WEBVTT NOTE Why You Should Support the Mises Institute 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.760 I just have a couple of minutes to talk to you about something that's really important 2 00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:09.560 and I want to tell you why the Mises Institute is so important and why it deserves your support. 3 00:00:09.560 --> 00:00:13.860 You know, one of the questions that people always ask is, well, how come we don't hear 4 00:00:13.860 --> 00:00:18.300 more about free market economics and the von Mises Institute in schools? 5 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:21.000 And you think about it, how do we get our information? 6 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:26.000 Well, the principal way we get our information, one source is the major media. 7 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:43.000 However, it is not true that the major media definitely always tells you what's what, and in fact in my lifetime there's been a 50 year period where you couldn't get anything into the major media having to do with smoking, even though arguably smoking was killing half a million people a year. 8 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:54.000 But what about the colleges? How come we don't hear more about free market economics in the important schools? And the stuff that you hear mostly is that, well, there's a bias. 9 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.000 Well, actually, in my view, there's a much more compelling and a much more sinister explanation. 10 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:03.000 I'd like to tell you what it is. 11 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:11.000 And the guy who really put his finger on this, his name is John Kenneth Galbraith, a Keynesian, not one of us. 12 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:17.000 Now firstly, about John Kenneth Galbraith, he was in charge in wage and price controls during World War II. 13 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:22.000 He was very highly regarded. Kennedy loved this guy. He made them the ambassador to India. 14 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:27.000 to India, and after Kennedy was murdered, they wanted to run Galbraith for president. 15 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:31.000 Well, fortunately for us, and I think for him as well, he was born in Canada and he 16 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:36.360 wasn't eligible for this. And so he was, for something like half a century, the Paul M. 17 00:01:36.360 --> 00:01:42.760 Warburg Professor Emeritus of Economics at Harvard. He wrote 40 some odd books. He was 18 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:49.000 the president of the American Economic Association, again, arguably the dean of the economic profession. 19 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:53.080 In one of these books, it's called Money, he has this very interesting line, which I 20 00:01:53.080 --> 00:01:54.560 think is important. 21 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:59.320 He says, the study of money above all other fields in economics is one in which complexity 22 00:01:59.320 --> 00:02:04.180 is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. 23 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:08.300 To disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. 24 00:02:08.300 --> 00:02:12.520 Now we have a word in the English language for disguising and evading the truth, it's 25 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:13.520 called lying. 26 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:20.520 And so here you have this very important guy telling you that in monetary economics, these economists lie. 27 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:24.520 Well, why do they lie? I mean, they have tenure. They could say whatever they want. 28 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:32.520 And the answer is they've pretty much all been bought off with honorariums, with endowed chairs, with research grants, you name it. 29 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:38.520 And the first time I came upon this, I called the blue about it, and I had a piece of evidence, which I'll tell you now. 30 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:41.520 And Lew said right away, he says, well, they're all on the take. 31 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:48.520 Now, one of the problems that people in academia have in getting ahead is that they all have to write papers which have to be published. 32 00:02:48.520 --> 00:03:01.520 Well, there's a recent piece in the Huffington Post, somebody did a real big analysis on it, and it turns out that almost all of the important journals are edited by present or former employees of the Federal Reserve. 33 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:08.520 And they don't let this stuff get into the journals, so people in academia who want to get ahead, they can't get published. 34 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:19.520 Another thing which came to light, when I first started my organization, I was introduced to a guy by the name of Bobby Auerbach, who was then the Chief Economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress. 35 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:26.520 Prior to that, he had been the Chief Legislative Aide for Henry Gonzales, when Henry Gonzales was head of the House Banking Committee. 36 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:35.520 And Henry Gonzales every year used to introduce legislation to bring the Federal Reserve under the umbrella of the Congress when it goes for money, just like everybody else. 37 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:40.160 and every year this legislation used to get knocked down and then one year he 38 00:03:40.160 --> 00:03:44.160 submitted very good legislation he got hundreds of letters from all over the 39 00:03:44.160 --> 00:03:48.680 country and it says to Auerbach and it's Auerbach telling me this story who's 40 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:52.480 writing all these letters and it turns out that just about all of these letters 41 00:03:52.480 --> 00:03:58.560 were written by economists who were at one time and at that time to employees 42 00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:03.200 directly or indirectly of the Fed visiting scholars and whatnot Auerbach 43 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:33.200 Hayek showed these, he collected all these contracts that the Fed had signed with these economists to a reporter, his name is Stephen Davies, who put us an article in the American Banker, which I have the article, I can email it to anyone who wants to see it, and basically what these economists promised, among other things, in return for their fees, was not to say anything bad about the Fed. And Gonzales said, all they're doing is buying off credits, so basically the whole thing is fixed. 44 00:04:33.200 --> 00:04:37.120 I did my own Freedom of Information request to double check this. I got a list of all 45 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:42.380 the economists like this. And you know who's not on that list? People like Murray Rothbard. 46 00:04:42.380 --> 00:04:46.740 The people from the Austrian School, they don't get paid, they don't become the visiting 47 00:04:46.740 --> 00:04:51.360 scholars to the Federal Reserve. So the reason why, I mean one of the reasons why you should 48 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:56.600 support the Mises Institute, this is the fountain of truth. And if you want the real stuff to 49 00:04:56.600 --> 00:05:00.960 get into academia, if you wanted to get into society, if you want to somehow prevent a 50 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:05.200 and the debacle which is surely coming, or at least mitigate the damage, please, right 51 00:05:05.200 --> 00:05:11.360 now, take out these contribution forms, everybody has one, and please make a fully tax-deductible 52 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:13.760 contribution to the von Mises Institute. 53 00:05:13.760 --> 00:05:27.760 And thank you very much, and God bless you all, and good night. 54 00:05:27.760 --> 00:05:30.940 Let's quickly say thank you to our donors who made this possible, like everything else 55 00:05:30.940 --> 00:05:37.940 Thanks to our wonderful speakers, thanks to our staff, and thanks to all of you for coming.