This opulence is overwhelming, and it set me to thinking about previous conferences that we've had through the years.
In our earlier days, we would be more likely to have a conference at Motel 6, where the rates were modest.
and I'm reminded of driving Murray Rothbard, he was the speaker at some event, some libertarian event and we were in traffic and I was annoyed and I said,
Murray, there's people, Milton Friedman gets $15,000 for a speech, what are you going to get?
And Murray said, I hope they don't serve fish.
If there's any single word that would describe the tone of the conference and the speakers,
they were diverse, many countries, different continents.
I think the word integrity comes to life.
They disagreed or possibly had disagreements on some of them, but there was an integrity.
They believed in what they did, not a sell-out in the crowd.
And it says much about the Mises Institute and I made a speech in Toronto when somebody came up to me afterwards and said something about it being a moral speech.
I'd never been accused of that before and I didn't know quite how to handle it, but that's what he was talking about, that there's an integrity in what we believe and it exists with everybody in this room.
Let me talk about gold a little bit because the subject was brought up by almost every speaker and I would just like to give my narrow view of the subject and my colleague, Luke Carabini, I think he'll agree with me on much of this.
Luke Carabini, we've been competitors for 40 years, this is the first time we've met.
I claim that I'm ten years behind him in everything he does, okay.
Whether you view gold as insurance, hedge, primary statement of your belief,
a lot of our customers are making the statement that by buying an ounce of gold
that they're sort of supporting their view of the world.
We have a lot of different ways to buy gold these days.
In these days, you can buy stock in a goldmine company or you can buy a mutual fund that
holds gold mining shares.
You can buy an equity in some depository.
I can't even keep up with the different ways that you can buy gold.
Then there's the electronic gold where you get a credit to your account.
My view of all of that is, before I'll invest my money or advise my customers, the concept
has to be around about 200 years.
And if it stands that test of time, then I'll take a chance.
Our view would be, you buy whatever other options you choose, buy some gold.
Lew, take delivery, okay?
Some of it, take delivery.
Now, where you store it, where you keep it, I don't know, but you work that out yourself,
but everybody should have some gold.
It's a good feeling at night when you, one of my, when gold is down $12 an ounce and
everybody is depressed and I'll call this fellow and his wife tells me he's in his
library, he closed the door and he's counting his gold coins.
That's the way, that's the way he deals with it.
The film that you're about to see is remarkable, but Pat Barnett can better explain it. She'll
tell you all about it, but it is remarkable. Is it about 20 years? About 20 years since
that was done? 19 years. My job usually ends by asking you for money. So before I introduce
You're going to find an envelope on your place setting.
It's hard to ask for money in this place.
It doesn't warrant asking for money, but we need your support.
We want to keep everything going.
Most of you are aware of our programs and our library.
If you've not been to Auburn, Alabama, you must go.
So, it's going to Mecca, it's a testament to Llewellyn Rockwell, but in a way it belongs
to all of us, you must make that trip.
So help us, be as generous as you can, don't go to the gaming tables for an hour or so,
give us the proceeds instead, and once again thank you all for coming and making this a
wonderful success, thank you very much.