WEBVTT NOTE The Command Economy: Surging Forward into the Past 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.520 We're very, very privileged to have a very special speaker today with us. 2 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:18.400 He was a popular Phoenix radio personality, dubbed America's most independent talk show host. 3 00:00:18.400 --> 00:00:26.840 And this little bit of his bio especially tickled me 4 00:00:26.840 --> 00:00:56.840 because 25 years ago, he arranged to have, it says, a little-known Texas congressman named Ron Paul as well as, of course, my old teacher, Murray Rothbard, be keynote speakers at monetary conferences he hosted, so this is, our final speaker today is Nadej Johnny, come lately, he has been part of this movement for a long, long time, he's 5 00:00:56.840 --> 00:01:08.240 appeared on a number of programs, too many to mention. He's working on a new book that will be released next year, 6 00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:16.840 making the case for liberty and prosperity in a new way. But I want to talk a little bit about his, I want to mention at least, 7 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:26.840 New York Times Best Seller, the dollar meltdown, surviving the impending currency crisis with gold, oil and other unconventional investments. 8 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:34.840 We've talked a lot about the coming economic climate and it hasn't been very pretty. 9 00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:41.840 I've read this book, it's a wonderful book and urge you all to buy it. 10 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:49.200 we have it on sale and he is here to not only give us a great talk but autograph those books so 11 00:01:50.240 --> 00:01:57.360 take advantage of that please he's speaking about the command economy surging forward into the past 12 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:04.560 the valley of the sun's favorite son of liberty please help me welcome Charles Goyette 13 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:27.740 So, an old grizzled farmer walks into his rural branch of Washington Mutual a couple 14 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:32.280 of years ago and he says you know I'm going to put a little bit of money in this bank 15 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:41.280 How do I know my money is going to be safe? What happens to my money if something goes wrong with Washington Mutual? 16 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:51.280 And the bank manager said, well, if something were to go wrong with Washington Mutual, then we'd probably be taken over by a bigger bank like Chase Bank. 17 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:57.280 And they'd make sure that everything was okay with you, you know, they'd take your accounts over, and things would be fine. 18 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:04.560 And the farmer said, well, what if there were a problem with Chase Bank? 19 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:08.320 The bank manager said, okay, if there was a problem with Chase Bank, your account's 20 00:03:08.320 --> 00:03:10.320 insured by the FDIC. 21 00:03:10.320 --> 00:03:14.720 The FDIC would step in and make you hold everything and be fine. 22 00:03:14.720 --> 00:03:22.080 The old farmer peered at him and said, yeah, but what if the FDIC ran out of money? 23 00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:34.080 The manager said, okay, if the FDIC ran out of money, then the U.S. Treasury would step in, they'd write a check to the FDIC, and the FDIC would write a check to you, and everything would be fine, you'd get your money back. 24 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:42.080 And the farmer said, yeah, sure, but what if the United States government is bankrupt? 25 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:47.200 and the branch manager said okay if the United States government were bankrupt 26 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:52.720 then the Federal Reserve just print up a whole bunch of new money you get fresh 27 00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:59.320 money ink still wet and the farmer said yeah but what if the what if the people 28 00:03:59.320 --> 00:04:05.480 catch on and decide to end the Fed the bank manager said oh well if the people 29 00:04:05.480 --> 00:04:11.240 decide to end the Fed he said in that case you would lose your money but 30 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:21.160 But wouldn't it be worth it? 31 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:24.080 It is, ladies and gentlemen, a great pleasure for me to be here today. 32 00:04:24.080 --> 00:04:25.080 Good afternoon. 33 00:04:25.080 --> 00:04:27.400 I'm so grateful to be a part of this Mises Circle. 34 00:04:27.400 --> 00:04:31.080 It's a good name for it, a Mises Circle, because there are a lot of things in the orbit of 35 00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:36.520 the Mises Institute that are very, very important in our civic and national life. 36 00:04:36.520 --> 00:05:06.520 in fact in my view the scholars here, the books that they write, all the material that the Mises Institute makes available online that I avail myself of all the time and then even beyond that also in the orbit things like Lew Rockwell's wonderful websites that I hit first thing in the morning and then even beyond that I think Ron Paul's visibility now after the campaign I think all these things are in the orbit of the Mises Institute and they have 37 00:05:06.520 --> 00:05:29.520 Socrates taught us that philosophy really shouldn't be left to the specialist, that it's the duty of every man and woman to effectively be a philosopher, and I feel the same way about economics. 38 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:35.520 Every day we're engaged in economic acts and I know that you will agree with me that it is utterly bizarre 39 00:05:36.640 --> 00:05:42.000 to look at all of this wealth about us in this country that the people have produced. 40 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:48.320 All of this abundance and prosperity produced by people like us and then to think under the 41 00:05:48.320 --> 00:05:56.560 circumstances that there could be a priesthood that emerges from its marble temple cloaked in 42 00:05:56.560 --> 00:06:06.560 and Secrecy a couple of times a year and mumbles some strange incantations and we're supposed to leave it at that. 43 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:14.560 The people who are capable of producing all this wealth need no more about the disposition of the wealth 44 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:19.560 or even the monetary matrix in which all of this commercial activity functions. 45 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:25.560 Now what are these monetary cranks these priests have given us for the last ten years, just the last ten years? 46 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:30.900 Well in the last ten years they have given us two stock market crashes, they've given 47 00:06:30.900 --> 00:06:36.240 us two recessions, the current one, the worst downturn that we've had in this country since 48 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:41.200 the Great Depression, and of course they've given us the housing bust, but they've given 49 00:06:41.200 --> 00:06:47.120 us Ben Bernanke, the Time Magazine Man of the Year, and they've given us Alan Greenspan, 50 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:51.320 who by the way has been on television here the last week telling us all that nobody saw 51 00:06:51.320 --> 00:07:08.320 I never saw this downturn coming, nobody saw that, and it astonishes me that they can mumble this strange Keynesian nonsense, and we're told by the media to just mind our betters and shut up about all of it. 52 00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:38.320 I wonder if people in their normal everyday lives would put up with such nonsense if a lady back here in the back of this room were to leave her purse beside her chair and come back a little while later and find out that her purse is gone, she wouldn't likely welcome a lecture about the metaphysics of the insubstantiality of matter. She'd want to know who the hell stole her purse. But we allow them to destroy our currency to steal the 53 00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:44.320 public purse and then we're told to mind our betters and just keep our concerns to ourselves. 54 00:07:44.320 --> 00:07:52.320 So as a layman, I would like to express my gratitude to the Austrian School economists and the Mises Institute 55 00:07:52.320 --> 00:08:00.320 because my expectation of them is that they provide us clear concepts and proven judgments 56 00:08:00.320 --> 00:08:05.320 that have demonstrable value in understanding what happened in the past and what is going to happen next 57 00:08:35.320 --> 00:08:39.000 And one must not believe impossible things. 58 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.360 And the Red Queen, the symbol of the crazed state, says, 59 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:45.400 well, you certainly can believe impossible things. 60 00:08:45.400 --> 00:08:47.200 And she said, I believe them all the time. 61 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:50.320 And some days, I have believed as many as six impossible things 62 00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:52.280 before breakfast. 63 00:08:52.280 --> 00:08:54.200 So this morning before breakfast, 64 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:56.840 I jotted down six impossible things 65 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.560 that we have been persuaded by our education system 66 00:08:59.560 --> 00:09:02.680 and by the governing classes and by the priesthood that 67 00:09:02.680 --> 00:09:04.960 simply aren't so but are responsible for the best 68 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:10.960 The monetary cranks have taught us that we can spend our way to prosperity. 69 00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:13.960 How's that been working out for us? 70 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:19.960 I cite Representative Pete Stark, a California congressman, told an interviewer some years ago. 71 00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:24.960 He said, the truth is that in terms of government reckoning, 72 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:28.960 the more debt we have, the richer we are as a nation. 73 00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:31.960 Which is kind of funny because we had half the debt at the time, 74 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:36.360 and the dollar was worth 30 or 40 percent more at the time he gave his interview. 75 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:42.960 Are we richer now? Here, 10 years later. All of this is this Keynesian mumbo jumbo 76 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:47.120 that our prior speakers have talked about. I read something by Keynes the other day, 77 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:53.640 it's actually my favorite one, in which he recommended the way out of our morass, 78 00:09:53.640 --> 00:09:58.320 the way to march out of the quagmire. They sold us the map to march us in, right? 79 00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:28.320 and they sell us another map to march us out and in which he recommended that the way to do this to spend our way to prosperity would be if we could just get a whole bunch of empty bottles and stuff them with cash and then we'll bury those empty bottles in old abandoned coal mines and then cover it up with refuse and then let word out you know that there's there's cash in them they're gold mines or in those mines and the subsequent economic activity would stimulate us back to our former state of prosperity that people 80 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:33.120 would buy shovels, they would drive to this place and there would be a whole hubbub of 81 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:38.520 frenzy of activity. Of course, this is the broken window fallacy of Bastiat, you know, 82 00:10:38.520 --> 00:10:44.120 the idea that this destructive activity by the Fed, first of all, the cost of the bureaucrats 83 00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:49.100 buried the money to begin with, but then you realize that all of this activity in the purchase 84 00:10:49.100 --> 00:10:51.860 of the shovels and the transportation and all the work of the people trying to dig up 85 00:10:51.860 --> 00:10:56.400 those bottles full of cash is a productive activity that is not creating something of 86 00:10:56.400 --> 00:11:05.520 of Genuine Lasting Wealth. It's more make-work. It's stimulating. It's deficit accommodating. 87 00:11:05.520 --> 00:11:10.880 And it's tarping. And it's exactly what we get from the Republicans and Democrats alike. 88 00:11:10.880 --> 00:11:16.360 Now, there are a lot of great examples of this sort of monetary crank advice. My favorite 89 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:21.200 one though was from Hillary Clinton during the last presidential election. She came out 90 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:28.280 with the idea of giving every newborn in America a baby bond. And they'd get a bond when they 91 00:11:28.280 --> 00:11:32.320 were born, and then, I don't know, when they hit another milestone, the age of 12 or something, 92 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:36.320 get another bond. And then when they grew up, they'd have all this money they could cash 93 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:41.160 in the bonds, and you scratch your head and puzzle, and she thinks, and you wonder, who 94 00:11:41.160 --> 00:11:48.480 does she think is going to pay off those bonds? Those poor little babies. So it's the incredible 95 00:11:48.480 --> 00:11:51.560 The bread machine, you know, this is money out of thin air. Anyway, that's one of the 96 00:11:51.560 --> 00:11:56.600 impossible things that the monetary cranks and the fed priesthood have taught us in the 97 00:11:56.600 --> 00:11:59.960 governing classes. How about the one, though, that you can create money out of thin air? 98 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:02.960 Oh, yeah, you can print money and you can create it digitally and so on, but you can't 99 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:09.120 create any wealth that way. And the reason, in my view, that Americans buy this nonsense 100 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:14.720 is that they are so remote from a real understanding of money. It's like, you know, growing up 101 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:23.720 I don't know if my kids believed it, but I know a lot of kids really believe that milk and eggs come from Safeway. 102 00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:28.720 Right? They don't understand the whole messy business about the farm in the background. 103 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:33.720 And Americans have been conditioned to forget the whole business about wealth in the background, 104 00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:38.720 because after all it was 1933 when the backing of gold, the dollar backing of gold was removed, 105 00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:46.360 was removed and it was 1971 when the dollar exchange standard was eliminated. So people 106 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:50.960 still think these pieces of paper and green ink have value and it's worked out really 107 00:12:50.960 --> 00:13:00.040 well to the benefit of the monetary authorities and the governing classes of America. My question 108 00:13:00.040 --> 00:13:06.720 though is what they really know. And you look at somebody like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama 109 00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:19.720 And you wonder how much do they really understand of any of this and what really gives money its value and if they really think that wealth can be created by a magical act of a wand being waved by a sorcerer at the Federal Reserve. 110 00:13:19.720 --> 00:13:28.720 And so I brought you this example from the last time we had a serious inflationary problem in this country was in the 1970s. 111 00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:36.120 Things were so bad that President Carter appointed a chief inflation fighter, which you would 112 00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:39.660 think that's, now we've got somebody who's going to roll up his sleeves and get down 113 00:13:39.660 --> 00:13:45.560 to business. It was Professor Alfred Kahn. And one day, Professor Kahn appeared on Meet 114 00:13:45.560 --> 00:13:50.120 the Press on NBC. You may remember the economics correspondent back in those days was Irving 115 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:55.960 R. Levine, wore a little bow tie like Jeffrey Tucker. He said to Professor Kahn now in his 116 00:13:55.960 --> 00:14:06.480 Irving R. Levine said, now, in order to cure any illness, one has to diagnose the cause. 117 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:18.540 What do you see as the principal cause of inflation? Professor Kahn, I'm going to evade 118 00:14:18.540 --> 00:14:25.040 that question because I don't know what the principal cause of inflation is. The essence 119 00:14:25.040 --> 00:14:55.040 I think that the problem of inflation is so deep rooted in Western society and can be attributed to such broad social causes that I think, for example, the inflation that we're experiencing in the United States today is in some important way related to the fact that I see people throw papers on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue when I walk to the subway, and it distresses me. 120 00:14:55.040 --> 00:15:25.040 or I see them walk on the grass. It has something to do with the sense of being members of a single society rather than as I have put it, and forgive me for repeating myself, 200 to 225 million people at perpetual war with one another. Now, what the hell does that mean? But you wonder, you know, you wonder about some of these people if they really understand, you know, 121 00:15:25.040 --> 00:15:33.040 the bamboozle job that they're embarked on or whether they're just, you know, serving the power that appointed them to represent the interests of the power. 122 00:15:33.040 --> 00:15:45.040 You kind of wonder, but I have an incident from you. As bad as the chief inflation fighter under Carter was, under Ford it was even a little more silly. 123 00:15:45.040 --> 00:15:54.040 Because Ford came on TV, I watched him as a young man in college, came on TV and said, we've got a problem with inflation, but here's the solution. 124 00:15:54.040 --> 00:16:01.040 First of all, clean your dinner plates. The mothers of America are going to have to teach those children of theirs to lick their dinner plates clean. 125 00:16:01.040 --> 00:16:08.040 And besides that, you can send off to Washington for one of these. A whip inflation now button. 126 00:16:08.040 --> 00:16:14.040 And I've treasured this all these years. And help us whip inflation now. 127 00:16:14.040 --> 00:16:23.040 So, anyway, at the time, Alan Greenspan, later to be the Fed chairman, was, I think he was the chairman of President Ford's Council of Economic Advisers. 128 00:16:23.040 --> 00:16:53.040 and after he left the Fed he said that win thing he said I thought that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard but you know he didn't say anything at the time right so you wonder about these guys you wonder about the exercises of printing money and what they really know and who knows better because there are students here I like to do this sometimes so I brought a bunch of German currency from the Weimar Republic inflation that our other speakers have talked about I like to show this to you first 129 00:16:53.040 --> 00:17:23.040 First of all, in 1920, at the beginning of the inflationary period, a mark was worth, I don't remember, about 22 cents or something like that, you could buy a loaf of bread with a mark, and this was a German mark, a nice piece of paper, it's engraved and scroll work, and it's a nice piece of linen stock, and so this is a one mark piece, so as the inflation goes on a little bit, and people would carry a couple of these around, you know, if they wanted to go to a motion picture or have a drink, get a cup of coffee, they'd have these in their pockets, a couple of years later, moving down the road, all of a sudden this was the coin of the realm, so to speak, this is a 20,000 130 00:17:23.040 --> 00:17:28.640 Mark piece, which people carried around. It's still a nice piece of linen paper, a big, huge piece of paper. 131 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:39.440 Well, things were getting a little bit more serious later in 1922. This is a 50,000 mark note, so if you needed a cup of coffee, you'd be fortunate to have one of these to pay for it. 132 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:48.040 But things got even more serious than that as we started getting near 1923. This is a one million mark note. 133 00:17:48.040 --> 00:17:52.920 But that was nothing. Here's the 2 million mark note and here's the 10 million mark note. 134 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:59.080 Now, the Germans were renowned for their efficiency, right? Here's the 50,000 mark note. 135 00:17:59.080 --> 00:18:02.840 Big piece of linen stock. It's carefully printed, multicolored, four-color printing. 136 00:18:02.840 --> 00:18:06.920 Nice piece of linen. You can feel it has substance like it must be real money, right? 137 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:10.680 By the time they got to these, this 10 million mark note, it was half the size. 138 00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:14.920 So they could turn it out. They literally had dozens of printing presses working 24-7. 139 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:19.900 and so this was half the, by the way, they took to more efficiently only 140 00:18:19.900 --> 00:18:26.200 printed it on one side so you could turn it out twice as fast and of course this 141 00:18:26.200 --> 00:18:29.600 is what we would think of today is photocopier paper instead of instead of 142 00:18:29.600 --> 00:18:34.280 nice linen stock. Well one of the other one of the other things that the the 143 00:18:34.280 --> 00:18:38.240 priesthood has taught us to believe unquestioningly is that is that you can't 144 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:42.880 no I'll put let me put it to you this way if I were a 12 year old when I was a 145 00:18:42.880 --> 00:19:02.880 If I was a 12-year-old kid, if I took my bicycle to the Texaco station to inflate the back tire, right, and I put too much air in and the thing popped, the thing blew up, I would not have thought at the age of 12, not for a second, that I could fix it by pumping more air into it. 146 00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:07.880 Isn't that what they've tried to tell us about re-inflating the last bubble, that they're going to do it all over again? 147 00:19:07.880 --> 00:19:11.880 I mean, you know, Japan hasn't been able to do it with their real estate market for 20 years. 148 00:19:11.880 --> 00:19:16.880 You have, I mean, if you could reinflate the last bubble, the Nasdaq stock index would be at 5,000, right? 149 00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:20.880 Tulip bulbs would still be millions of dollars. 150 00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:25.880 But, of course, it all turned out as was so well described for us as, 151 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:30.880 it's really been a wealth transfer scheme and a vote buying scheme and so on and so forth. 152 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:36.880 But people believe these things when they're told it sagely on the national news. How about this one? 153 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:48.360 Number four, we, some of the richest people in the world, can continue forever to borrow from some of the poorest people in the world. 154 00:19:48.360 --> 00:19:51.400 Now that really took a monetary crank to come out with that. 155 00:19:51.400 --> 00:19:56.000 But the monetary cranks were actually worse a couple of years ago because they used to say, 156 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:58.440 oh, the debt, the debt, the debt doesn't matter. 157 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:00.800 We owe it to ourselves. 158 00:20:00.800 --> 00:20:03.120 They can't get away with that anymore, right? 159 00:20:03.120 --> 00:20:33.120 So, and the rest of the world has caught on to the game. I mean, it was in November, seminal event, mark this event. It was in November that the Central Bank of India, these central banks, they've been persuaded under the terms of the Bretton Woods Agreement to hold dollars in their central bank as reserves, against which they issued their own currencies, much as we used to hold gold and issue our currency redeemable in gold and so on. And they did gold as well. And now they've been persuaded, they were persuaded to hold dollars. The jig is up, ladies and gentlemen. In November, the Central 160 00:20:33.120 --> 00:20:38.560 Central Bank of India looked okay, you got billions of U.S. dollars in our central bank 161 00:20:38.560 --> 00:20:46.440 with billions, pile of gold bullion. Billions, billions of paper dollars created at virtually 162 00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:51.920 no cost and without any restraint, pile of gold bullion. And like that they took down 163 00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:58.180 200 metric tons of gold for central bank reserves disposing of dollars at the same time. Look, 164 00:20:58.180 --> 00:21:03.080 the rest of the world knows it and the American people don't understand the problem with 165 00:21:03.080 --> 00:21:33.080 with the United States dollar. It's like there's a Zen story about you take the fish out of the water and you say the fish, describe water to me. What's water all about? And the fish goes, water? What are you talking about? I don't know. They don't distinguish water. It's ubiquitous. It's around them all the time. Americans are like that with the US dollar. But Tim Geithner goes to China last summer and he makes assurances to students at Beijing University about the safety of their American investments in the solvency of the United States government. 166 00:21:33.080 --> 00:22:03.080 and they laughed at him. I mean they're polite but it still provoked laughter. So a couple of weeks ago you saw Moody's Investment Services, Moody's, they're the last ones to catch on. By the time Moody's knows it, you know it's really late in the game. So Moody's says, you know going forward there could be a problem with the credit rating of the United States government, Moody's. And so I see Tim Geithner on ABC the next Sunday and he goes, 167 00:22:33.080 --> 00:22:47.080 The monetary and fiscal authorities of this country have no contingency whatsoever, no plan at all, other than inflation, to make up the difference when foreign buyers of American debt begin to back away from the table. 168 00:22:47.080 --> 00:22:56.080 Which brings me to number five, six impossible things that you could believe before breakfast and that is that the government debt will ever be repaid. 169 00:22:56.080 --> 00:23:01.080 Bush presided over seven increases in the national debt ceiling during his eight years. 170 00:23:01.080 --> 00:23:14.080 In his first year, Obama presided over two. I did a chart for one of the websites, an article in a chart saying you can use the increases in the national debt ceiling as a leading indicator of the gold price over the last eight or ten years. 171 00:23:14.080 --> 00:23:29.080 You know about the visible debt, $12.8 trillion, $168,000 for a family of four, and then there's the unfunded debt of over $100 trillion now. It's something like $1.4 million for a family of four. Where do you get your share? 172 00:23:29.080 --> 00:23:40.280 and then well in fact let me let me cut to some of the obligations William Isaac 173 00:23:40.280 --> 00:23:48.200 was the chairman of the FDIC during the Reagan administration and one day he 174 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:51.280 wrote up a piece he allowed me to reprint in the dollar meltdown he wrote 175 00:23:51.280 --> 00:23:55.120 up a piece about his experience at the time he looked at the FDIC's balance 176 00:23:55.120 --> 00:23:59.840 with the United States Treasury of 11 billion dollars. So he called up Treasury Secretary 177 00:23:59.840 --> 00:24:04.280 Donald Regan, remember him? Called up Regan and said, you know, Don, I'd like to come 178 00:24:04.280 --> 00:24:13.280 over and take a look at the money. Here's the transcript. Regan, what money? Isaac. 179 00:24:13.280 --> 00:24:19.640 Well, you know, the 11 billion dollars that the FDIC has in the vault at the Treasury. 180 00:24:19.640 --> 00:24:20.640 Regan 181 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:25.360 Well, Bill, you see, that's a little bit of a problem. 182 00:24:25.360 --> 00:24:29.800 Regan goes, look, that's okay, it's, you know, I know you're busy, it doesn't have to be 183 00:24:29.800 --> 00:24:30.800 right now. 184 00:24:30.800 --> 00:24:33.880 Regan goes, well, it's not a question of the timing. 185 00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:40.600 He says, I don't know quite how to put this to you, but we don't have the money. 186 00:24:40.600 --> 00:24:43.120 Isaac goes, right, haha, right. 187 00:24:43.120 --> 00:24:44.640 And Regan says, no, really. 188 00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:48.220 He said, the banks have been paying money to the FDIC, and the FDIC has been turning 189 00:24:48.220 --> 00:24:54.220 and the Treasury has been spending it on missiles and school lunches and water projects and 190 00:24:54.220 --> 00:24:59.420 things like that, and the money's gone. And Isaac said, yeah, but it says right here on 191 00:24:59.420 --> 00:25:05.580 this financial statement, it says that we have $11 billion at the Treasury. And Regan 192 00:25:05.580 --> 00:25:13.060 said, well, yeah, in a sense you do. He says, if we owe money to the FDIC, then we'll pay 193 00:25:13.060 --> 00:25:16.460 interest on it. But Isaac said, yeah, I know, but this sounds pretty far-fetched, but what 194 00:25:16.460 --> 00:25:21.300 What if there were problems with some of the banks? What would happen if we needed a few 195 00:25:21.300 --> 00:25:27.860 billion dollars to handle a problem? And Regan said, well, that's easy. We'd go right out 196 00:25:27.860 --> 00:25:33.020 and we'd borrow it for you. And you'd have the money in no time, same day service most 197 00:25:33.020 --> 00:25:40.300 days. So Isaac says, okay, let me see if I have this straight. Here's the head of the 198 00:25:40.300 --> 00:25:45.160 FDIC. Okay, let me process this. The money that the banks thought that they were storing 199 00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:49.440 Banking up for the past half century, sort of like saving for a rainy day, is gone, and 200 00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:54.680 if a storm begins to brew and we need the money, the Treasury is going to have to go 201 00:25:54.680 --> 00:26:01.080 out and borrow it. Is that about right? And Regan goes, yep. And Isaac said, okay, well, 202 00:26:01.080 --> 00:26:06.080 just one more thing. While I've got you on the line, why do we bother to pretend that 203 00:26:06.080 --> 00:26:12.000 there's a fund? And Regan said, well, I'm sorry, Bill, but the President's on the other 204 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:42.000 The money is not there and that makes number six impossible things that you can believe before breakfast the most incredible astonishing one of all because the money is not there how about a health care bill that wants the federal government to take over and administer 17% of the United States economy add 32 million more insured it will reduce the deficit and it will pay for itself 205 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:49.360 How exactly does that work? I mean, when they came out with Medicare, in 1965, they said, 206 00:26:49.360 --> 00:26:54.600 okay, Medicare, okay, let's look 25 years into the future, let's look to 1990 and see 207 00:26:54.600 --> 00:26:58.760 how much this program is going to cost. So way back in 1965, when they created Medicare, 208 00:26:58.760 --> 00:27:06.520 they said, okay, in 1990, Medicare is going to cost $9 billion. Well, 1990 long since 209 00:27:06.520 --> 00:27:26.520 Now, I am developing a thesis. I don't know if it will prove to be true, and I don't know what I'll do with it if it does, but it is my view that the severity of the crisis upon us will be directly proportional to the obliviousness of the governing classes of this country about the size and scope of the problem that we're facing. 210 00:27:26.520 --> 00:27:37.520 will be directly proportional to the obliviousness of the governing classes of this country about the size and scope of the problem that we have. 211 00:27:37.520 --> 00:27:46.520 In other words, and it's not just the Democrats who watched the Republicans during this debate about socializing medicine further, 212 00:27:46.520 --> 00:27:55.520 there was, but for Ron Paul, except for Ron Paul, by the way, when I went to the garage this morning to dig out that old wind button, 213 00:27:55.520 --> 00:28:05.520 Dr. Ron Paul for Congress, back in the 1970s, in the same old box of memorabilia. 214 00:28:05.520 --> 00:28:17.520 Except for Ron Paul, we won't count him in this, none of the Republicans were able to articulate an argument for a free market healthcare system. 215 00:28:17.520 --> 00:28:35.520 I mean, and they're talking points where, well, we want a responsible plan, we want a bipartisan plan. At the end, late in the campaign, the RNC started running ads. Well, we just want to start over. But it was never about keeping the government the heck out. 216 00:28:35.520 --> 00:28:55.520 So, in my view, the depth of the crisis under the circumstances will be very, very severe and the universe has a very unfeeling way of dealing with people who persist in believing things that are impossible, such as the six I described to you. 217 00:28:55.520 --> 00:29:03.520 Now, in the dollar meltdown, I talk about where we are in terms of the debt and the crisis and so on, how we got here, a little bit of the history of money, 218 00:29:03.520 --> 00:29:12.520 What happens next? And then what to do about it? You know, classes of investments that typically do well in the kind of period that we're entering. 219 00:29:12.520 --> 00:29:21.520 And everybody, so help me, they all go to the fourth section about what do you do about it, what classes of investments do well, and so on and so forth. 220 00:29:21.520 --> 00:29:26.520 But so help me, the most important part is what happens next, how this command economy unfolds. 221 00:29:26.520 --> 00:29:37.520 And it's easy to tell a little bit about the general direction. There's kind of an archetype that these things follow because this isn't our first monetary crisis rodeo. 222 00:29:37.520 --> 00:29:46.520 We've been down this road before. We have experience to judge by. And I like to describe the likelihood or the template in this way. 223 00:29:46.520 --> 00:29:52.520 First of all, you get the printing of money, the creating of purchasing media, expansion of money and credit by the monetary authorities, 224 00:29:52.520 --> 00:30:15.520 The people of the country, the husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, the working people, they go to the grocery store, two years ago they go to the gas station, $4, I can't make the household budget work, and they begin to cry out for somebody to do something about it. 225 00:30:15.520 --> 00:30:21.600 Well, somebody already did do something. They inflated the money supply and caused the rise 226 00:30:21.600 --> 00:30:25.480 in prices that they're bemoaning, but they insist that somebody does something about 227 00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:29.600 it. And it works like this. A lifelong broadcaster, I can guarantee you, this is exactly how it 228 00:30:29.600 --> 00:30:35.220 works. You turn on ABC, CBS, NBC, and there's a standup reporter at some random person's 229 00:30:35.220 --> 00:30:39.080 household or by the gas pump talking to this person, no, I can't make the household budget 230 00:30:39.080 --> 00:30:42.640 work. We don't know what we're going to do. And the guy wraps up his package, his standup 231 00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:48.760 Report saying it's just typical of another American family and so far the government 232 00:30:48.760 --> 00:30:57.960 has not done anything about it. I'm Dale Davidson reporting from Chicago. Well you moron Dale 233 00:30:57.960 --> 00:31:02.520 Davidson, the government did do something about it. They caused the problem in the first 234 00:31:02.520 --> 00:31:08.440 place right? So the government is quick to ride to the rescue of the people because so 235 00:31:08.440 --> 00:31:12.840 So far the government has done nothing about it, so they make the problem worse by typically 236 00:31:12.840 --> 00:31:20.240 instituting price caps, wage and price controls, and of course even a guy like Nixon, now I 237 00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:23.000 asked you a few minutes earlier, how much do these guys really know, do they know what 238 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:30.160 they're doing? The White House tapes show us that Nixon knew of the destruction that 239 00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:35.400 he would unleash on the economy by his imposition of wage and price controls, but he did it 240 00:31:35.400 --> 00:31:42.440 anyway because there was another election coming up and he thought it had seen through the 72 election. 241 00:31:43.880 --> 00:31:47.960 So you wonder how much, so they institute wage and price controls and of course you know the stories 242 00:31:47.960 --> 00:31:53.240 of the way that the wage and price controls create shortages throughout the economy. I remember these 243 00:31:53.240 --> 00:31:58.680 vividly from the 70s. I mean there were there were chicken farmers, chicken ranchers, shown on 244 00:31:58.680 --> 00:32:02.680 It was on television drowning their little baby chicks by the thousands. 245 00:32:02.680 --> 00:32:09.680 They could not afford the cost of feed to raise them and take them to the market. 246 00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:13.680 It was a money-losing proposition under the fixed prices of Nixon's wage and price controls. 247 00:32:13.680 --> 00:32:20.680 Oh, do you know who the two bureaucrats were that were in charge of Nixon's wage and price control program? 248 00:32:20.680 --> 00:32:24.680 Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. 249 00:32:24.680 --> 00:32:27.680 Good conservatives. 250 00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:31.740 So anyway, there were cattle ranchers, it was the same thing, and they'd let the cattle 251 00:32:31.740 --> 00:32:35.920 die. They couldn't afford to raise them, to feed them, to fatten them, and take them to 252 00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:39.780 the market. And I tell the story in the Dollar Meltdown about one lady, walks into the grocery 253 00:32:39.780 --> 00:32:45.360 store, goes back to the butcher counter, and she says, what are you doing charging 99 cents 254 00:32:45.360 --> 00:32:49.360 a pound for this particular cut of meat? She said, don't you know the law says that that 255 00:32:49.360 --> 00:32:55.400 cut of meat is 89 cents a pound? And she said, besides that, it's 89 cents a pound at the 256 00:33:25.400 --> 00:33:52.400 In any event, under the circumstances of shortages then, in this typical scenario, under that circumstance, the people cry out for the government to do something. 257 00:33:52.400 --> 00:33:54.400 Here we go again. 258 00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:58.860 The guy stands up on TV and he goes, and look at these store shelves, there are no goods 259 00:33:58.860 --> 00:33:59.860 there. 260 00:33:59.860 --> 00:34:05.560 I mean, you know, back in the 70s, the price of shirts was fixed by law. 261 00:34:05.560 --> 00:34:06.560 Price of cotton wasn't fixed. 262 00:34:06.560 --> 00:34:10.720 The price of cotton would go up, but the shirt makers' prices were locked in so they couldn't 263 00:34:10.720 --> 00:34:12.720 afford to make any shirts, so there were no shirts. 264 00:34:12.720 --> 00:34:16.140 So Dale Davidson stands up there in Chicago and says, and look at this, there are no shirts 265 00:34:16.140 --> 00:34:19.480 in the store, and there's no eggs, and there's no beef, and there's no food. 266 00:34:19.480 --> 00:34:21.120 Look at all these shorties. 267 00:34:21.120 --> 00:34:30.780 And so far, the government has not done anything. I'm Dale Davidson signing off. Dale, you moron! 268 00:34:30.780 --> 00:34:37.960 The government did do something. They created the shortages with their rationing and their 269 00:34:37.960 --> 00:34:43.840 price controls, and they created their apparent need for those things by their inflation of 270 00:34:43.840 --> 00:34:48.120 the supply of money and credit. So in the rationing environment, then things start to 271 00:34:48.120 --> 00:35:08.120 I want to share with you a story of one of the classic inflations from the French Reign of Terror, 1789 to 1795. 272 00:35:08.120 --> 00:35:38.120 Fiat Money, Inflation in France, 273 00:35:38.120 --> 00:35:47.800 So a couple of points from Andrew Dixon White's account of the period. The first issuance 274 00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:52.100 of this new currency, the assignats, the first issuance of this was based on church property. 275 00:35:52.100 --> 00:35:56.940 The revolutionaries expropriated the property of the church and they issued this currency 276 00:35:56.940 --> 00:36:02.420 against that church property. But once the underlying property was sold, the currency 277 00:36:02.420 --> 00:36:06.940 remained in circulation. So it was, of course, backed by nothing and it soon became very 278 00:36:06.940 --> 00:36:10.940 It was very evident to them how easy this was to do, so they started to issue more and more and more. 279 00:36:10.940 --> 00:36:14.940 As you would understand from Gresham's Law, right, bad money drives out good. 280 00:36:14.940 --> 00:36:19.940 The paper money succeeded in driving gold and silver, even copper coinage out of circulation. 281 00:36:19.940 --> 00:36:21.940 That began to disappear. 282 00:36:21.940 --> 00:36:26.940 The majority of the French people were enthusiasts of this new paper money scheme. 283 00:36:26.940 --> 00:36:30.940 They equated it with prosperity. 284 00:36:30.940 --> 00:36:37.320 But White writes as the new issuances of new floods of paper money came faster and faster, 285 00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:42.400 the periods of feeling good became shorter and shorter in between. 286 00:36:42.400 --> 00:36:46.580 So the belief became widespread among the people in France that the problem with the 287 00:36:46.580 --> 00:36:53.900 new money, the new money could function if only enough people were hanged. 288 00:36:53.900 --> 00:36:59.500 There were those who opposed the ruination of France with paper money and they were hounded 289 00:36:59.500 --> 00:37:03.220 out of Public Life. Occasionally, some of the people that actually knew better said, 290 00:37:03.220 --> 00:37:06.620 well, once we get through this new wave of money, then that'll be enough and that'll 291 00:37:06.620 --> 00:37:10.540 lift France out of its problems and then we won't do it anymore. But of course, they did 292 00:37:10.540 --> 00:37:14.500 it again and again and again. And like in Germany, the engravers and predators couldn't 293 00:37:14.500 --> 00:37:19.780 keep up with the demand by government spending for new currency, the mobs began to demand 294 00:37:19.780 --> 00:37:26.780 laws that made the paper money equivalent to gold. And so, matter of fact, they passed 295 00:37:26.780 --> 00:37:32.780 They passed a law that if a merchant were to ask you before a transaction was concluded, 296 00:37:32.780 --> 00:37:36.780 when you asked them what the price was, what you're intending to pay in, 297 00:37:36.780 --> 00:37:41.780 this new worthless paper money or some real form of commodity money, 298 00:37:41.780 --> 00:37:44.780 you got the death penalty for it. They took you to the guillotine. 299 00:37:44.780 --> 00:37:50.780 It was a capital offense to ask what form of money the buyer intended to pay in. 300 00:37:50.780 --> 00:37:53.780 Law of the Maximum in 1793. 301 00:37:53.780 --> 00:37:58.500 In 1793, price controls, they were expanded, first foodstuffs and beyond foodstuffs to 302 00:37:58.500 --> 00:38:03.980 all kinds of life necessities, and they fixed how they decided to do this, I, so help me. 303 00:38:03.980 --> 00:38:10.220 They fixed the prices in 1793 at the prices that had prevailed in 1790, plus I think 30% 304 00:38:10.220 --> 00:38:13.220 more, and they just locked them in there. 305 00:38:13.220 --> 00:38:18.980 So in the meantime, the Institute of Currency Controls, just like the kinds that are emerging 306 00:38:18.980 --> 00:38:24.980 Here in America today, do you see the jobs bill that Obama signed about three weeks ago? 307 00:38:24.980 --> 00:38:29.980 A little currency control provision slipped in there, foreign institutions have to withhold on Americans 308 00:38:29.980 --> 00:38:36.980 and report to the IRS and the US Treasury about foreign accounts and so on. 309 00:38:36.980 --> 00:38:39.980 That was a jobs bill. 310 00:38:39.980 --> 00:38:45.980 So currency controls, for Frenchmen who left the country, their property was confiscated. 311 00:38:45.980 --> 00:39:15.980 So manufacturing shut down and speculation became the order of the day, thrift and savings were obliterated, police state spread through every corner of life, the penalties became increasingly severe for farmers and other people who were suspected of reluctance to deliver their goods to market, their valuable goods in exchange for increasingly worthless paper. Soldiers were sent out into the countryside to arrest farmers and to seize their crops. The guillotine 312 00:39:15.980 --> 00:39:20.780 was put to work, thousands put to death, public executions in the afternoon were a form of 313 00:39:21.340 --> 00:39:26.620 entertainment, in other cases mobs beat people to death. So the monetary authorities came out 314 00:39:26.620 --> 00:39:30.940 with one scheme after another. It was currency conversion schemes and exchange schemes and new 315 00:39:30.940 --> 00:39:35.820 currency issue and maybe a currency for bonds issue and so on. And in the midst of all of this 316 00:39:35.820 --> 00:39:43.500 despair, there was suddenly a revival of business conditions. Sales suddenly became brisk in any 317 00:40:13.500 --> 00:40:31.500 The labor classes, salaried people and those of no means and on fixed incomes were forced to subsist on rations of government bread that was often unfit to eat, with long lines of men and women and children forced to wait from dawn until dusk. 318 00:40:31.500 --> 00:40:37.500 The country was of course at war everywhere, demanding more and more paper money to pay for the hostilities. 319 00:40:37.500 --> 00:40:42.600 White says all that saved thousands of laborers from starvation was that they were first drafted 320 00:40:42.600 --> 00:40:48.300 into the army and then they could be killed on foreign battlefields. So 600 paper francs 321 00:40:48.300 --> 00:40:54.540 to equal one franc of gold from before the period. Rich and poor alike plunged into absolute 322 00:40:54.540 --> 00:40:59.460 financial ruin and of course it paved the way for the rise of Napoleon. 17 years of 323 00:40:59.460 --> 00:41:06.620 war and empire and bankruptcy and the death of millions and it would be 40 years before 324 00:41:06.620 --> 00:41:16.620 Our economic conditions in France returned 40 years before the level of credit, the level of commerce, the industry and the capital returned to the level at which we had begun. 325 00:41:16.620 --> 00:41:22.620 Now, I had to give you an idea of what wonderful resource the Mises Institute is. 326 00:41:22.620 --> 00:41:28.620 I had heard of the economist William Ripka and had not ever read anything by him. 327 00:41:28.620 --> 00:41:32.100 and I won't tell you it's a delightful story because of time I won't tell you 328 00:41:32.100 --> 00:41:37.260 about his his influence in the German economic miracle but someday if you get 329 00:41:37.260 --> 00:41:40.420 a chance look it up and all this kind of materials available from the Mises 330 00:41:40.420 --> 00:41:44.340 Institute but after my book came out in the section about the command economy 331 00:41:44.340 --> 00:41:50.540 somebody sent me this from William Repka from a book that was available PDF from 332 00:41:50.540 --> 00:41:55.340 the Mises Institute from Repka 63 book economics of a free society and I want 333 00:41:55.340 --> 00:41:59.660 I want to share this with you even if it takes a minute or two because I have an idea that 334 00:41:59.660 --> 00:42:05.420 this begins to presage or is a harbinger of the way things could go here in the United 335 00:42:05.420 --> 00:42:10.440 States. He talks about not the 1920 Weimar Republic German inflation, but the German 336 00:42:10.440 --> 00:42:15.020 inflation during the period of World War II under Hitler. And he says the German inflation 337 00:42:15.020 --> 00:42:20.080 of the years 1920 to 23 will always remain as a horrible example of what happens when 338 00:42:20.080 --> 00:42:22.880 and the government attempts to cover its budget deficits 339 00:42:22.880 --> 00:42:27.000 by resorting to a deceitful printing of money. 340 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:29.340 But the inflationary creation of money 341 00:42:29.340 --> 00:42:31.540 caused by the budget deficits of the government 342 00:42:31.540 --> 00:42:33.960 need not necessarily lead to the economic 343 00:42:33.960 --> 00:42:37.640 and social disorders attendant on an open inflation 344 00:42:37.640 --> 00:42:39.860 in the way that followed World War I. 345 00:42:39.860 --> 00:42:43.160 Beginning in 1933, the National Socialist Germany 346 00:42:43.160 --> 00:42:45.580 demonstrated that a determined government 347 00:42:45.580 --> 00:42:49.920 can change an open into a repressed inflation 348 00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:53.920 by placing the country in economic straitjackets under a command economy. 349 00:42:53.920 --> 00:43:03.920 Rationing, the imposition of stringent controls on wages, consumption, capital investment, rates of interest, similar measures restrict the free use of money. 350 00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:10.920 Hitler has shown how far and how long a government can neutralize an inflation by means of a command economy. 351 00:43:10.920 --> 00:43:16.920 The greater the inflationary pressure, the stronger will be the counter pressure of the command economy needed to repress it. 352 00:43:16.920 --> 00:43:22.040 repressed it, by the same token the command economy must resort to ever more comprehensive 353 00:43:22.040 --> 00:43:27.860 and ruthless controls if it is to be effective in containing the mounting forces of inflation. 354 00:43:27.860 --> 00:43:32.500 This leads logically to the question of whether such a command economy is possible without 355 00:43:32.500 --> 00:43:42.420 totalitarian slavery. Repressed inflation, it's Wilhelm Repke. Well, I think I ought 356 00:43:42.420 --> 00:43:52.420 I've got to wrap up at that point, except to say that the theme of this conference was the inflationary path to despotism. 357 00:43:52.420 --> 00:44:00.420 And in this age in which we've seen the nationalization of finance and automobiles and real estate lending and health care and so on, 358 00:44:00.420 --> 00:44:07.420 or even beyond that, the government tells you what kind of toilet you must have, the vitamins that you can take, the light bulbs that you need to use, 359 00:44:07.420 --> 00:44:14.420 and now the latest, whether a young student seeking to get a foothold in life can work in an unpaid internship. 360 00:44:14.420 --> 00:44:24.420 Under those circumstances, not just the concomitance of high prices, but the spreading of the national police state that we've seen under the prior administration 361 00:44:24.420 --> 00:44:36.420 and extended in this administration suggest to me that the period that we may see ahead is very, very ripe for what Repka describes in his work on the command economy. 362 00:44:36.420 --> 00:44:47.420 Mises says that a crisis like this is a really wonderful opportunity on the other side, when interventionism fails, to institute broad new reforms and make an advance in freedom. 363 00:44:47.420 --> 00:44:54.420 None of us really know. It's simply not given to us to know how these events turn out. 364 00:44:54.420 --> 00:45:05.420 The monetary crisis revolutions less often go the way of the American Revolution, ending in a liberal, open society. They more often go the way of the French Revolution. 365 00:45:05.420 --> 00:45:35.420 We don't know in advance, but if you would like to have an impact on it, you cannot have any more of an impact on it than, of course, perfecting your own knowledge in this area, familiarizing yourself with the conditions that are likely to happen and what the monetary and governing authorities are doing as each day unfolds. And you can find information about that every day from the Mises Institute. And so you'll be a better spokesman or able to enlighten your neighbors and so on when the opportunity arises. 366 00:45:35.420 --> 00:45:52.420 You cannot have more reach more effectively. The central organizing force for freedom in America, the preservation or the perpetuation of or reclamation of freedom in America is in my view all these activities in the orbit around the Mises Institute. 367 00:45:52.420 --> 00:45:57.420 You cannot have more impact than to support this very, very important organization. 368 00:45:57.420 --> 00:45:59.420 Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, very much. 369 00:46:09.420 --> 00:46:11.420 Thank you so much, Charles. 370 00:46:12.420 --> 00:46:20.420 Of course, I think all of us are here because of one man, Mr. Jim Rodney. 371 00:46:20.420 --> 00:46:25.420 I'd like to thank him again for his support. 372 00:46:27.420 --> 00:46:36.580 I'd like to thank all of our speakers, and by the way, if you missed anything, it is 373 00:46:36.580 --> 00:46:44.300 all of these speeches, in fact, the first four are already on iTunes, at iTunes U, they 374 00:46:44.300 --> 00:46:51.980 are already on Mises.org, and Charles' speech will be up momentarily, so things do not take 375 00:46:51.980 --> 00:46:52.980 long. 376 00:46:52.980 --> 00:46:57.500 Your support of the Institute, Bob Murphy is a perfect example. 377 00:46:57.500 --> 00:47:06.140 He went to Mises University in 2000 and 2001, and he's an example of the kind of scholars 378 00:47:06.140 --> 00:47:09.660 that we're putting out at the Mises Institute. 379 00:47:09.660 --> 00:47:16.260 There's a reason these events go off without a hitch, and it's because of the staff, my 380 00:47:16.260 --> 00:47:26.260 and my fabulous road crew, Christy Holmes out front, Will Seitz at the cell in the books and of course, Chad Parrish behind the camera. 381 00:47:26.260 --> 00:47:30.260 So I want to thank them for their fine work today. 382 00:47:30.260 --> 00:47:42.260 You know, Mises said that everyone is called upon to familiarize themselves with the teaching of economics. 383 00:47:42.260 --> 00:47:46.260 That is, in our age, the primary civic duty, he said. 384 00:47:46.260 --> 00:47:49.260 It concerns everyone and it belongs to all. 385 00:47:49.260 --> 00:47:53.260 It is the main and proper study of every citizen. 386 00:47:53.260 --> 00:47:58.260 I want to thank all of you for coming out and doing your civic duty this Saturday.