Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Resolution

Adam Smith should be honored as the founder of modern economics and free-enterprise capitalism.

For the affirmative:

Mark Skousen is a nationally known investment expert, economist, university professor and author of more than 25 books. Skousen taught economics and finance at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, Barnard College, Mercy College, Rollins College and Chapman University. He also has been a consultant to IBM, Hutchinson Technology and other Fortune 500 companies. He is the producer of FreedomFest, “the world’s largest gathering of free minds,” which meets every July in Las Vegas. He is currently a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He earned his Ph. D. in monetary economics at George Washington University.

He recently was named one of the 20 most influential living economists, and in honor of his work in economics, finance and management, Grantham University renamed its business school, “The Mark Skousen School of Business.”

Skousen is the former editor in chief of Forecasts & Strategies, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, a columnist to Forbes magazine, and past president of the Foundation for Economic Education.

He is the author of 25 books, including The Structure of Production; Economics on Trial; Puzzles and Paradoxes on Economics; The Making of Modern Economics; The Big Three in Economics; EconoPower; Economic Logic; The Complete Guide to Financial Privacy; High Finance on a Low Budget; Scrooge Investing; Investing in One Lesson; A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street; and The Maxims of Wall Street.

For the negative:

Gene Epstein is a nationally known economist, and the economics editor of Barron's, America's premier financial magazine. He is also the books editor at Barron’s, and writes a weekly column called “Economic Beat.”

Epstein is the author of Econospinning: How to Read between the Lines when the Media Manipulate the Numbers; and Making Money in Commodities. He has taught economics at the City University of New York and St. John’s University, and worked as a senior economist for the New York Stock Exchange.

Gene has appeared on Fox, CNBC, and BBC TV, and on podcasts that include Russ Roberts’ “EconTalk,” Dave Smith’s “Part of the Problem,” and “The Tom Woods Show”.

He has delivered lectures in venues that include Columbia University, hosted by Students for Liberty; the International House in Tokyo; Loyola University in Baltimore; Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City; the Romanian-American University in Bucharest; the American Center in Moscow; the International Banking Institute in St. Petersburg; and FreedomFest in Las Vegas.

Gene Epstein created the Soho Forum, Libertarian Debate Series, and currently acts as the moderator of the series.