What I Learned from Steve Forbes

“Everyone is a disciplined, long-term investor… until the market goes down.” — Steve Forbes

Steve Forbes, executive editor of Forbes magazine, has been a long-time friend. Last year, he presented me with the Triple Crown in Economics for my work in theory, history and education. (See photo below). You can read his comments here.

Steve Forbes Presenting the Triple Crown in Economics to Mark Skousen

Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Forbes to talk about the issues we are raising at this year’s FreedomFest.

While he is the ambassador to FreedomFest, he had a conflict this year. Thus, we decided to do an interview instead.

The interview was a wide-ranging discussion covering such issues as the Fed policy of controlling interest rates, global warming, the United States’ trade policy with China, socialism on college campuses, legal and illegal immigration, gun control, the outlook for the stock market and the challenge of the New Atheists.

You can watch the entire 34-minute interview by clicking here.

Several of his statements stood out. For example, he said the Fed has no business trying to regulate and set interest rates. He said the market should decide, not government bureaucrats.

On the United States’ trade policy with China, he’s in favor of President Trump playing hardball with the Chinese, who have been stealing our intellectual property rights for years.

On the debate about open borders versus walls, Forbes pointed out that the United States has never had open borders. Immigrants have always had to go through a legal process to come into the United States.

On the rise of socialism, Forbes pointed out that socialized medicine has been a disaster in this country as it has caused the price of medical care to rise and the quality to decline. He mentioned the case of the Surgery Center in Oklahoma posting all its prices and keeping them reasonable through competition.

The executive director of the Free Market Medical Association, James Dunavant, will address this issue at next year’s FreedomFest, July 13-16, 2020, at the Paris Resort, Las Vegas. Mark your calendar. Steve Forbes will be there!

On the debate “God or No God: Are the New Atheists Right about God?” Forbes pointed out that atheism has been around forever. There’s nothing new about that. But he did point out that there is evidence of “revolution” in nature, and not just “evolution.”

Finally, I asked him if he was a bull, a bear or a chicken in the stock market. Although he chose not to forecast where Wall Street was headed in the short term, he was emphatic that the long-term trend was up for the U.S. stock market.

He warned his viewers not to panic and sell their stocks during a bear market. He repeated a classic line of his, “Everyone is a disciplined, long-term investor until the market goes down.”

I quote him in the new sixth edition of “The Maxims of Wall Street,” now available for only $20 for the first copy, $10 for all additional copies at www.skousenbooks.com. Get your copies today!

Until then, good investing, AEIOU,

Mark Skousen

You Blew It!

Google is Working with the Chinese, Not the United States

By Mark Skousen

Editor, Forecasts & Strategies

This week, billionaire Libertarian Peter Thiel revealed that Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is working with China, not the United States, to develop artificial intelligence (AI) operations.

Thiel also stated that he’d like to ask Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai three questions: How many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated Google? Have the Chinese, in particular, infiltrated the company? And why is Google working with Communist China and not the United States?

It is scary that a U.S. company would operate in this manner. People who use Google’s search engine also find it disturbing that it buries a lot of negative commentary and negative press coverage about political groups that Google’s executives support.

In a related story, Twitter recently suspended the prominent gun-rights activist and researcher John R. Lott Jr. for a tweet about the New Zealand mass murderer who killed a group of Muslims as they attended a service at their mosque.

Lott is the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC). The CPRC is a registered non-profit that researches the relationship between laws regulating guns and gun ownership and crime. He is the author of nine books including “More Guns, Less Crime.” He holds a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA.

When Lott logged on to Twitter, the platform greeted him with a message stating that one of his Twitter posts violated the company’s rules although the social media platform did not list the exact reason why the tweet violated their terms of service. The tech giant hasn’t responded to Lott’s appeal as of this writing.

What is becoming of this country with such blatant censorship?

Mark Skousen

Mark Skousen, Ph. D., is a professional economist, investment expert, university professor, and author of more than 25 books. He earned his Ph. D. in monetary economics at George Washington University in 1977. He has taught economics and finance at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, Grantham University, Barnard College, Mercy College, Rollins College, and is a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He also has been a consultant to IBM, Hutchinson Technology, and other Fortune 500 companies. Since 1980, Skousen has been editor in chief of Forecasts & Strategies, a popular award-winning investment newsletter. He also is editor of four trading services, Skousen TNT Trader, Skousen Five Star Trader, Skousen Home Run Trader, and Skousen Fast Money Alert. He is a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, a columnist to Forbes magazine (1997-2001), and past president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in New York. He has written articles for The Wall Street Journal, Liberty, Reason, Human Events, the Daily Caller, Christian Science Monitor, and The Journal of Economic Perspectives. He has appeared on ABC News, CNBC Power Lunch, CNN, Fox News, and C-SPAN Book TV. In 2008-09, he was a regular contributor to Larry Kudlow & Co. on CNBC. His economic bestsellers include “Economics on Trial” (Irwin, 1991), “Puzzles and Paradoxes on Economics” (Edward Elgar, 1997), “The Making of Modern Economics” (M. E. Sharpe, 2001, 2009), “The Big Three in Economics” (M. E. Sharpe, 2007), “EconoPower” (Wiley, 2008), and “Economic Logic” (2000, 2010). In 2009, “The Making of Modern Economics” won the Choice Book Award for Outstanding Academic Title. His financial bestsellers include “The Complete Guide to Financial Privacy” (Simon & Schuster, 1983), “High Finance on a Low Budget” (Bantam, 1981), co-authored with his wife Jo Ann, “Scrooge Investing” (Little Brown, 1995; McGraw Hill, 1999), and “Investing in One Lesson” (Regnery, 2007). In honor of his work in economics, finance, and management, Grantham University renamed its business school “The Mark Skousen School of Business.” Dr. Skousen has lived in eight nations, and has traveled and lectured throughout the United States and 70 countries. He grew up in Portland, Ore. He and his wife, Jo Ann, and five children have lived in Washington, D.C.; Nassau, the Bahamas; London, England; Orlando, Fla.; and New York. For more information about Mark’s services, go to http://www.markskousen.com/