 Good evening ladies and gentlemen many thanks go out to the people who organized this talk tonight, the Toronto Objectivist Committee, and the Freedom Party of Ontario. The organizers for the Toronto Objectivist Committee are Stephanie Bond, Conrad Gowski, Mark Wickens, and myself and thank you again for the Freedom of Party's professional help. The leader, Paul McKeever, Robert Metz, Robert Vaughn who's on technical tonight, and Mary Lou Ambrosio who did a great hand in helping with the media. Dr. Yaron Brooke received his MBA and PhD in finance at the University of Texas. He is the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute of columnists at Forbes.com and his articles have been featured in the Wall Street Journal USA Today, Investors Business Daily, and many other publications including the Sun Media Today and a few others. He is a frequent guest on national radio and television programs and is a contributing editor, author of books and op-ed articles. Dr. Brooke is co-author with AI fellow Don Watkins of the National Best Seller Free Market Revolution. How Ayn Rand's ideas can end big government. A former finance professor, he speaks internationally on such topics as the causes of the financial crisis, the morality of capitalism, ending the growth of the state and US foreign policy. Let's welcome Dr. Yaron Brooke. Thank you. So I hope you all appreciate the weather I brought with me from California. In spite of our tax rates we get 300 days a year like this so that's that's why we're willing to be whipped on a daily basis. So we had to talk about capitalism and you know one of the great one of the great mysteries that all of us I think who who fight for free markets and who you know energized by this idea that of capitalism and freedom and everything that that means one of the great mysteries I think to all of us is the question of of why we're losing because we are losing. The world is rejecting our ideas moving in the opposite direction. Statism is on the rise primarily in the West you know Asia still hasn't figured this out yet but they will learn soon enough and we are rejecting the the tradition the history the ideas of capitalism of freedom of liberty and you can see this you can see this in politics you can see it in Obama administration in the US government is on a growth spurt I mean it's it's going left and right and yeah people are challenging it but even the people challenging it they're challenging it on the little margins on the little bit I like to tell my Republican friends that you know a long time ago after the Great Depression they said oh when we get into power we're gonna repeal everything FDR did and then they gave up on that but then after the Johnson administration right the Great Society and Johnson brought the United States welfare and Medicare and Medicaid and all stuff to the Republicans oh when we get into power we're going to repeal the Great Society and of course most Republicans when they get into power they add on to the Great Society they make it bigger not be smaller right so the tinkering with the edges that's still the same path if you look at American history doesn't matter who's president doesn't matter who's in the house so the Senate government grows government programs grows redistribution of wealth grows regulations grow you know don't let anybody tell you that the financial crisis happened because of deregulation under Bush because there was no deregulation under Bush I want to name one deregulation under Bush I do these debates on the front of the crisis and I always ask what deregulation and they go uh there is none but it doesn't matter you know it grows Europe we're seeing what's happening in Europe you know they're facing a dramatic crisis they're going bankrupt and they're holding on to those state benefits they are holding on to the regulatory infrastructure for dear life they are not giving up on that stuff you know Greece and Spain because they're forced to are making small changes at the small margins and at the same time increasing taxes to screw the people who actually make the stuff we're actually build the stuff right because that's how they're going to get the economies out of out of trouble we are losing capitalism is in decline in the western world and we have to ask ourselves why and we have to really do soul-searching around this because it shouldn't be losing we should be winning this is the greatest social political economic system in human history right people forget 250 years ago everybody was poor everybody except like 1% aristocrats you know who robbed us blind and what were rich right everybody was poor and there were a lot fewer of us under that regime most of us in this room are dead never born it's kind of dead right this is a system that allows six billion people to live on this planet at the standard of living that we live it allows for for a life expectancy of 80 in the West over 80 in some parts of the West right that's more than double what it was 150 years ago it allows the technology for the facilities for all the innovation for everything our standard of living and there's no question if you look at reality if you study the actual facts of history that this is the case that it's capitalism it is the best revolution the extent to which countries have allowed for economic freedom we get these benefits if you go back and you look at history why did things change so quickly between 1800 everybody's poor to 1900 we're in relative terms people are doing pretty well why did that happen right how did America the United States of America go from being a third-rate colony Americans love this when I tell them they were third-rate colony the only reason they won the war of independence was because the British didn't think they were important enough but it's true they were too busy fighting the Spanish and the French and other stuff right they went from a third-rate colony to being the mightiest economic military country in human history within a hundred and thirty forty years and is it an accident that that is the period of greatest freedom economic freedom in human history and absorb millions and millions of immigrants more immigrants per capita than any society in human history and to those immigrants when they came destroy jobs so it worked they tried this for 140 years we tried this and it worked right in a sense you could look at the last 250 years as a giant experiment in which political social systems work in which don't right so we tried capitalism in the United States approaching capitalism it wasn't an ideal system and there were horrible things about what they did in the 19th century slavery being the obvious one but generally there was more economic in America during the 19th century than in any other country during any other century ever and the success is astounding so we tried that and we tried communism right we tried the other side we tried statism to its fullest fascism and communism and I put those together on purpose right and what was the result poverty destruction and death and let nobody tell you anything different poverty destruction and death that's the consequence of socialism and we tried the mixtures right we mix them with some socialism and some elements of capitalism and we kind of mix them up and we tried all kinds of variations of mixed in even when you mix them you can see a correlation between the more freedom you give a country from an economic perspective the more wealth is created the better the people are I mean there's the economic freedom index and you could plot how fear country is versus GDP for capital whatever measure you want and you can see a relationship this is not hard stuff this is right there in front of our eyes one of my favorite examples is Hong Kong you know here's a little fishing village 70 years ago with nothing no natural resources of rock in the middle of nowhere today it's seven and a half million people how many people have ever been to Hong Kong yeah you got to go once in your life it is astounding it's an astounding seven and a half million people live in this place skyscrapers that make children New York look like child's play it's an exciting vibe dynamic place and all they do is protect property rights it's not perfect capitalism again but it's as close as we can come today and how do people get to Hong Kong how to go to seven and a half million people move there and they risk their lives to get there why because it was free because there was economic freedom there so we've got all these examples so I don't buy I don't buy that there's anybody in the world out there who is intelligent and educated who doesn't know deep down somewhere that capitalism works that capitalism produces the goods that it creates a higher standard of living that it allows for innovation and technology and all these good things that in terms of standard of living in terms of wealth creation it is the best system Krugman lies when he tells you otherwise Paul Krugman the US economist won a Nobel Prize there's no way you can't know this because it's right there in front of your face it's in the history book but it's in the reality of history maybe they don't explain it but it's in the reality of poverty to wealth and that has to be explained somehow and only understanding that capitalism works explained and we have a deep understanding of capitalism it's not just that we have these empirical facts out there and and that's all we've got great economists there's no shortage of great economists who explained the price system and how these economies work and why competition innovation thrives and economic freedom and the role of private property we've got great economists they've even won some Nobel Prizes you know whether it's Friedman or Mises or Hayek you know they've explained pieces of this puzzle and there are lots of others lots of others they exist even today good free market economists will get how an economy works so this is the puzzle right this is the mystery we're losing that's a that's the reality we have reality on our side we have history in our side we have fact on our side and they're obvious and we have theory on our side the economic theory is there it's solid right now we're still losing what's going on here so this is what I want this is what I want to talk about I'm going to take this off because it's California weather it's kind of hot so why are we losing why is it that every time there's a problem every time there's a crisis every time there's some economic negative event we blame capitalism instinctually it's almost before the facts are even known before we know what happened oh it must be the bankers it's like and you saw this in the financial crisis within days the headlines were capitalism is dead Wall Street it's all Wall Street's fault the bankers did it nobody even looked at the facts nobody even had time to even evaluate but it's obvious to bankers and this is not new right the Great Depression was caused by or Wall Street we know that over speculation too much freedom too much unregulation lack of regulation now no serious economists today believes that because looking back at the evidence you could evaluate you can see that it was primarily Federal Reserve policy and government policy that created the Great Depression but that's not what we teach and it's not what we hold and it's not what people at the time thought they immediately respond oh it's capitalism it's free markets they caused the Great Depression and this goes back you can you can plot this pattern back two thousand years it's always bankers in those days it was Jewish bankers now it's not politically correct to say that so we just call them bankers right but that's it's almost like that's the emotion that's what comes out and it's not just bankers it's capitalism generally it's freedom it's economics all of these transactions and you have to ask yourself why what is it about capitalism what is it about free markets that causes this kind of response and when I should have said this earlier but when I mean capitalism I mean capitalism I mean freedom freedom from what we say freedom but freedom for what what are we free of coercion right we feel coercion that's what freedom means it means free them from coercion means freedom from people forcing you to do things you don't want to do freedom from in the context of capitalism in the context of free markets from whose coercion primarily government government is the most corrosive element within our society government is the one that regulates controls and tells us what we can and cannot do our neighbor can try to do that but we don't have to pay attention to them and if they pull out a gun then hopefully the policeman takes them to jail if government's doing their job right I was just a no just as an aside I was in Brazil this you know it's a few weeks ago a month ago I was I was at a big conference about 4,000 people there and I was on a panel with a Brazilian politician right and he was he was out there saying oh they he's gonna make government efficient and he's gonna do this and he's gonna do that and I got up and I said you know government has discovered efficiency for the first time after 200 years that's a good deal but I made the case this is Brazil right I made the case that here's Brazil right well one thing that government supposed to do is protect us physically from harm protect the individual rights but if all those rights are life is the most precious right and and I don't know if you know about crime in Brazil right but government does a million different things but the one thing it's supposed to do it cannot do because crime in Brazil is off the charts I mean it's a it's a disaster so though you typically don't criticize politicians in Brazil so the audience was quite entertained for this fauna who did to say stuff like that about politicians but I mean by capitalism it's governments out of our lives in terms of economics that it has no involvement in our economic life that it doesn't curse us to do or not do I mean free markets I mean free free of coercion free of government coercion so what is it about capitalism what is it about these free markets that is so you know just gets us at the gut and causes us to immediately tell us something wrong with that and you can see it if you go out into this university go out over there and ask people about capitalism and it's an emotional response they don't even have time to really think it through it's a negative right right it's very very emotional very guttural what is it about capitalism what is capitalism about what are markets any market what is a market about what do people do in a marketplace they exchange but they exchange for what purpose why are they exchanging yeah so so why why does somebody make one of these right what is Steve Jobs make an iPhone to sell it sell it for what because he loves people does he care about me when he but when he builds one of these is he thinking oh you're on I really like you're on I want to make him an iPhone I mean if he did then why charge me 60% profit margin what's he trying to do make money see even a little uncomfortable with that you are I know there's nobody wants to admit right and it's not just about money Steve Jobs is more than just money what else does he want to do he wants to make something beautiful he wants to make something useful he wants his vision Steve Jobs's vision to be out there in reality he loves the stuff but he loves it Steve Jobs is being selfish is being self-interested this is about Steve Jobs and when I you know I tell the story that I went to buy my first iPhone 2008 when it first came out and the economy of spiraling under control so I went to the mall bought my iPhone because I wanted to stimulate the US economy because you know I care about my fellow man and I didn't want anybody to lose their job and stuff so I went to buy it enough and I know that's why you guys go to the mall do you want to make sure this full employment in those retail stores right why do you go to mall why did I buy the iPhone because I thought it would make my life better because I want to buy nice clothes because I want to buy things that will make me more productive because I want to do stuff for you me you know and the people I love and the family that I care about but that's it I don't really care about the cloak in the store I mean I don't how many of you do very few I'm sure I care about me and I exchange with Apple and I buy the iPhone when we do that exchange who loses nobody nobody why does nobody lose that's weird right it's win-win because I paid 300 bucks for this iPhone how much is it worth to me more than 300 otherwise bothered right I wouldn't bother you didn't get it the money out of the pocket it's worth more than 300 to me and how much is it worth to Apple a lot less than 300 because they made a nice 60% profit margin on it win-win we both won I don't know about androids I'm just talking about iPhones right but all exchanges like that we all go into it with expectation of making who better off ourselves but both parties do that so exchange volunteer exchange is win-win at least we go into the transit you make mistakes you can buy a lemon things happen and it turns out not to be in your best interest but that's not why you do it you do it to make yourself better off exchange is win-win but everybody in capitalism in the marketplace is out for their self interest that's why we exchange that's why we're in the marketplace capitalism is the system of the suits of self-interest that's what it is but what do we know about self-interest it's evil it's bad I mean I was taught when this big right what's what's morality about what's ethics what's goodness what's virtue nobility what are they about self-interest now they're about sacrifice by being selfless about serving others but doing what's good for the community or your neighbor or your brother or whoever sorry by you right my mother taught me always think of other people first think of yourself last now again she didn't really mean that most mothers don't but that's the morality that's what we're taught that's what people believe deep down that's what every preacher the last 200 years has told us what every philosopher of the last 200 years has told us the purpose of your life is to serve be selfless who are more moral heroes I'm all here as a people who give everything up and go and serve the cause some cause bigger than themselves right that's John McCain's language from there right don't serve your own interest of something bigger than you the state your religion your neighbors something don't be small minded and just about you but that's what capitalism is it's small minded it's all about me we're about you know selflessness morality says that selflessness is good and by death by necessity what does that mean selfish is or self-interest is self interest is what is bad and they and they tell you they define for you what self-interest means right they don't leave it alone because they want to they want to really hammer this home they want to they want to make sure that you know you get this self-interest is what taking care of self what do we talk that self-interest is like when you point to the kid in the back of the playground and you say oh that kid's selfish you mean he's rationally considering what's good for himself and he's gonna work hard to make his life the best that it can be no what do you mean he's gonna he's gonna lie steal cheat stab people in the back to do anything that gets his way so now you've got a choice in life morality teaches you you've got a choice in life you can be self-interested which means bad which means lying stealing cheating by every definition bad or you can be self-less and good those are two options and guess what what political economic system being self-less is consistent with yeah is it is it consistent with everybody pursuing their own self-interest is it consistent with win-win transactions of trade no because all these people are self-interested and what do we know self-interest is lying cheating stealing so it can't be win-win somebody is deceiving us apple really tricked me into buying it for $300 I didn't really want to it's all those submissive liminal messages and they're advertising that got me to do it and we believe that I mean people really believe this stuff again just go out on the campus and ask because that's what they've been trained businessman of crooks why they crooks because they're self-interested everybody self-interested crook we know that that's definitional almost the good guys the guys who think about society think about what's good for the other people right mother Teresa that's goodness bureaucrats they're good because they're public servants they don't think about themselves right I mean that's funny in many ways many reasons for why that's funny but it's true look look at the Fed what do we have a federal reserve in the United States they can come up with lots of economic theories why we have a federal reserve but I have a very simple story on why we have a federal reserve in the United States we had a very powerful bank in the United States in the early part of the 20th century called JP Morgan and he ran his bank with an iron fist and he was incredible most of the industries in the US in the early part of the 20th century late part of the 19th were funded by JP Morgan he was a brilliant brilliant financier and in 1907 there was a financial crisis for a variety of reasons primarily related to government policies but a financial crisis and JP Morgan single-handedly saved the whole system he got all the bankers in a room and locked the door and said we're gonna sit here until we solve this problem and they did why did he do it because it was good for JP Morgan and everybody looked at that in the beginning he was a hero wow JP Morgan saved the world and then they started to think but wait a minute he's he's this private guy and he's doing it for his own interest that can't be right how can we trust this guy he's selfish he's in it for his own interests that's wrong banking system that's a big thing we need we need to give it to somebody responsible so let's get rid of private banks and let's start a public bank public owned by the government right let's call it the Federal Reserve and put Alan Greenspan in charge and we trust Alan Greenspan why because he's doing it for the public interest he doesn't get bonuses he doesn't get options he has no selfish motivation to run the bank and him we trust I don't know if you remember the days where we trusted Alan Greenspan some of you might but in those days he was God right he could not do wrong why he was a smart central planner who could do no wrong and doing it for the good of humanity not for his own good so we get rid of JP Morgan now we get us Ben Bernanke instead and why do we trust Ben Bernanke and not JP Morgan because the one is selfish and the one other one is selfless and you could track industry by industry regulation by regulation you know I like to use elevators as an example you know you go I don't know here in Canada if you have this but in America you go into an elevator and on the wall there's this little diploma that says that a government bureaucrat is inspected the elevator it won't fall right everywhere because we know we know that if we leave it to the marketplace all the elevators will fall and we need a public servant somebody who cares about humanity to inspect the elevators to make sure they don't fall because we know that left alone businessmen will kill their customers because that's how you make money right McDonald's would poison us right airplanes will be dropping out of the sky if not for the FAA we know I mean we laugh because to some extent this is what the culture believes this is what we think why why do we think that because they're greedy because they're selfish because they're self-interested and therefore they're cut corners they'll stab people in the back they'll do whatever it takes to make a buck and therefore we need those selfless responsible socially conscious bureaucrats to make sure the elevators don't start falling and that's how you get regulation every regulation in the books is this dichotomy you know what do we have you know I only know American regulations I don't know Canadian so it's a little hard a bit one of my favorite examples of American regulation was in 2000 you remember Enron and World Common there was a few cases of fraud right these CEOs committed fraud and they were caught ultimately went to jail but the mood in America then was they're all crooks every single one of them is crooks and I know this because you know Bill O'Reilly right on Fox right I mean if you want to know the mood of America just watch Bill O'Reilly because he's a populist he puts his finger out into the wind and says what he thinks everybody wants him to say so in 2002 I was in Billy Wright show and he wanted to fire every CEO in America because they were all crooks and how did you know look at Enron World Common saw he caught four therefore they all crooks and why were they all crooks because they're all self-interested and all they care about is profit and profit equals lying stealing cheating that's what it equals and I had to defend business when I said first of all they're innocent until proven guilty but you know most of them by the way Bill you work for a corporation that has a CEO is he a crook too he got really angry with me he didn't like he didn't like me but anyway that was the mood in the country and what did they do they passed a bill called Sabine's Oxley this is a massive piece of regulation in the United States the biggest in probably 50 years that put in accounting controls and American businesses that basically put a bureaucrat on the shoulder a very CFO and CEO in America monitoring everything that they did because I trust them they're all crooks but that comes from the selfishness this comes from this idea of self-interest that's the regulatory state the regulatory state is a product of this dichotomy in morality in ethics that's a weird thing right regulations are consequence of this view of morality of ethics and the entitlement state is easier to show right why do we have entitlements because you're moral responsibilities to keep take care of other people it's your moral obligation and you know what if I leave you free if I leave you alone you won't do it I can guarantee you won't do it because there's always somebody in need and somebody's need the fact that they have a need means you're not fulfilling it so I'm just benevolent government helping you become a better person I'm asking you I want to raise your taxes so that you can help that person over there who needs your help they don't have enough health care or they don't have a good enough house or they don't eat good enough food so I'm gonna take a little bit of your money and give it to them and we all say okay because we all vote for these taxes right we're not imposed on us some of us but most of us vote for them in the United States you know people think you remember Romney's 47% comment and 47% get money from the government so they all vote Obama nonsense how many rich people voted for Obama well of the ten richest counties in the United States how many do you think voted for Obama eight so you guys are even worse than I am right eight and why did they vote because Obama lets them relieve some guilt in California we know this well because we just raised our own taxes we had a referendum to raise the taxes on the wealthiest Californians from 10% this is state taxes on top of federal taxes from 10% to 13.3% that's over 30% increase what do you think the rich in California did they voted for it because it's an all obligation to do it how could they not they would be selfish if they didn't vote for it people do not vote their pocketbook people don't vote economic interests people don't vote what's good for them people vote what they think is right what they think is just what they think is good and this is why Obama wins Obama wins because he talks the language of morality he talks about the language of ethics he talks justice and fairness and what's right and what's wrong and the Republicans won't touch that because they agree with him they just disagree about the means but they agree on the end they agree about the morality the left has a mall high ground in Canada in in Europe in the US the mall ground is dominated by the left the right won't touch it they won't touch talking about morality and if they do it's all in religious terms and if they do they've accepted the same morality as the left because the religious morality to a large extent is the same as the left morality and you've lost the game there's always somebody in need there's always somebody I can go to and ask them to increase their taxes and we'll always almost always gonna vote for it particularly if I can show the deed and we're gonna feel guilty and the more need there is the more we give people stuff guess what happens the more they need the more they need when do they stop needing when everybody's equal that's what they mean by fairness and justice they mean equality but that ain't happening so there's always gonna be more need there's always gonna be more taxes and unless you challenge the fundamental belief that you morally owe that person something you lose you have to lose you'll always lose so this is the real challenge we have it's not about economics it's not about politics it's about ethics as long as we accept this duality of selfless morality being good self-interested morality being bad being evil being like stealing cheating we lose we've given them all high ground they will always win what Einran does what Einran does is challenge that whole conception of morality she says why isn't my moral obligation to help other people why do I owe somebody who needs stuff why do I owe him anything why is my life why is my life given to somebody else why is it less important than somebody else's life why is my moral obligation to serve and she rejects that whole notion but she also rejects the idea that serving one's own life is about lying stealing cheating or exploiting or taking stuff from others she says that's a false economy those two things are not right morality is not about exploitation morality is about being truly self-interested which means rationally self-interested long-term self-interested pursuing your values making the best of your life now why rational why does we say rational self-interested because if you think about human values where do they come from everything in this room I mean you can't point to anything in this room what is what if values come from where everything the human beings create come from clothes we wear the clothes for what the mind right how many of you have the gene to produce clothes right I put you in the middle of the Amazon you know how to skin the thing and take the clothes and do whatever you do with them to take the fur and turn it into I mean nobody knows how to do that right we don't have that gene somebody had to figure it out anybody have the gene for agriculture any farmers here no gene though you have to learn it I mean the guy who saw the seed drop down and water sprinkle over it and something grew up and and made the integration that those are related and there's a causal factor was the Einstein of his day and the guy who took that knowledge and turned into agriculture was the Steve Jobs of his day the entrepreneur of his day the Bill Gates right that takes reason it takes thinking takes observation and integration and using your mind using logic to figure it out all human values at the end of the day come from our ability to reason that is the way in which we survive and it's the way in which we thrive so if you really care about yourself which is what being self-interested means it means taking care of self making your own life your highest priority then the first thing you need to do is cultivate your mind is cultivate your reason cultivate your rational ability and pursue rational values in order to make your life the best life that it can be so it ran to say is no morality is about how to pursue your own self-interest what are the virtues that you should try to gain that you should try to live up to in order to achieve your self-interest that's what the study the science of morality should be about not about how to sacrifice not about how to defeat yourself not about it to live for other people why my life's mine it's about how to make my life the best life that it can be and if you want to live the best life that he can be that you can have do you want government sitting on your shoulder telling you what you can and cannot do how to run your life how to run your business what to do what not to do no you want to go out then explore you want to go out then live you want to go out there and pursue values and you might fail but if you're rational what happens when you fail you learn from it you rise up if you're poor and you believe in the value of your own life do you want to check from somebody else every month do you want to live off of somebody else's production no you don't want that you want to know that you are capable of producing enough to take care of yourself that's how we get self-esteem how to self-esteem how do we get self-esteem in life from achieving stuff from overcoming challenges from setting goals and achieving them if you don't set goals you don't get self-esteem and without self-esteem you can never ever be happy and isn't it all at the end about happiness that's at least what I ran tells us morality's goal the goal of life is ultimately to live a flourishing complete whole happy happy life happiness as the goal we can't get there without self-esteem and you can't get self-esteem without working on it without being challenged without taking care of yourself without building something without creating stuff we actually destroy the poor when we give them welfare we destroy the capacity for self-esteem and therefore we destroy the capacity ever to be happy they are the victims at least the ones who would want to work the ones who would want to achieve so morality tells us no your life is not owned by somebody else you do not owe them their need is not a claim against you your life is yours to live as you see fit in pursuit of the values you think will lead to your own happiness in pursuit of the things that you believe are going to make you a successful person a flourishing person and it's that morality that we if we believe in capitalism if we want the goodies that capitalism provides that is the morality we need to fight for and if we don't we don't get capitalism if we stick to the old moral code we will get the old political system we will get the same statism you will not get capitalism under regime and a moral regime that believes that your life is not yours to live that your life you owe it to others so the revolution you know in my books called free market revolution the revolution is not an economic revolution it's not a political revolution this is an ethical revolution this is a moral revolution that we're asking people to consider this is about what is the good what is virtue what value should people pursue and we reject again 2000 years of philosophy 2000 years of religion we reject the notion that morality is about being selfless and about sacrifice and about serving others and we're asking people to consider to consider the revolution in morality that I am and presents a morality based on your own self-interest your rational pursuit of your own self-interest over a long term and you know what we need is to reserve is to is to discover that morality and through it was erect a political system that respects the rights of individuals because what does the right mean what individual rights mean they mean freedom freedom to act freedom to act in pursuit of what happiness life your life your happiness so what we really need to resurrect politically is the spirit of the founding of America the spirit that says that you have an inalienable right inalienable means what nobody can take it away from you nobody for those who believe in democracy not even the vote not even a majority not even 99.9 percent of the people they cannot take it away from you you have an inalienable right to what to serve your fellow man see your life you have an inalienable right to your life now that's self-interested because it's your life each one of you you have an inalienable life to liberty right to liberty the right to liberty means you have a right to think whatever you want to think to act based on those thoughts to execute to try to fail to succeed and it's yours the fruits of your success are yours you don't owe them to anybody else you're not a servant you're not a slave to anyone that's what liberty means so you have an inalienable right and in the most self-interested political statement in human history each one of us has an inalienable right to pursue our own happiness now if we can capture that spirit and everything that that statement means then and only then this capitalism win thank you all questions now just questions oh we're gonna use a mic okay oh we're gonna have people come up to a mic yes or we're gonna just have them yell how do you want it well let's start because otherwise people get restless who wants to ask a question okay yeah well the point is a very fundamental point right why would I want to live in that Devs Island right I want other people other people are wonderful for variety of different reasons you know anywhere from iPhones which they produce I don't to sex other people are good things right the question is how do you deal with other people do you deal with other people in a sacrificial way where their happiness depends on me I need a give I need a or all your traders and what Rand is saying is that trade is the means by which we deal with other people we want to the people we are not isolationist as individuals we are not about going out into the wilderness and living alone quite the contrary love civilization right but as a trader now you're asking a deep question about why is it not in my self-interest to light sheet and steel that's another part of your question so let's take an example the example the typical example of the other capitalist is I like to use Bernie Madoff because he's such a juicy example right here's a guy who lied steel and cheated in order to attain what money right money was he happy was he happy his life was a living hell now you can ask you there's how many people you have lied you don't do lying is one of the dumbest strategies ever it's a dumb strategy because it doesn't get you what you want not in the long-term it gets you instant gratification at best but it doesn't get you what you want you almost always get caught which has severe consequences asked Bernie but half the time you're just worried about getting caught which creates anxiety which is not good for you either right think about Bernie Madoff why was it living hell because he was living he was lying to all his best friends he was like his family he was like his sons he was like his business associates everybody met on a day-to-day basis he was lying I how do you live with that right with with the knowledge you're gonna get caught you don't know who's gonna put you in you don't know when it's gonna happen you don't know what you're gonna slip out you don't know you can't remember who you like to and who you didn't like to it's just it's just overwhelming and he lived hell he said he's happier in jail now than he was before he was caught and I believe it because I think of the times and maybe I've lied and I know how bad that makes you feel not because of this consciousness just because practical reality means that it's gonna screw me I'm gonna be worse off because of the lie I mean lying almost always necessitates more line almost always and you know I reached an age where I can barely remember what happens right like ask me what happened last week and I really have to make an effort to remember now if I start lying I have to remember two things actually it's many more than two things I have to remember what actually happened because some people I told what actually happened then after remember the lie then after remember who I told the lie to why I told the lie to them that's just ridiculous right reality and truth are so much simpler fundamentally reason requires what to work rationality logic requires what facts truth reality lying is what untruth unfact unreality we have a term in computer science called garbage in garbage out reason lying is the same thing you put garbage in here you get garbage out the other side reason rationality your means of survival will not work if you lie cheat steal think of the self-esteem consequences of stealing you're so pathetic that you can't take care of yourself that you have to live off of other people by stealing that leads to happiness no way lying stealing of all those things are awful strategies for happiness awful strategies for success truth reason thinking it through working hard achieving stuff making stuff that's how you attain happiness that's how you attain success in life so and Bernie Meadows again as a great example because who turned him in his sons you think of something more tragic than your sons and then what happened what did his son do a year anniversary after he turned him in his son committed suicide and none of his family will talk to Bernie and Bernie's still happier than what was before he was caught that's how awful lying and stealing and cheating is to your son to who you are as a human being so it's not a self-interested strategy let's get rid of it once and for all it's not in yourself interest to do those things you got to figure out what is but that's not yeah you choose yeah thank you I have a question regarding your win-win situation with Steve Jobs and purchasing the iPhone now I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little bit here but now what would you say to you know all the waste and the you know the 81 gallons of water that was used to create that one phone which ultimately you know could potentially harm humanity even Steve Jobs himself you know contracted cancer now what would you say to that how does how does Anne Rand's principle fit into that equation so I just I guess I don't get it you know the notion that cancer didn't exist before technology is bizarre cancer always existed people who lived long enough to get it always got it and they died far quicker than they do today today because of that technology we can keep people alive in spite of having cancer let's just deal with the environmental issue right the human the human environment which is the only environment I care about with all due respect to spotted owls and the like I care about human beings the human environment has never ever been better than it is right now you breathe cleaner air you drink cleaner water you have longer life healthier life life is great out there and we're worried about it 80 gallons water who cares I mean who literally cares and what are you worried about future generations they're gonna be so rich they're gonna make you look ridiculous to for caring about them let them solve their problems but the whole idea of future generations is bizarre to me if we believe in progress because what we're saying is we're gonna cripple our own lives us poor people we're gonna we're very poor compared to them in order to benefit some rich generation three generations out we know what technology they're gonna have here's the hypothetical think about this in the middle of the 19th century they were using coal to do everything which meant there was sitting there and it was dirty and it was really harmful for people they were breathing the stuff in it wasn't good for them imagine the environmentalist movement then shutting down coal in the name of future generations us but that would have shut down the industrial revolution and most of us wouldn't be alive today because they thought about us and they cared about us and they loved us we would be dead with all due respect to future generation let them worry about it I don't have this half the environment not half 99% of the environmentalist scares I don't believe I mean just think about it this is their track record record in 19th was it 62 or 63 because it's a hundred years it's 50 years 63 Silent Spring was public claiming the DDT was killing the environment everybody was just this awful horrible substance that was just destructive and we need to stop it immediately so they did it turns out the science was all wrong and it turns out that because we start using DDT mosquitoes are killing people every year but a million people die of malaria because we don't use DDT to kill the mosquitoes and there's no proof no scientific proof DDT is harmful to anything indeed they're starting to reintroduce DDT now 50 years later 50 years later millions of people have died because of that book oh but in the late 60s Robert Ehrlich famous Stanford professor wrote a book about the population bomb and he said imminently hundreds of millions of people in the world are gonna die of starvation this was 68 or 69 right you remember the 70s you remember the massive starvation all around the world in the 70s it didn't happen okay but then in 70 early 70s they said oh but because of human activity the earth is going to cool and we can have an nice age and we front page New York Times Time Magazine everywhere oh that didn't happen now I'm really I'm a finance guy if somebody comes to me and said I've lost money every single year but give me this time I'm right what are you gonna do give him money well I am trusting the environmentalists I don't believe any of their stories because it's not motivated by fact it's not made of it by truth truth they are just you know I ran identified them in the late 1960s she caught she wrote an essay called the anti industrial revolution and she talked about in those days they were called ecologists they weren't even called environmentalists and she said they're not motivated by human environment they're not motivated by human war being they're not by making human life better they're motivated by destruction they're motivated by hatred they're motivated by the leadites just like leadites of all the anti-technology anti-progress anti-human being there's no product in human history and if you ever watch Alex Epstein on on video you know you get a whole elaboration of there's never been a product that has benefited human beings more than oil there is no product in human history that has done more good for mankind than oil look at the number of products just in this room made from oil all the plastics right all the transportation around us the electricity maybe not oil maybe it's natural gas but it's a it's a carbon carbon fuel right and yet you say that at an American university and I'll stone you to death that boycott you we we've got universities now boycotting oil again no product in human history has done more benefit for humankind has improved the human environment more than oil I challenge you to find one maybe right and this is the attitude that says to me then I really care about human beings and then when you tell them we all global warming right they talk about climate change so global warming because they they from that one too so it's climate change that's it that's the way to do it right you head yourself climate change if it cools it was your fault if it warms it was your fault and if it stays the same that's your fault you say okay well let's do nuclear God forbid nuclear nucleus like clean there's no carbon it's wonderful for the environment right they won't even do that and that reveals everything you need to know about they're not about solutions they're not about human life they're not about human progress they're about destruction limited limiting our possibilities limiting industry and destroying now what is a solution to whatever environmental problem really exist private property yeah private property if you if you sell the rivers nobody will pollute the rivers because it will be owned by somebody you know you can't drop your you can't drop your body your garbage in my backyard right we've known that for like thousand years common law has defined property rights as you can't drop your blood well let's apply that to the to the to the lakes to the rivers to the oceans to whatever we need to to the air it's just a matter of being innovative enough in terms of legal theory to find ways to to those characteristics or to defend property rights with regard to those characteristics not hard it's doable that's the solution to pollution to real pollution versus the mythology of pollution yes knowing that you're a an academic and interested in not putting forward anything that would be construed to be lies and not you know exaggerating anything well let me first of all say number one I'm a businessman I own my own company I have since 1981 I see a lot of young people in the room here when I was young and Rand was all the rage in in the schools and in fact in fact I read all of them including ones that are less popular and weren't made into movies but here's a question for you I a couple of things because number one you said what regulations were rolled back that could have caused the financial problems now I know you're aware of one of these because you wrote a dissenting article in Forbes comm concerning Glass-Steagall so you know that Glass-Steagall was rolled back by the Gramm-Leach-Pleiliac you didn't happen to mention that senator Graham also had a wife who was I have a question my question is how do you reconcile this how do you manage to not know about the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that directly led to Ripley Enron how do you not know that that senator's wife was a director of Enron how do you not know those things it seems very strange to me that that that would and also how how is it that when you put forward that article on the Gramm-Leach on the Glass-Steagall Act that you sort of halo branded it with Joseph Stiglitz's image who was a extremely well-known and award-winning economist when you know that he doesn't agree with you so let me let me deal with that one because that's the easiest one I didn't choose the photos that's Forbes so if you have a complaint about Stiglitz I think he was put there as the counter to our argument but that's Forbes magazine that's not me I don't choose the images or the title by the way the titles of all the Forbes pieces are chosen by Forbes oh so I know about Glass-Steagall right and I've written an article about it to show and the article starts proving that it had nothing to do with this financial crisis and if you want to ask me a particular question about particularly why Glass-Steagall didn't cause a financial crisis I'd be happy to tell you why I didn't but it didn't there's no proof there's no evidence I've asked people I've read Krugman I've read Stiglitz and they have zero zero evidence to suggest that Glass-Steagall had anything the repeal of a portion of anything to do with the financial crisis all the banks that went bust were either pure commercial banks regular banks not Glass-Steagall banks or pure investment banks Lehman Brothers did not have deposits Bear Stearns had no deposits Merrill Lynch had no deposits the one Glass-Steagall bank I can think of they got into trouble real trouble and that's Citibank but Citibank always gets into trouble I mean literally Citibank has been gone bankrupt four times in four decades it went bankrupt because of South American debt in the 1980s you remember us bailed out Mexico in 84 86 I can't remember which date you know why they bailed out Mexico because Citibank owned all the bonds and you bailed out Mexico in order to bail out Citibank in 1991 December of 1991 Citibank was bankrupt because commercial real estate loans and the Federal Reserve engineered a massive decline in interest rates in order to bail out Citibank I know the history of these things has nothing to do with Glass-Steagall as before Glass-Steagall and they still got bankrupt says no evidence Washington Mutual was not a Glass-Steagall bank it was a pure SNL was a saving on loans it did mortgages so was country whites it was every one of those banks I said has nothing to do now don't I know about Graham's wife sure you want me to list all the cronyism that exists in America every single legislation has somebody involved in something that's benefiting somehow from it yes America's a crony country that's not capitalism I'm arguing for capitalism there's no cronyism in capitalism there's cronyism in statism that's why I hate to term crony capitalism because they're not various forms of capitalism there's only capitalism and then there's cronyism and then there's socialism and statism see yes because it completely screwed up place where people are benefiting from government in a way that's inappropriate I'm not defending Graham's wife now did the did the regulation that you mentioned on commodities caused the financial crisis no did it cause Enron no it didn't cause anyone did accounting rules that are bizarre and weird passed by government help Enron get away with what it did absolutely why do we have accounting rules why is the government involved in accounting whose businesses why is the business of government how we do accounting why don't exchanges do that why don't accounting firms do that what is the marketplace do that well no so they can control it so they can determine what you do and don't do so sure there's a lot of bad stuff out there but it's not deregulation that caused the crisis now I'm not gonna say that certain deregulatory bills didn't create incentives or bad sure they did but so did regulatory bills so does everything the government does what I'm saying is in a free market truly free market the financial crisis cannot happen this financial crisis cannot happen and indeed financial crises when you go back in history are all caused by government manipulation of typically the currency but of business true free markets don't have systemic risk you know where systemic risk people talk about systemic risk the Federal Reserve creates systemic risk the SEC creates systemic risk the FDIC creates systemic risk entities every bank to control every institution they create risk across the entire system banks individual banks don't create systemic risk not in a free market the Fed what of course it is who appoints the chairman of the Federal Reserve the president of the United States and he's approved by Congress and he reports to Congress who approves the who approves the board of directors of the Federal Reserve the government does the president and Congress do where did the profits of the Federal Reserve go right if it was a private entity wouldn't the profit go to the owners no turns out they don't go to the bankers what are the profits of the Federal Reserve go to the Treasury to the government the Federal Reserve is a absolutely check it out the profits of the Federal Reserve all go to the Treasury there's actually a lot of concern about the fact that when interest rates go up the Federal Reserve is going to show losses and there'll be no money going to the Treasury which will increase the deficit in the United States because right now the Treasury counts the money and gets on the Fed to decrease nice little profit machine that they create them he's got a microphone so I'm not determining the rate here all right thank you for your talk professor brook I just have one question do you think in a free market there should ever be in any instances limitations on freedom of expression of artists and particular and it's an important question to me because it's just been something I've been grappling with for a while so if you could just say something about that especially in a society where you have lots of artists making money off whatever it is they want to say and so forth so well yeah I mean as long as the as long as your expression isn't is you know is expression then yeah you should be freedom of speech is an absolute it's not a relative thing now as long as you're not violating other people's property rights as long as you're not violating them intellectual property rights as long as your it's yours then absolutely freedom of speech is an essential part of the right to life liberty in the pursuit of happiness indeed that's what liberty to large extent is about it's about the freedom to think that's the primary and then the freedom to express your thoughts in action and in words and you have every right to do that now again that doesn't mean you ever write to somebody else's radio station or somebody else's TV or somebody else's museum they get to choose who they get to talk to but on your property you can say whatever you want you can express yourself in any way by the way whether it's good or bad I might hate your art I'm not personal right I might hate the art but you still have a right to express thank you Dr. Brooke for speaking I just wanted to say something in relation to the gentleman back there with respect to the free markets okay okay I okay I just I maybe it's just a comment but basically going back to all the crises financial crises 1994 Mexico 1998 with the Russian ruble and long-term capital management you know the 2008 financial crisis every single one of those involved some form of major regulatory arbitrage going on meaning the companies were working with governments worldwide to basically trade in products that were specifically designed around government regulation I used to teach finance I used to teach financial markets and banking and most of the products that exist out there the innovations in finance are designed to get around regulations so much brain power so much brain power is devoted to getting around regulations what a waste if you got rid of the regulations that actually be doing stuff that's purely aimed at production now getting around regulations not for just for the sake of getting around regulation it's getting on regulations so the banks can do their job which is to allocate capital but absolutely every one of those involved regulatory arbitrage you see it all the time it creates false incentives it creates moral hazard all of those by the way are moral hazard cases when you bail out Mexico then everybody thinks you're gonna bail out everybody the IMF's been bailing everybody out left and right so everybody misbehaves because they know they're gonna be bailed out 98 yeah 98 was that was started in Thailand and spiral through the world but every one of those all of those are government mistakes reinforced by financial institutions that are acting based on the incentives that governments provide I have a question about the moral transformation or moral revolution rather about about about the feasibility of it in light of the fact that human beings have always organized themselves into groups whether it's tribes whether it's nations whatever it seems to be encoded in our DNA our morality of service to others perhaps even flows from that fact the fact that we we have we feel the sense of belongingness with others it's a very it's very emotional when we see somebody is a member of our group suffering you know we want there's a desire to help them right there's a start to serve and and so and so it seems to me that this this moral revolution I just don't see how it's possible in light in light of this this very very human because it seems to be rooted in biology and that's the first the first and the second the second thing is that just one last question where you in the beginning you kind of made this you presented this dichotomy of of of goodness is service to others and selfishness is evil and and and which and and the revolution reversed that but it seems to me that's kind of a caricature what why why not why not combine the best elements of both okay I get it I get it so you want you want both and you know that's like that's like just taking a little bit of poison in my view but combining good food with poisonous food look yeah we want to be in groups groups incredibly beneficial to us and I talked about that I said we're not isolationists we don't believe in living in the forest alone we want to be in a group where there's voluntary exchange with a win-win relationships where the essential characteristic of human relationship is trade I give you I get back and I think that's true in spiritual terms as well as material terms the fundamental is that exchange that trade and yes we're an animal biologically that benefits from that enormously it's it's a trade is an incredible value to us and societies that trade grow and succeed societies that don't with trade is destroyed are destroyed so that's that group as a voluntary group in which we trade is a huge value to all of us and there's nothing I said about the morality of self-interest contradicts that it's in my self-interest to belong to a group in which we voluntarily are exchanging products and exchanging spiritual values right the question is and this is where they are the morality that you call a character but it's not this is the way morality is taught the morality that says that no you get moral points only when you sacrifice when you lose when somebody else's gain if you gain and everybody else gains with you that doesn't count that's a trade that doesn't come all I mean here's an example I like to use Bill Gates right Bill Gates builds Microsoft he makes a hundred billion dollars for himself while building Microsoft he helps every human being on the whole planet there's not a human being on the planet that has not been touched positively by Microsoft lives are better off all over the world because Bill Gates made a hundred billion dollars because he made a hundred billion dollars by trading with billions of people out there and making their lives better off because he traded with them does he get one I owed of moral credit moral not business moral credit for that no not in the culture we live in when does he get moral credit when he leaves Microsoft so he's not being self-interested anymore and he gives it away so now he's a good guy and he gets some more credit but not quite all the moral credit because we're a little suspicious of him because I have the sneaky feeling that he's enjoying this so he's only gonna get some more credit because he might actually be pursuing something he actually values what would more Bill Gates have to do to get to become a saint to become a really good guy he'd have to give it all away move into a tent and bleed a little bit now none of us would want to be Bill Gates at that point because none of us want to do that kind of sacrifice but that's what morality demands that's what the morality of altruism is about it's not about being beveled it's not about being nice to people it's about serving others it's about your life being subservient to the life of other people and it's wrong it's evil it's bad altruism there's nothing good about it I don't want to mix a little bit of altruism with myself interest because you know what if I'm self-interested how do you think I treat people as human beings they produce they're good for me they make my life better if they're producing an iPhone I get to trade with them and make my life better and if somebody's suffering and I know they're suffering not because of their own not for their own fault because their house burned out or something bad happened to them I would help them I'm benevolent I love human beings I'm actually I think more people in the globe is better right six billion right now let's make it ten because with ten billion there'll be more people producing more stuff more people for me to trade with I'll become automatically I become richer right so I love people but there's not an ounce of sacrifice there's not an ounce of selflessness in my love of other people I love other people because it's good for me I love other people because my life is better off of them I want more people to be born because I love Beethoven and I love Michelangelo I love artists right I love art you go to my house and it's plastered with paintings all over the world it's like the old academies you can't find any space between the paintings or something I have sculptures everywhere I love this stuff and you know what if there are more people born there's more probability of Michelangelo born I love that and if somebody's somebody's suffering again for no fault of their own should help them but you know what I'm gonna help my kids first why am I gonna help my kids first because I love them more they're more valuable to me and I'm gonna help my neighbor first before I send my money to Africa because my neighbor is more likely to impact my life positively than the people in Africa gonna impact my life so I don't care that much about people in Africa that's a fact heartless whatever you want but I don't because their impact on my life is marginal the impact of my neighbor is great the standard for my caring for other people me I don't need any altruism for that and indeed that creates in my view the most benevolent society in history think about what happens if you if in my view altruism creates malevolence it creates hatred it creates envy it creates resentment because if we all believe that we all owe a moral duty to help others that's our moral obligation that's the essence of morality and I'm poor nobody's helping me those rich guys over there they're screwing me they maul obligation is to help me and they're not living up to it what does that lead me to do I hate them I resent them because they're not doing what they're supposed to do which is help me but if I flip that around and say no you're my obligation to take care of yourself them all obligations to take care of themselves and you know in a free market when people take care of themselves everybody's better off so when I see a rich guy I go cool that means I'm better off because of him Bill Gates made $500 billion that is incredible because everybody else is better or not that's a free market put aside the colonialism in a true free market right Bill Gates making billions means my I'm better off that's benevolence I respect other people and I know that my life is my responsibility not theirs so I don't envy them I don't resent them I don't hate them for their success all I want is for me to be successful so I will call it to be successful that's the kind of society I want to live in hi mr. Dr. Yaron Brooke thanks for your presentation I ran a tutoring business for about six seven years and I had 15 clients and I built it myself so it was very difficult and challenging and I don't know if you're aware of the situation in Canada we've been under socialism for like the last three decades so we finally have capitalist government mr. Stephen Harper and concise sorry I know I'm very unpopular for saying that but Ontario is the last bastion for liberal stronghold in the country federally all the problems is you know through in the towel because we've tried peer-to-dote socialism and so what I want to what I want to know is when you say that all business people are crooks how can I be a crook when I built my business legitimately sincerely and honestly and based on my own self-interests and what you're you seem to be advocating is socialism if you look across the pond at Europe Portugal Spain Cyprus but I never said that they're going bankrupt socialism is bankrupting Europe so what what you know what what alternative visions you have for Canada that wouldn't it wouldn't make Canada end up like the European Union I'm not I'm not sure what lecture you listen to but I never called business and crooks ice I didn't I said the culture views them as crooks no he didn't I think on this one we'll agree I'm I'm defending businessman here I said the culture views them as crooks and that's bad that's why capitalism is losing it's because the culture views businessmen of course I view them as heroes yeah I don't know what you're talking about if anybody didn't understand I'm against socialism and full capitalism and it would be great if Canada was more capitalist the problem the reason the guy was skeptical is that he thinks the current government is not capitalist enough yes they're moving maybe in the right direction by the way somebody has to ask me the question there was all over Facebook about my ignorance regarding the Canadian banking system so somebody please ask that yeah you're saying the the battle is being lost so how do you plan for the future how do I plan for the future given that we're losing I'm trying to get us to win why I know how you're planning but how do let's say someone in business they're not professional intellectuals they you know they want to build their lives and and things are things are going down quickly so how do you plan so I would say two things one I believe you have to fight so I believe you have to do whatever you can to try to convince the culture to turn it around and yes many of you businessmen are not intellectuals support the intellectuals you know you know write a check you see you laugh why isn't funny it's true right the only way we can do what we do is because you guys write checks if you don't write checks we can't do it and that's I'm not telling you to do it sacrificially or altruistically I'm saying it's in your self-interest I'm your agents in this fight help me right so help those who are fighting the battle help those who are out there trying to advocate for capitalism and trying to change the world you know and in your own life speak up you know you can fight the battle on any level you don't have to be an intellectual to fight this battle all you have to say is is I don't agree that's not the way it is you know I'm you know one of the biggest things businessmen can do this goes to that other question be proud be proud of your success stop apologizing stop apologizing to people that you make money stop apologizing to people that you're successful and you've done good stuff be you know let people see if people had an image a proud businessmen standing up there and defending their business and what they've done and how they've achieved imagine if if if some of these you know some of these bankers stood up to the stupid senators calling them you know and actually challenged them none of them do they all kind of fold on a personal level you know you got to think about where the west is going and you got to preserve assets and you've got to think about how to put those assets and in a place that where they're likely to preserve their value and you know who knows what will happen either the great deflation of the great inflation of the future comes you've got to think strategically about the future and think about those areas in the world which have a chance of surviving when the United States collapses you know it's probably not in the west it's probably more likely in Asia and even then it's not going to be very good nobody's going to come out of this in good shape you know so you got to think about strategies for wealth preservation which I'm not going to get into right now but this is I mean the decline of the west is real the decline of America is real it's happening whether it's happening you know super fast or just a little bit fast it's happening and it's here and I believe we have about 20 years to turn this around or we're lost this is not a long-term thing the 20 years is not a long term for some of you are my age and you know 20 years goes by like that right this is about this is a battle that's happening right now and if we don't change this if we don't turn this around the next 20 years we're deep into it. Out of curiosity do you think Calvin Coolidge was a good president or a bad president and should he be a role model? There's many conservatives love him in the States now. Calvin Coolidge you know I'm not a historian I'm not an expert on this but my understanding is he's a good president you know probably the best of the 20th century maybe you know basically because he did very little. I have a sudden sympathy to Bill Clinton because he did very little that's that's not bad you know having sex in the White House is good because it distracts you from actually governing. But no Coolidge handled well he was he was vice president at the time but I can't forget who was the president during the who was it? Harding during the session of 2021 and they handed it very well and Coolidge generally handed it well and it's really after Coolidge left office that the Federal Reserve went nuts and started putting money you know started inflating the economy in the late 1920s so generally positive. So Europe is in terrible shape the US is in terrible shape economically with I had to come here to Canada tonight from the US to hear this kind of common sense and I applaud you and thank you so much for bringing this to Canada do you speak in the US that's question one. Question two is do they let you speak is that really question one in the US. Question two is what clearly Canada has done something fascinating and something well and it seems to be bipartisan we've had fiscally responsible Liberals that have balanced the budget in this country Paul Martin, Cretien, Stephen Harper you know Conservatives Liberals seem to be doing a pretty good job here. What lessons as you're paying attention to the banking system in Canada the lessons and the way things have gone historically economically in the last let's say decade 15 years what can Canada arguably the brightest spot right now economically in the world with maybe one or two other small exceptions. What can Canada what can the rest of the world learn from Canada and and do you see what can each one of us in this room after we leave here tonight having been enriched by hearing you do maybe through our our social networking Facebook etc to spread the word in the message. So first of all like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter and if you had you would know that last year I probably gave about a hundred talks like this 80 plus of them in the United States and only a few internationally but I do speak internationally but not not as much as in the US I'm gonna get in trouble with Canadians because I agree with you about Canada which I know a lot of people here resent and don't like Canada is a bright spot in the world out there not because it's doing the right things but because it's doing few bad things than the rest of the world no absolutely so in the in the mid 1990s Canada got into real trouble it was running huge government deficits it had a huge amount of debt the Canadian dollar was sinking there were real problems and I don't know who the politician was I don't know what happened but the decisions made to cut government spending into into into rationalize budgets and you know again I'm not an expert in Canadian economics but it seems that if you look at the percent of government spending per GDP it went down which is very unusual in the world out there there's one other country did the same thing anybody know who that is Sweden socialist Sweden they went bust because socialism drove them bankrupt and they started cutting government spending cutting entitlement cutting regulations decreasing taxes and they're doing okay they're not doing great but they're doing okay and that happened about 15 20 years ago as well around the same time as they did in Canada a little after Canada yeah yeah and so so I think that lesson when economy gets into trouble you don't increase government spending you decrease it this problem with the sequester is it's too small if it was big it would actually have a positive impact on the US economy it's too small to have any kind of impact on the US economy there are a lot of lessons about reducing government spending reducing government involvement reducing that Americans can learn from Canada now is Canada not enough no does Canada over-regulate absolutely this Canada have taxes that are too high yes it's Canada healthcare system a disaster yes if you're sick if you're healthy it's great socialized medicine is wonderful for healthy people it is I lived under socialized medicine it's a disaster and that's why you have these buses that go down to the Mayo Clinic in in watched in Rochester Minnesota to get real treatment my father was a doctor under socialized medicine in Israel you know Israel has one of the best healthcare systems in the world there's more doctors per capita than any country in the world why because the 6 million Jews so of course you have more doctors than anywhere else and when my dad with all those wonderful doctors when my dad had a really sick patient who had the money he would put him in a plane and fly him to the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic or somewhere else there is no healthcare system in the world better if you have money than the United States healthcare system and I'm not talking about a lot of money if you're middle-class there's no place in the world where you get better treatment in the United States the myth about the United States healthcare system is shocking now it's bad because it could be a thousand times better for was privatized but silly it's the you know Canada's the model for healthcare so Canada certainly a model for those the other thing Canada is is lucky right you're lucky because as energy prices went through the roof you discovered you had a lot of oil in those oil sands right and energy has been a huge resource in terms of revenue for the Canadian government over the last 10 years and because prices of oil went so high it became economical to get that so there's a bit of luck but there's also smarts there because in America today we have tons of energy and yet nobody nobody will draw for it nobody will take it right so in spite of the fact that Canada is this environmentalists leftist kind of general population when it comes to actually making money nobody cares about the environment you go out and you take those sands and you turn them into oil right and you want to in spite of fact the Canadians are far more environmentally conscious than Americans are you want to take that pipeline in all directions and get that oil into the world so there's a certain pragmatic nature in Canada when it comes to natural resources that even in the United States we don't have we've given up in California has vast quantities of natural gas huge and they won't go after them because it's fracking and you know fracking is the new devil right so there's a lot a lot positive to be said about Canada and if anybody wants to know about Canadian banking system white superior to the American banking system has been for 200 years you can ask me yes I give long answers I guess two quick questions I find anarcho capitalists and libertarians always add odds and I know you're a libertarians first I know so how would you keep a government that's small that way because when government small economy grows economy grows government swells question to if America collapses even worse soon which a lot of people are saying how is that going to affect Canada how badly is that going to affect Canada because I heard that we don't even have gold reserves we just have American dollar reserves so let me let me start I'm not a libertarian just so we're clear I'm an objectivist which is I'm in philosophy I don't agree with libertarians on lots of things including an alcohol capitalism a lot of libertarians in the United States and alcohol capitalism so how do you keep government small by having the right ideas around small government how do you keep anarchy I mean I don't believe anarchy is it's possible to have anarchy because what will happen under anarchy the guys with the biggest guns will take over everybody also to establish a state right they'll establish a government that's what government means it's the guys with the guns so I believe in a small state the only way to preserve it is to have the right ideas is to be vigilant about it it's to protect it it's up here you cannot you will never have capitalism as well if people don't believe in capitalism you will never have anything unless even the founding fathers right why don't we have the founding fathers principle because people stop believing in them so it's education education education you have to have the philosophical structure and people have to believe in that philosophy otherwise it goes away nothing is metaphysically given when it comes to people's you know free will what was a second question oh when America goes look I let me just because I don't think America is going anywhere anytime soon I don't think collapse is imminent you know I'm not Peter Schiff if you know Peter Schiff I don't think it's going to happen instantly in the world you know and I said but I think if it ever happens Canada screwed everybody in the world is screwed the fact is that whether we like it or not America is not only the economic center of the world today but it is the it is the it's still perceived particularly in Asia's the shiny sitting on the hill it's the model it's what everybody tries to emulate and if it goes there's nothing to emulate and all those cultures will revert to what they've always reverted to which is authoritarianism central planning and disaster the only thing that keeps Asian countries moving towards more free markets is the model of America and when that disappears that vision disappears Canada will have a hard time I don't think Canada will collapse but Canada will have a very hard time with her if America's gone because we're the number one trading partner of more most Canadians trade is win-win if one side of the trade dies right disappears you're not you now are not winning anymore you you you don't have the benefits of that trade this is why free trade is such a wonderful thing that's why we should have much more free trade between Canada and the US because we would all benefit enormously from that trade is always a win-win so we want more of it not less of it when one country collapses everybody loses could you please address the question you alluded to earlier when you mentioned that the Canadian banking system so much better than US banking system yeah the US banking system was crippled at its at its very early stages going back to the founding of America really the early part of the 19th century it was always perceived banking was always perceived as something negative in America and as a consequence banks were limited in size and in scope so way before sawbanks ox the glass steel anything like that banks for example the United States were not a lot of branch out of their state and in some places in many places in the United States you couldn't branch out of your county or your city so what you got in the United States is lots of banks hundreds and thousands so for example in the 1970s there were 21,000 depository institutions in the US. Canada never had that aversion to banking that that idea that banks are somehow evil and we have to keep them small and tidy and as a consequence you saw massive consolidation in the early days and you got five banks not because the government decided there would be five banks not today it is because they regulate capital concerns all you can't start it's very hard to start a bank in Canada but in those days because they allowed mooges and consolidations and they allowed bank Canadian banks were universal banks there was no glass steel they could do they could do depository they could do investment banking the United States even that was separated out in the 1930s against because we don't we didn't trust bankers and so there's always been an aversion to banking in the US it's only in 1994 was on a federal level banks allowed to branch across states there's a interstate banking law was passed in 1994 before that some states had the ability to go across states you had to create a different holding company it was a mess right and since 1994 the number and because of the SNL crisis and lots of other things the number of depository institutions has gone down from 21,000 in the 70s to 7,000 today 7,000 right I mean we're bigger than Canada but do we really need 7,000 banks no it's a it's a it's an artifact of all that regulation and controls that again go back into the capitalist era of the 19th century even back there and in that sense Canada bank Canadian banks because they could diversify geographically because they could diversify in terms of their scope in terms of the functions were much healthier than American banks that were either they were very limited geographically and were very limited in their scope they could do either commercial banking or investment banking but couldn't do both and the reason Glass-Digo went away was because American banks couldn't compete with European banks and other banks that were universal banks they could do all of these different aspects so the whole story about Glass-Digo's okay so this is going to be the last question that we're gonna have to wrap up well then it has to be a good one pressures on yes and I'll be signing my book if anybody wants my signature hi Aaron really enjoy everything that that you've spoke on tonight what I'm still questioning is with full anarchy you say that they're gonna get the power and have all the guns but I mean doesn't the government already have all the guns and by going back to limited government we just be resetting the clock back to 1789 and this whole thing would just happen again don't you think it would be interesting to just turn off that light switch and try full anarchy no I mean I think that's a disaster I would I would rather have all we have today than full anarchy any day I would rather have the status today than full anarchy because I think my life is safer today than under full anarchy but let me say first of all switching on to 1789 I'm taking it right now right even if even if we deteriorate afterwards but this is the difference you have to ask the question of why did the founding fathers fail long-term why is it the 200 something years after the founding of America has that vision of limited government disappeared and I in man's answer and I agree with on this is that there was no philosophical foundation for what the founding fathers was trying to do they established a government under the principle of individual rights without a philosophical understanding of what individual rights meant which required a morality of self-interest and ethical code based on self-interest which required an understanding of human reason and what that demanded you know what reason is how it works and therefore why rational self-interest is that is the right ethical code so what they built is they built a house on quicksand the politics are great right the political system is good but everything underneath politics ethics epistemology metaphysics are rotten to the core and as the 19th century evolves those ethical beliefs rise up and they start destroying the politics and all the rest of the foundation and when in the 19th century late 19th century the progressives come and they say wait a minute your life you're supposed to be morally responsible for your neighbor what is this self-interest what is this capitalism this is immoral the capitalist had nothing to say because they didn't have an ethical code to challenge them and they capitulated at the end of the day when is the first philosopher the first philosopher at least since Aristotle to actually present us with a moral code that start building that foundation on which this good political system lays so if you reverse the clock back to 1789 but with objectivism with the moral code of rational self-interest with reason as man's basic means of survival with a metaphysics of reality a is a then it doesn't deteriorate because now you can defend it now you can defend it against the progressives now you can defend it against the socialists the Kantians of the whole gamut of European philosophies and now it's a house that can stand and it won't so I have complete belief that if that if you could establish this country but with the right philosophy then limited government will persevere anarchy is a rejection of philosophy there are no philosophical principles just do whatever the hell you want to do it's a complete rejection of philosophy and ethics and morality and any kind of standard objective standard out there and as a consequence it is doomed to failure it cannot survive there is no standard there is no truth there's no right or wrong and I know you want to argue with me and and I know and I you know every it's a shame that an awkward capitalism has to be the last question but it is wrong in a deep deep sense it is it is it is wrong philosophically it is based on a philosophy of subjectivism it is based on a philosophy of relativism it is a complete repudiation of rejection of objectivism at every single step and then it's more depressing you can't found a new country look it doesn't it can't happen look at all the attempts because libertarians have tried this all over the world they go and they they inhabit a tall in the Fiji islands and what happens the king of Fiji sends the troops and kicks them out they just try to start these these independent cities in Honduras the Hondurans change their constitution which allowed for the establishment of these independent cities and of course Supreme Court of Honduras that says no that's illegitimate you know Patrick Friedman middle of Friedman's grandson is trying to start floating islands where you'll have your own it ain't gonna work guys there is no place on the planet where you can start a new government nobody's gonna give it to you if you're successful they'll shut it down there's only one way to do it I figured it out right there's a way to establish a new country right you know like a floating island what Facebook can't establish a country you need a nuke you need a nuclear bomb and it needs to be targeted to DC and then you need to be able to say in a way that everybody believes you leave us alone or you're dead and then maybe you have a chance maybe but other than that the fact is that if people see you succeed they will shut you down imagine you started a free city on Honduras and you had true freedom individual rights the founding principles everything yet on the right philosophy and everything and you had banks then the banks are truly free banks so they respected privacy how long do you think that would last I get it like an hour and they're shutting you down in the name of I don't know money laundering drug trade or a thousand other things that the American government would claim that you're doing that violates the you know the American government I mean there's no way they're gonna let you get away with it this is not some practical problem that we just need to find the right geography this is a philosophical problem and if you don't change the culture you lose if you don't change the culture you lose and changing the cultures hard and it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort and it's all about education it's education education education they're no quick fixes they're no shortcuts there's no magic bullet is none it's about fighting speaking writing talking and more and more and more of that that's it thank you all