Highlights and Key Points of Mark Skousen, Current Books, Forecasts & Strategies and FreedomFest with interview topics:
Mark Skousen Biographical Information
- Professional economist, financial advisor, university professor, best-selling author
- Has held important positions in government (CIA economic analyst), business (entrepreneur, consultant), non-profit (president of Foundation for Economic Education) and media (writer and columnist)
- Editor-in-chief of award-winning Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter since 1980
- Author of more than 20 books on economics, personal finance, investing and history
- Named one of the top 20 most influential living economists by Super Scholar
- Popular speaker on investing and economics at investment conferences around the world
- Founder of FreedomFest, an annual non-partisan libertarian conference held in Las Vegas each July between 2007 and 2019
- After missing 2020 due to COVID-related government shutdown in Las Vegas, FreedomFest moved to Rapid City, SD for 2021
- Grantham University named him as Chair of Management at Grantham University, and renamed its business school “The Mark Skousen School of Business”
- Regular contributor on network and cable television news and financial programs, radio, internet blogs and shows, and print media, including CNBC’s Kudlow & Company, PBS’s Nightly Business Report, The Structure of Production (NYU Press, 2007), Forbes, Reason and Liberty magazines, The Wall Street Journal, Human Events Online, The Daily Caller, and Investment U
- Born in San Diego, California and raised in Portland, Oregon
- Married to Jo Ann Skousen (writer, professor, founding director of Anthem Film Festival), with five children and four grandchildren
- Lived in eight nations; visited and given speeches in over 80 countries
- Direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of America
Current Books and Publications
- A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street: Austrian Economics for Investors (Laissez Faire Books, 2013)
- Maxims of Wall Street: A Compilation of Financial Adages, Ancient Proverbs and Worldly Wisdom (Skousen Publishing, 2011, 2012)
- Economic Logic (economics textbook) (Capital Press, 2010, 2014, 2017)
- The Making of Modern Economics (M.E. Sharpe, 2009) (Winner 2009 Choice Book Award)
- Investing in One Lesson (Regnery Publishing, 2007)
- The Structure of Production (NYU Press, 1990, 2007 paperback)
- The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin (Regnery Publishing, 2006)
- Vienna vs Chicago: Friends or Foes? (Capital Press, 2005)
About Forecasts & Strategies
- Award-winning monthly subscription service that offers investment recommendations since 1980 with monthly newsletter, weekly hotline, and quarterly supplements
- In 1981, Dr. Skousen predicted, “Reaganomics will work!” He recommended selling gold and silver and other inflation hedges, and to buy stocks and bonds. Starting in 1982, a year after Skousen’s prediction, the stock and bond markets started their long-run bull market.
- In 1987, six weeks before the October 1987 crash, Skousen warned his subscribers, “Get out of stocks now.” He was one of the few advisors to anticipate the crash.
- In October, 1989, Skousen startled subscribers and investors at an Orlando investment conference by predicting, “The Berlin Wall will be torn down!” In the same conference, he predicted that the Federal deficit would turn into a surplus in the 1990s. Both predicted were greeted with jeers and laughter.
- In the early 1990s, at the height of skepticism about junk bonds and other high income investments, Skousen began recommending high income investments, and his successful formula for earning high income and capital gains has remained one of the most popular features of his newsletter.
- Throughout the 1990s, Skousen predicted that the 1990s would turn out to be the best decade ever for the U. S. stock market. In January 1995, Skousen startled his subscribers that predicting, “The Nasdaq will double and then double again.” Nasdaq was at 750 at the time and closed the decade over 3,000.
- In June, 2001, three months before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Skousen warned subscribers of the growing threat of terrorism from Middle East extremists.
- In his April, 2003, issue, Skousen gave a strong “buy signal” on the stock market, very close to the bottom of the market. At this time, he also introduced the Anti-Terrorist Portfolio, which has been remarkably profitable so far.
- In the height of the 2009 economic woes, he predicted the Dow would hit 10,000 by the end of 2009, and was right!
About FreedomFest
- Annual non-partisan libertarian conference, started in 2002
- Meets each July in Las Vegas, the world’s most libertarian city
- Billed as “the world’s largest libertarian gathering” by The Washington Post (2500 attendees in 2013)
- Fox Business Channel’s “Stossel” broadcast its national show from FreedomFest
- Features debates, panels, speeches, general and break-out sessions on themes of liberty and personal freedom as they relate to economics, geo-politics, investing, science and technology, education, health and nutrition, arts and literature, philosophy and history
- Features a three-day investment conference
- Features the Anthem Libertarian Film Festival
- Known as the “Tradeshow for Liberty” and attracts hundreds of think tanks, non-profit organizations, and businesses
- CSPAN BookTV covers the event each year
Interview Topics
- Current investment recommendations and stock market trends
- Geo-politics and its effect on U.S. and global economic conditions
- Austrian economic principles
- Gross Output – a measure of economic activity championed by Mark Skousen, and published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) along with GDP since 2014.
- Capitalism and free market economics
- Libertarian principles
- FreedomFest
- Current book projects:
- A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street (Austrian economics for investors)
- The Making of Modern Economics (a history of economic thought with Adam Smith as the main protagonist)
- Maxims of Wall Street (a compilation of quotes, advice, adages, stories and sayings about Wall Street, investing, finance and business)
- Benjamin Franklin (Skousen is a direct descendant of Franklin, who completed Franklin’s autobiography using Franklin’s own writings in The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin. Skousen can appear as Ben Franklin for speeches and events)
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