was quite “Third World.”

That evening we went to Rick’s Café for our wedding anniversary. The restaurant, named after the famous Humphrey Bogart film, is eloquent and first class: www.rickscafe.ma. When we arrived the maitre d’ announced, “best table in the house for the Skousens!” We were placed right next to the piano, where the piano player played tunes such as “As Time Goes By.” We had a great meal, and a wonderful evening. Highly recommended. [Read more…]

Video on “Maxims of Wall Street”

April 17, 2012 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

Here’s a new 4-minute video of my talking about my new book “The Maxims of Wall Street”: http://www.moneyshow.com/video/video.asp?wid=8168&t=3&scode=027326

We’re making a special offer for those who want to buy additional copies for gifts: You may $20 for the first copy and only $10 for each additional copy. All copies will be autographed. To take advantage of this half-priced offer, you need to call Eagle Publishing, 1-800-211-7661, and mention code MAXIME.

“Maxims” makes a great gift to students, investors, stockbrokers, clients, and anyone interested in Wall Street. As Rodolfo Milano of Dominick & Dominick in Miami wrote me last month, “Maxims is the perfect gift for my best clients.” I’ve had subscribers buy 3, 4, and 6 copies at a time.

For more information on how to order, click here.

Making of Modern Economics #2 in Ayn Rand Institute’s Top-Ten Must Read Books in Economics

April 7, 2012 By Mark Skousen Leave a Comment

Good news. My book, The Making of Modern Economics, now in its second edition, won recognition from the Ayn Rand Institute, which published its first “top ten must-read books in economics,” The Making of Modern Economics was ranked second, right behind Henry Hazlitt’s classic Economics in One Lesson. I’m not complaining, since Steve Mariotti, president of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), recently wrote that “Mark Skousen is the Henry Hazlitt of our time who can explain complex issues in a clear way.”

My book tells the bold story of economics, with free-market economist Adam Smith as the heroic figure who comes under attack by the Marxists, socialists and Keynesians, but triumphs in the end with the help of the Austrians, Chicagoans, and supply-siders. It recently won the Choice Book Award for Outstanding Academic Title, and is highly popular among students and intelligent laymen who love a good story with lots of anecdotes and pictures. As John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, says, “I’ve read Mark’s book three times. It’s fun to read on every page.”

It is available on Amazon, including an audio version, but you can get the book cheaper by calling Eagle Publishing at 1-800/211-7661. The price is only $49.95 for hardback (code ECONH3), $29.95 for paperback (ECONP3), plus $5 for shipping and handling ($10 if outside of the United States).

Free Market Textbooks Reign!

April 5, 2012 By Mark Skousen 3 Comments

A Special Report from APEE Meetings in Las Vegas
by Mark Skousen

Free Market Economists and their textbooks, APEE, Las Vegas, 4/2/12

Mark Skousen, Peter Boettke (GMU), James Gwartney (FSU), and Tyler Cowen (GMU) at the APEE meetings at Harrah's in Las Vegas in front of their respective textbooks, April 2, 2012.

On April 2, 2012, I moderated a panel at the annual APEE meetings in Las Vegas. APEE (Association of Private Enterprise Education) is the gathering place of free-market academic economists, and this year a record group of 500 showed up from colleges and institutions around the world. (Go to www.apee.org for more information.)

The panel’s theme was “Squaring the Mises Circle: How to Integrate Austrian Economics into Mainstream Textbooks,” and we had a SRO crowd.

It’s amazing how economics textbooks have changed in one generation. When I was going to college, the principal textbook was Paul Samuelson’s Economics, which promoted the Keynesian themes of paradox of thrift, deficit spending, progressive taxation, and the welfare state.

In 1991, I wrote a book called “Economics on Trial” (McGraw-Hill), which surveyed the top ten textbooks in economics at the time, and most were still Keynesian.

Today Keynesian textbooks are still out there (Krugman, Baumol & Blinder), but there are a whole bunch of free-market textbooks, including ones by Roger Leroy Miller, Greg Mankiw, and the four highlighted at the APEE panel. I spent a couple of days reviewing them in preparation for the panel, and was amazed how they all included new material from the great Austrian economists, especially the ideas of Friedrich Hayek. [Read more…]

Why the Bears Were Wrong: It’s Not the End of America

March 20, 2012 By Mark Skousen 1 Comment

by Mark Skousen, Investment U Research
Thursday, March 15, 2012: Issue #1730

Why the Bears Were Wrong (and Why Glenn Beck Left Fox News)

“Bears make headlines, bulls make money.” Old Wall Street saying

Over the weekend, I spent some time one-on-one with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck at a private meeting at Mar de Lago – Donald Trump’s Florida retreat. My friend Dan Mangru invited a group of friends to meet Beck and talk about his new non-profit organization Mercury One.

Glenn is still doing well with his nationwide radio program and his new for-pay television show. He wears glasses all the time now, due to his suffering from macular dystrophy, but his wife told me that his condition has stabilized for now.

What’s Glenn’s outlook for the economy? For all the years I’ve known him (appearing on his show twice), he’s what we call a “permabear.” He remains quite pessimistic about the direction this country and the world is headed. His greatest fear is big government…

[Read more…]