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.

The Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) is an association of teachers and scholars from colleges and universities, public policy institutes, and industry with a common interest in studying and supporting the system of private enterprise. APEE hosts an annual conference for members to share their scholarly findings and offers a number of awards to recognize individuals who have contributed to the cause of private enterprise. Support for young scholars is often available to attend the annual conference. The association sponsors the Journal of Private Enterprise so scholars may share their research with the wider academic community.

How bad was the Great Depression? Over the four years from 1929 to 1933, production at the nation’s factories, mines and utilities fell by more than half. People’s real disposable incomes dropped 28 percent. Stock prices collapsed to one-tenth of their pre-crash height. The number of unemployed Americans rose from 1.6 million in 1929 to 12.8 million in 1933. One of every four workers was out of a job at the Depression’s nadir, and ugly rumors of revolt simmered for the first time since the Civil War.

“The terror of the Great Crash has been the failure to explain it,” writes economist Alan Reynolds. “People were left with the feeling that massive economic contractions could occur at any moment, without warning, without cause. That fear has been exploited ever since as the major justification for virtually unlimited federal intervention in economic affairs.”[1]

Old myths never die; they just keep showing up in economics and political science textbooks. With only an occasional exception, it is there you will find what may be the 20th century’s greatest myth: Capitalism and the free-market economy were responsible for the Great Depression, and only government intervention brought about America’s economic recovery.

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This seminar will discuss the vital importance of social and economic liberty. Particularly it will explore how compromising liberty and morality in search of superficial egalitarianism and seeming security has put the West on a slippery and dangerous path.

James Otteson is a joint professor of philosophy and economics at Yeshiva University in New York and Charles G. Koch Senior Fellow at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, DC. He has previously taught at Georgetown University and at the University of Alabama.

Technical note: We apologize for the minor audio feedback present in some of this video. Due to the importance of the material we decided to post the video despite the defects.

Libertarian in the stream of von Mises, Hayek, Friedman, Hazlitt, and Rothbard.

http://ourenemythestate.blogspot.com/

I’m working on an M.A. in Journalism and Public Affairs and I make videos, fix computers, and build websites for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.