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FreedomFest 2008

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FREEDOM AND GOLD
To the tune of the Irish drinking song, "Fathom the Bowl"

 Come all ye good people
And give heed to my song
We sing in the praises
Of liberty’s throng.

 CHORUS

To Freedom and Gold
To Treasures Untold
We Raise our Glass 'Ever
To Freedom and Gold!

Now who are the enemies
Of liberty’s soul?
Taxation, inflation
And government control.

 We do honor the heroes
Who fought the good fight
From Scotland to America
To the Austrian heights.

 CHORUS

Click here to listen as performed at the Saturday night closing banquet

FREEDOM FEST 2008 ATTRACTS
1427 ATTENDEES 

"FreedomFest is the new Mecca for all freedom lovers."
-- Mark Mullin, Executive Director, Fraser Institute

• STEVE FORBES, JEREMY SIEGEL, AND JOHN MACKEY HIGHLIGHT THE “WORLD ECONOMIC SUMMIT”

• EIGHT GREAT DEBATES:  WHO WON?  D’SOUZA TAKES ON HITCHENS

• EIGHT WORLD FIGURES INDUCTED INTO FREE-MARKET HALL OF FAME AT SATURDAY NIGHT BANQUET….AND WE SING THE FREEDOM FEST ANTHEM, “FREEDOM AND GOLD”! 

Dear friends of liberty,

This year’s FreedomFest was unforgettable!  Over 100 speakers, 88 exhibitors and 1400 attendees showed up at “the world’s largest gathering of free minds.”  That’s a 42% increase over last year.  Plus C-SPAN coverage (to be aired soon). 

Attendees came from every state of the union, and as far away as New Zealand. 

For every attendee, FreedomFest is their own creation, because so much is going on.  Many buy the entire conference CDs every year just to keep up.  (The first thing I do at FreedomFest is sign up for all the recorded sessions.) 

During the conference, one attendee came up and said, “I was going to leave early, but after one day of FreedomFest, I changed my flight to attend all 3 days.  It cost me several hundred dollars, but it’s worth it.”

The program was huge, with over 100 speeches, panels and debates.  “Liberty Watch” published the entire program in its July issue.  I recommend you subscribe to this top quality libertarian publication.  Go to http://www.liberty-watch.com.

The World Economic Summit

Judging from the attendance at the various sessions, the number one concern on the minds of the attendees was the growing financial crisis.  Many of the financial sessions were standing room only, highlighted by Steve Forbes’s keynote address, “Gold, the Dollar, and Geo-Politics,” where Mr. Forbes warned the crowd that the government was largely responsible for the growing crisis.  Afterwards, he joined panelists Gene Epstein (Barron’s), Becky Dunlop (Heritage), Jeff Hummel (San Jose State), and moderator Steve Moore (Wall Street Journal) to discuss the outlook for global geo-politics. 

The next day Steve Moore warned of the “largest tax increase in American history” if Sen. Obama is elected president.  “I think Barack Obama is a very dangerous man to have as our next president and I am not sure that John McCain would be that much better,” Moore said.  If the U.S. capital gains tax rate is allowed to climb it will cause the value of stocks to fall “overnight,” Moore predicted.

Richard Viguerie, the world’s #1 marketing guru for conservatives, told the audience that conservatives are disenchanted with John McCain. “Senator McCain has never been a conservative, is not one now, and will not govern as one. From McCain-Feingold to cap-and-trade, he is a supporter of one Big Government scheme after another. History shows that, in the Oval Office, where almost all the political pressure comes from supporters of Big Government, he would only get worse.”

There were plenty of top financial advisors at this year’s event to help investors protect themselves from global turmoil, including Rick Rule and Peter Schiff, both of whom have a great track record recently in profiting from bad government policies.  Both gurus joined Jeremy Siegel (Wharton School) and Robert Hsu (Absolute Return Capital Advisors) in a panel moderated by Dan Frishberg (BizRadio) to discuss how to survive and profit from the on-going crisis. 

At the same time, many experts said that there were real solutions to world problems.  In his keynote address Friday morning, Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School demonstrated the benefits of investing in dividend-paying stocks and why technology stocks often under perform the market.  John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, joined John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, in making the case for private solutions to the health care crisis, including medical saving accounts.  John also spoke at a luncheon on his program of “conscious capitalism” to reduce world poverty and increase the standard of living of everyone.  For example, Whole Planet Foundation has been successful in helping low-income people with micro-credits. 

The Libertarian Millionaires Panel was also a highlight, featuring Steve Forbes, John Whitney (Columbia Business School), Jeremy Siegel (Wharton School), and Alex Green (chairman, Investment U).  They talked about how to make it, spend it and give it away.  All four panelists agreed that entrepreneurship was more important than a degree in education. 

A controversial panel was “What Freedom Means to Me,” moderated by David Boaz of the Cato Institute.  Panelists included John Mackey, Frances Smith, Ted Nicholas, and Michael Perelman (a Marxist economist!). 

“The Future of Politics” was a panel moderated by Nelson Hultberg with Bob Barr, libertarian candidate for president; David Boaz of the Cato Institute; Steve Forbes, and Richard Viguerie. 

Other top speakers at FreedomFest included Bob Poole Jr. (Reason) on the infrastructure crisis in America; Charles Murray (AEI) on education; Michael Shermer (Scientific American) on capitalism; Robert Spencer on Islam; Doug Casey on real estate; George Gilder on intelligent design (ID); Jim Gwartney on economic freedom indexes; Dan Mitchell (Cato) on the flat tax movement; Ron Paul on presidential politics; David Friedman on “Future Uncertain”; and Harry Jaffa (Claremont) on the Civil War. 

Eight Great Debates

This year’s FreedomFest offered eight debates on a variety of current topics:

--Should the US adopt a gold standard?
--Fair tax, flat tax, or no tax? 
--Should the US adopt a single-payer national health plan?
--Islam:  Radical or Peaceful?
--Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays?
--Was the Civil War necessary?
--Is there scientific evidence for Intelligent Design?

A full crowd showed up for the Main Event on Friday night (July 11) pitting Christopher Hitchens against Dinesh D’Souza on “War and Geo-Politics:  Is Religion the Problem or the Solution?”  Alex Green, editor of Spiritual Wealth, was the moderator of the debate.  After the debate, the audience voted slightly in favor of Dinesh D’Souza.  He’s yet to lose a debate in the five times he’s appeared at FreedomFest!  Who will take him on next year?

After FreedomFest John Mackey said, “This was the best FreedomFest ever.  I loved the debates--keep them going next year.”  We plan to. 

Unusual Speakers at FreedomFest

FreedomFest always offers offbeat topics.  Mr. Anti-IRS (a CPA in Las Vegas who wished to remain anonymous) spoke before a standing room only crowd about aggressive ways he saves taxpayers money without getting audited….He thinks the best strategy is to create a consulting firm to take deductions, but warned the audience never to underreport income. 

There was also a mini-Shakespeare festival…..and sessions on bird watching, poetry, reading the Koran, teaching at Sing Sing penitentiary, charitable work in Third World countries, how to live to be 100, and a talk on Babe Ruth attended by the grandson of Babe Ruth, and a drawing for a 1933 Babe Ruth card worth over $2,000, compliments of Collectors Universe. 

We also added at the last minute an appearance by Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, who gave an inspiring message Saturday morning about his plans to build homes to poor people around the world. 

Almost all of the major freedom organizations were represented at this year’s conference, including Heritage, Cato, Reason, Fraser, Goldwater, FLOW, and FEE.  One of the main purposes of FreedomFest is to introduce investors and citizens to the freedom movement, and what think tanks are doing to promote liberty.  The exhibit hall was packed during the coffee breaks as attendees sought out more information about the think tanks and other exhibitors.

We also had special “one day” sessions sponsored by FLOW (John Mackey’s non-profit organization), the Oxford Club, and the Liberty Editors Conference. 

Each Room Dedicated to a Patriot

Each year we dedicate each room at FreedomFest to a free-market leader who recently passed away.  This year the rooms were dedicated to:  Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Jr., W. Cleon Skousen, Barry Goldwater, Hans F. Sennholz, and Ayn Rand. 

We sadly announced at this year’s program that three more patriots passed away:  John Templeton, the legendary investor from the Bahamas; Vince Miller, co-founder of International Society of Individual Liberty (ISIL) and co-president of Laissez Faire Books; and Larry Abraham, editor of Insider Report, and a long-time friend, who was scheduled to deliver a “Last Lecture” at FreedomFest.  Fortunately, he was able to record a 15-minute video for us, which we showed before a large audience on Saturday (to be shown soon on C-SPAN Book TV), followed by comments by Marshall Fritz, Jo Ann Skousen, and Chip Wood (our emcee).  We will be dedicating a room to each of these fallen giants next year. 

Free Market Hall of Fame at Gala Saturday Banquet

The capstone of the conference was the Saturday night banquet, led by emcee extraordinaire Chip Wood.  It started with the first induction ceremony of the Free Market Hall of Fame.  Eight inductees were named:  Adam Smith from Scotland….J.-B. Say and Frederic Bastiat from France….Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek from the Austrian school of economics…..the Russian-born American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand….and the Chicago economist Milton Friedman.  A Liberty Bell was wrung out after each name was announced to loud applause.  Following the ceremony, Steve Forbes paid tribute to the eight inductees. 

Afterwards, the band leader, Billy Tragesser, sang for the first time the FreedomFest anthem, “Freedom and Gold,” sung to an old Irish drinking song.  The lyrics are by Mark Skousen and Valerie Durham. 

The grand finale was the appearance of a George Bush impersonator, John Morgan.  He brought the house down with his talk and guitar playing. 

We’ve already set the dates for next year’s FreedomFest, which promises to be bigger and better than ever before:  July 9-11, 2009, at Bally’s/Paris Resort in Las Vegas. 

We’ve also planned several other events in 2009, including a World Economic Summit January 28-31 in Nassau, the Bahamas, as an alternative to the establishment’s Davos conference, and a Grand Tour of Eastern Europe in August. 

if you or your organization want to participate in FreedomFest, the World Economic Summit, or the Eastern European Tour, let us know! 

Give Tami Holland a call at 1 866 266 5101, or email her at tami@freedomfest.com. 

In liberty, AEIOU,
 

Mark Skousen
Producer, FreedomFest
“The world’s largest gathering of free minds”