 thank you thank you for having me here it's always exciting to be in Ukraine although you know as he said I'm from California and I don't know how you live with this weather you guys should be really promoting global warming I assume because then maybe you'll get some decent weather here in Kiev I'm here to give you some bad news the bad news is this the rest of the world out there the West America which I know that many of you look up to that many of you aspire to be like the West and America are dying they're being strangled and killed by Levantian by the state by statism freedom is slowly disappearing in much of those countries that have always been a shining city on the hill for many people in Eastern Europe in Asia in other places around the world there is a slow creeping death occurring in the West for you guys the bad news is not only is there's no way to look up to that is disappearing and and Tom talked about the American elections earlier and I agree with him completely never never have we had such an evil choice as we have this election never have we had such horrible candidates as we have this election and the scary thing about it is it could get worse it could get worse and whoever wins this is going to make America less free so not only do you have you don't have some way to look up to to model yourself after to try to aspire to be but you also don't have any way to run away from to right you might want to escape Ukraine and go to America well America is on the way to becoming Ukraine and I agree with Tom as well about the ideas of little libertarian whatever right that is not the future we're not gonna be living on little floating islands and international water part of the reason for that is that the state the states that have big ships and big weapons and big bombs I'm not gonna allow you to have an island of freedom in the middle of nowhere just imagine you start a bank on this island and you want to have true privacy on this bank immediately gonna be accused of what money laundering drug smuggling all kinds of stuff and the American Navy is gonna show up and shut you down it's pretty depressing I should get off now before it gets worse right indeed I think that the one hope that we have and the one hope you have is you when I look at the world today I see more excitement about liberty more excitement about freedom more excitement about capitalism more excitement about shrinking the state and bringing freedom in places like Ukraine in places in Eastern Europe in places in Latin America then I do in the West in the West were fat rich lazy and complacent so I'm here to try to convince you to stay in a sense and to fight to fight for your freedom for your individual freedom for your individual liberty because you have hope you still remember what real statism what complete control of human life looks like you still have in a memory within a generation of what communism is really like when people say socialism you know what that looks like you know what that means that Bernie Sanders comes to Ukraine and talks about socialism people know that what he's saying is complete bullshit in America what the hell just another idea right how bad could it be they think Denmark is socialist Denmark is as capitalist as America is there's no socialism in Denmark you guys know what socialism really means so we got a fight the state will not go away by itself you saw earlier today what happens to a good person and I believe he's a good person and he probably believes he's a libertarian but what happens to him once he enters politics the state has a way of its own of protecting power of protecting cronyism of sustaining it and not letting go of the reins even when people with good intentions come in they don't usually survive if they're really good the fight has to be from without the fight has to be first and foremost an educational fight you will not win on the political battlefield until you know what you are fighting for until you have enough troops for the fight until you have enough people to engage in that struggle until you those of us who believe in free markets can fill that square in Ukraine as Ukrainians did in 2014 not just from freedom from a corrupt administrator a corrupt president but for real freedom individual freedom the freedom to live your life as you see fit free of government control free of government regulation free of the state telling you what you can and cannot do in economics in your private life in every aspect of your life that is real freedom and that's what we should be fighting for so to do that we need to educate ourselves we need to know what freedom is and we need to educate the people around us there's vast ignorance in the world there is ignorance of history people don't know the graph that Tom Palmer showed earlier of wealth creation of what capitalism and freedom have brought to the world in a very short period of time historically the last 200 years a meaningless period of time just 200 years and yet almost all the wealth we have today was created during those 200 years and it was created by one political system it's called capitalism it's called freedom socialism doesn't create anything socialism doesn't build anything socialism destroys its steels it annihilates it redistributes but nothing is built nothing is created there's not one successful socialist country in human history it doesn't stop people for wanting to be socialist right what did Einstein call that when you try to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results but you know what they what he called that it's called insanity and the world is insane because they want to do the same thing over and over again socialism statism government control right and expect they expect different results so we have those of us who believe in free markets we have history on our side we affect on our side we have examples on our side educate yourself about those examples and go out and tell the world I'll give you an example that's happening right now in the world about 20 years ago there was a very very rich country in Latin America it was actually the richest country in South America this country has more oil more oil than Saudi Arabia more reserves in the ground in Saudi Arabia and it elected a socialist president and for 20 years the state has grown and grown and grown and grown and what has happened to the people of this country they've gotten poorer and poorer and poorer and poorer and today Venezuela is so poor that babies are dying for malnutrition there is no toilet paper there is no toothpaste they have to go to Colombia not exactly the richest country in the world in order to buy basic necessities just to survive just to survive the richest country in Latin America became the poorest country in Latin America but what's interesting about Latin America what's interesting about South America is you also have the example about the same period of time where the poorest country in Latin America became the richest how did that happen it happened because they adopted free market policies it happened because they privatized their economy including their social security their pension plan was completely privatized and this country's Chile and they went from being the poorest country in Latin America to the richest country in Latin America now you think that would be a happy story that would be a wonderful happy ending but guess what Chile's doing now it just elected a president twice who's a socialist and who's undoing all the things that make Chile rich so that they can be poor because what we really want is poverty so the facts the examples are all on outside and we need to know them we need to know the graph we need to understand what caused it we need to see and show people what freedom actually achieves what freedom actually does and that's just numbers but freedom is much more than numbers right freedom is about your soul freedom is about your life speed them is about the choices you make on a day-to-day basis you don't see that in a graph but it's all there the kind of choices we have the kind of lives we have in a relatively rich free country as compared to the choices you had just 20 30 years ago and what that does to the human spirit so we have facts we have history we got to study them we got to understand them and we got to teach the world out there and if you care about your future you got to do this you got to embrace learning and you got to embrace advocacy go out there and get the word out because it's your life's that depend on it second we've got to understand why freedom works we've got to understand the foundations for freedom economic foundations you've got to understand the economic foundations you got to understand in basic basic terms why it happens why market works right and markets work they work amazingly well and we've got to be able to defend the markets and we've got to be able to fend they way they work so you've got to understand the basics of economics the basic principles of economics you don't become an economics PhD but the basic ideas if you're gonna fight for liberty if you're gonna fight for freedom you got to understand those basic fundamentals to dismantle this ridiculous idea that the state knows how to use farmland better than you do if it's yours that the state has any interest economically and you're in what is your stuff central planners central planning has always always failed central planning cannot work it cannot work and again you should read Hayek you should read Mises you should read the great economists that explain this in great detail and third you need to understand the philosophical foundations of freedom we've got to understand the basic assumptions behind the idea of freedom and this is where I think this is where I ran is so important this is where I ran I think supplies us with fantastic ammunition to defend the principles of freedom the principles of free markets of capitalism of individual freedom more than any other thinker so I encourage you you've got out there in Ukrainian you've got copies of Atlas shrugged and the fountainhead read those books there's some there's some essays on the table in the back by iron Rand which I would highly recommend read those it's really important for us to understand what the foundations of liberty really rest on and the foundations of liberty rest on the idea that your life each one of your lives belongs to you your life is yours it doesn't belong to much to Ukraine it doesn't belong to the state it doesn't belong to your neighbor it doesn't belong to your family it belongs to you you do not have obligations to the state you do not have obligations to your neighbor you do not have obligations to your family unless you choose those obligations you are the unit of moral and political measurement you as an individual a what are important when you know I listen to the land reform panel because I'm I'm interested in kind of these reforms and I'm interested in the perspectives but the guy was sitting here was basically talking about the fact that you were just you were just subjects of the Ukrainian state you were just pieces to be moved by the statist by the by Ukraine as if Ukraine has some kind of mystical meaning Ukraine is the sum of you as individuals your life is yours everything starts with that fact that is the basic assumption behind the founding of the United States of America in 1776 the basic assumption the thing that makes America special or at least it made America special is the idea that for the first time in history the individuals life was an end in itself the individuals life was their own end so you as an individual have a right to your own life you have a right to pursue the values necessary for you to live a successful life the values you believe are necessary this is why central planning can never work this is the fundamental reason who knows what's good for you only you do the state cannot get into each one of your minds and decide what is good for you therefore it cannot plan your life only you can plan your life and it's your responsibility to plan your life so you have a right a right an inalienable right that no majority no state no group can take away from you a right to live your life free of corrosion free of force free of intimidation by others you have a right to pursue the values you believe unnecessary for your life to be successful you have a right to liberty which means what which means you have a right to think whatever thoughts you want you have a right to speak you have a right to write you have a right to fight for your values free of force free of corrosion free of intimidation and you avoid to property right who the hell is Ukraine to tell a owner of land what he can and cannot do with his land that's called property rights and those rights are inalienable nobody can take them away even if it's deemed in Ukrainian interests who cares what Ukrainian interests are the question is only what are my rights what are my interests as an individual who owns this piece of land the solution to land reform in Ukraine is easy now I'm sure they're technicalities that are beyond me define property rights have a legal system that protects them and let legal owners of land do whatever the hell they want with it the state has no right to designated agricultural or residential or industrial if you own the land it's yours do with it what you want sell it to the Chinese that's probably your best bet I mean I was invited to the Ukrainian parliament last year and I had a bunch of politicians and they asked me what should we do you know the Russians are here they're attacking us how do we how do we protect ourselves against the Russians and I said it's easy get rich if you get rich you'll be able to defend yourself and said okay but how do we get rich I said it's easy to get rich let me say that again it's easy to get rich Hong Kong got rich Hong Kong had a lot fewer resources than you do Estonia is getting rich Poland's richer than you America got rich it's easy to get rich establish property rights and get out of the way that's all you have to do establish property rights and get out of the way you need a police you need a justice system and you need a military but other than that government has no role has no role if you do those things if you establish property rights get out of the way establish the rule of law you will get rich very quickly and by the way I also told them and they didn't like this I said sell everything anything that's owned by Ukraine sell it sell it to anybody who wants to buy it the Germans the Chinese the Japanese the Americans as long as you don't sell it to the Russians you're okay right so if you think about things quite individual then it's obvious what is an individual want what is individual need in order to thrive what is an individual need in order to be successful needs freedom needs to be left alone he needs to be free from coercion he needs to know that the crooks and the cheats and the people who pull out guns they're gonna go to jail and it except for that he needs to be left alone and what happens when individuals are left alone if they have the right ideas if they're motivated in the right way what do they do they work they produce they create they make stuff they build stuff they create the wealth that makes countries that makes societies wealthy it's not society that makes wealth it's individuals who make it you want to get rich free up individuals let them loose let the creative talent the creative spirit of each one of you out there so getting rich is easy and we in the West need you guys to be role models for us because we've forgotten how to do it we're so rich already that we're not worried about how they're getting richer that's why the economy's in the West the flat there's stagnation and nobody seems to care nobody seems to care we're spoiled and lazy you guys are still poor enough to care so take advantage of it embrace it so freedom for the individual what you need to be able to what you need to be able to articulate which you need to be able to argue is the morality and justification for individual freedom that the mall the mall argument for capitalism the mall argument for free markets is fundamentally an argument for the morality of the individual to pursue his own happiness to make the most of his own life as an individual your mall responsibility your mall duty if you will is to make the most of your life and get them out of the way so you can do it get them out of the way so you can make the most of what you have of your talents your abilities your propensities so to fight LeVan thin we need to know stuff we need to educate ourselves we need a study we need to know the basic philosophical case for liberty we need to know the basic economic case for liberty and we need to know the historical case for liberty luckily they're all consistent they all tell the same story and I agree with Tom not everybody needs to know this not everybody's gonna be a philosopher not everybody's gonna be an economist but the people who are going to make the change the people who are going to bring about the revolution the people who are going to bring us a free world have to know this stuff you have to be a little bit of a philosopher a little bit of an economist and a little bit of an historian there is no other option there's nobody else to do it you are it you are the future you are the revolution so get busy studying so that's the first thing you need to do second is you got to speak you got to be active you got to engage with ideas you got it let people know that there is an alternative you can't stay silent the world will not change if those of us who believe in these ideas do not speak up do not write we need to go on television we need to go in the streets we need to publish books we need to write letters to the editor we need to call in on radio shows we need to do whatever it takes to get our message out there to get our message heard because all of history is shaped by minorities all of history shaped by minorities intellectual minorities the communists whenever majority the founding fathers of America were never a majority but what they did was a they understood their ideas and be they got busy they got active they got engaged they advocated and advocated and advocated they wrote and wrote and wrote and they spoke and they spoke and they spoke they were not armchair intellectuals they were intellectuals who are fighting for a cause and what's a more noble cause than freedom so study speak and finally and I know most of you students but there has to be a businessman or two here in the room I'm gonna give a pitch for the free market organizations in Ukraine you got to support the people who are doing the fighting you got to help them out you got to write them a check I'm gonna do some fundraising right students for liberty does a great job European students for liberty here does a great job they're free market organizations here you got to get engaged in a battle and engaged in the battle also means writing checks also means giving more support so study speak supports there's a lot of energy I feel maybe I'm wrong but I feel there's a lot of energy among Ukrainian young people who want freedom who want liberty you want to maximize the effectiveness of that energy and you want it to grow you can make a difference groups they're much smaller than us have changed the world groups with much worse ideas than us have changed the world we have facts we have economics we have history and we have philosophy behind us and best of all we have the noblest idea in human history the right of the individualities own life and the creation of a political system whose only job is to protect that life we have that on our side so we're going to win and maybe we start here in Ukraine so go out there and fight thank you thanks we got plenty of time for questions so yeah Q&A so please a lady in that side hello thank you for you and I have spotted a slight contradiction in your speech but sure correct me if I'm wrong so you were saying that the free market let's assume that's us and then you're saying that let's assume what it's us it's America no us is not a free market how would you call us then so what is the free market okay so let me answer all economies in the world today almost economies in the world today with maybe an exception or two are mixed economies there are a mixture of some freedom and some states some countries have a little bit more freedom and a little bit less state and some countries have a lot more states and a little bit less freedom but all economies in the world today are mixed economies there is no free market economy in the world today there's no country even close to a free market in the world today and certainly America one of the most regulated economies in the world a bit an economic freedom index the United States today is in the mid teens 15 16 17 18 used to be number three so the United States is not a model for economic freedom today but go ahead with your question okay then I'm even more confused that I was before okay so I would be happy to clarify where are we heading to I mean if there is no free market economy then what are you advocating for what we want is to create one the fact that no free market economy exists in the world today should not be a barrier to anything it's something we should strive towards it's an ideal that we should fight to create right they never used to be a country that voted for its politicians until there was a first country that voted for its never used to be democracies and so the first democracy was established there isn't a free market in the world today let's create one we could start with Ukraine okay they already tried to do that in Chile no what's that they try to do it in Chile yes and they were very and they were very successful people in Chile went from being very poor to being relatively rich they didn't finish the job they should have done a lot more and they should have made it even more free market the problem in Chile as is the problem in all Western countries and I think here as well is that they got the economic case for liberty and they even got the historical case for liberty what in Chile they don't have and what you guys don't have and what America doesn't have is the philosophical model case for freedom so when they got rich in Chile they got lazy and they felt guilty for their success and they started undoing what they had done but in the process of privatization in Chile I'm not sure that Chileans who became I mean rich and then the gap between poor and rich were extremely big so I don't know anyway my question was you're saying that there is no successful socialist country yes I mean not in your sense but we have China and Singapore and China is showing one of the best economic growths in the world so how would that fall into so so so that's a that's a good question but let me first say about Chile that the gap between the rich and the poor is big good let me say this again inequality is a good thing why because if you look around the room all of us are different we have different skills we have different talents we have different abilities when are we the same when if we take a bunch of people who are very different does the results become the same when we're controlled when we're unfree when you let us free what's going to happen you'll become an engineer and you'll become an entrepreneur and you'll become a teacher and the entrepreneur probably make more money than the teacher and the I forget what you were an engineer is going to become rich and you can have gaps cool freedom results in inequality that's a beautiful thing we're different the world would be horrible if we were all the same so I love gaps I love inequality I think it's terrific I think countries that have a lot of inequality typically it's a sign that they are free countries you know what inequality was like 300 years ago how many people were poor 300 years ago almost everybody 98% you know what the genie coefficients are the way to measure inequality there was almost no inequality 300 years ago because everybody was poor there were few aristocrats up here but they didn't really come because there were few few of them everybody's poor and they go along and everybody's poor and then suddenly this happens everybody becomes rich but these guys become much richer who cares but it's more than who cares the guys became much richer by doing what how do you become rich goes back to my question earlier how do you become rich by producing stuff that everybody wants why do they want it because it makes them richer I'll give you an example and then I'll answer your question I'll give you an example how many red Harry Potter Harry Potter no Harry Potter in Ukraine well you can raise your hand how many of you read Harry Potter I read Harry Potter I loved Harry Potter JK Rawlins the author of Harry Potter is a billionaire she used to be a welfare now she's a billionaire oh my god income inequality grew this is horrible because you know I I read Harry Potter I have two sons and every copy of Harry Potter books I had to buy two copies because they both wanted to read it right and then I also bought it on audio so I could listen to it and then I went to every movie so I spent by my calculation about a thousand dollars on Harry Potter I got poorer by a thousand dollars and JK Rawlins became a billionaire that's not fair really did I really get poorer by a thousand dollars why did I buy Harry Potter because my life got better by buying Harry Potter because I enjoyed the books because it was fun because I get incredible value from Harry Potter so am I glad am I sad or happy that JK Rawlins is a billionaire I'm happy very happy that she wrote Harry Potter that so many of us got pleasure out of Harry Potter that real our lives are spiritually better because we read Harry Potter and yes she's a billionaire good for her so there's income inequality great I love it what about China so China is a fascinating story China in 1978 and in the early 1980s took a few places around China and said we're gonna run some experiments we're gonna leave you alone we're not gonna regulate you we're not gonna control you do whatever you want not the whole of China just certain areas in China and guess what happened boom people created incredible amounts of wealth you go to South China to Guangzhou and Dongguan and sent Shen and you see skyscrapers and you see incredible amounts of wealth cities that didn't exist in 1982 today have 10 12 million people living in them why because there was no socialism in those places because they were left alone the places where were controlled where the state stayed in control of you don't have to hold your hand forever I you know we'll get to a questions this where the state actually controlled are still dirt poor the wealth in China has been created by private entrepreneurs but you know who's making China poor than it would have otherwise been state companies that are still being subsidized and controlled by the state so China is a beautiful illustration of the failure of socialism and the success of freedom when you allow free markets even a little bit even under controlled environment they blossom and we control areas they shrivel and die and of course the biggest experiment of socialism was China and the Mao with 60 million people died of starvation socialism is a recipe for death and starvation nothing more Singapore is not socialist Singapore by the economic freedom index is the number two freest country on the planet number one is Hong Kong number two is Singapore number three by the way is New Zealand so if you're gonna escape anywhere I would go to New Zealand it's a beautiful place so Singapore is a capitalist now it's controlled but what do they control not the economy they control whether you chew gum in the streets they control it is no free speech so that's bad economics is only one aspect of life right we want freedom we want freedom social freedom we want personal freedom and we want political economic freedom we want all kinds of all all freedoms for the individual Singapore has one mixture China has another mixture and China by the way is so relatively poor relative to the United States and what relative to other countries the great thing about the US was a long time ago it was very free and we created huge amounts of wealth because of that freedom okay that was a very long answer thank you next question please hello my name is Alex and I've been itching to ask you this question so I can tell you've been we've heard the main message is that the capitalism is good socialism is bad and when we say the country is rich would you agree that it means that the middle class it has strong middle class no I don't I don't believe that well okay I don't I don't think it terms of classes I don't think it's of but let me remind you that in the 60s yeah in the 50s the US yeah used elements of socialism yeah to redistribute the wealth to tax the rich by 90% yeah so that people could have affordable houses in two years yeah mortgage which is affordable so my question is don't you think that both capitalism can go awry and wrong and socialism can go wrong when they lose the morale when they lose the ground under their feet and go extreme ways okay extreme capitalism and extreme socialism not bad and what we need is some kind of balance that was my question no socialism is poison even a little bit of it kills you slowly even a little bit now I expect I would expect that question in the United States and I get it all the time not in Ukraine because the answer is technical and relates to American history but the fact is the 1950s and 60s were not some utopian America nobody actually paid 90% income tax the effective rate was much lower because there were so many loopholes that nobody paid that tax it's a mythology but beyond that while the economy grew relatively fast in the 60s after JFK cut taxes that growth because of the socialist elements in the American economy led to the inflation and the stagnation of the 1970s which destroyed much of American prosperity people don't remember how bad things were in the 1970s and the United States was only revived economically when Ronald Reagan became president and did a little bit he didn't do a lot unfortunately just did a little bit of deregulation and cutting taxes and the economy took off but look the United States hasn't been a free market since 1913 and even then it was only 90% free or 95% free it wasn't all the way no capitalism to the extent that it is tried works but more than that socialism is morally offensive morally evil because socialism at its basic assumption says you as an individual belong to the state belong to the collective belong to the proletarian fill in the blank but you don't belong to you that idea of collectivism that idea of ownership of an external group on your life is wrong it is evil capitalism is moral because it is the only system that recognizes your sovereignty over yourself it's the only system that recognizes that you belong to you that your life is yours to live as you see fit pursuing the rational values that you need in order to be successful so you can't have a little bit of evil this is why we should strive for capitalism not a mixture mixtures this is what you repairs and they have no economic growth and they're dying they're literally dying they're getting old there's no future in a mixed economy thank you can we have the gentlemen in the current presidential election in the United States States which economic program you support more Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for example Hillary is for free trade but he says that the United States needs taxation so let me answer the question right so that question is like asking me what would you rather die of cancer or heart disease Hillary Clinton wants to tax and regulate us to death Donald Trump wants to isolate us from trade and build walls to death right it doesn't matter and by the way I don't trust him on taxes and I don't trust him on regulations so I don't even trust what he says so-called good stuff that he wants both the statists both believe in this state now Donald Trump has not said a word about government spending about reducing entitlement about privatizing entitlements nothing right I don't believe he would move us any closer to free markets than she would they would just do it differently right and by the way I can't think of a more suicidal thing to do than raise tariffs particularly in the context of the United States the last president of the United States who was a businessman and who raised tariffs was Hoover and raising tariffs spun the entire world into a great depression so beware we have very active part only these inside so please give them you guys don't want to ask questions only those guys do oh your sociality left you're on that left you're on my right although nobody's on my right yeah okay thank you for a presentation and I would like to ask a question I think that the most dangerous enemy of ideas of liberty is not state but the ideas that lay behind them yes I mean leftist ideas or cultural Marxism yes and we have a very weird situation when in America in the most accessible example of economic growth and political growth we have situation when a huge part of students of academic society supports such leftist ideas they support Bernie Sanders for example yeah how can the situation occur I don't understand how can the situation what happened happening in America yes yeah so I agree with you the battle ultimately is a battle of ideas it's not about the state it's about the ideas that make the state possible but it's more fundamental than the ideas of of of Marxism Marxism is one application of something much deeper I mean all left no no but it's not left or right because the deeper ideas are held on the right as well as they are on the left the fundamental ideological challenge that we face is between collectivism and individualism it is between reason and mysticism in a epistemology reason and mysticism in politics collectivism and individualism in ethics it's what it's what should you live for yourself or others and then fill in the blank who the others are those are the fundamental ideas we can then fill in fascism socialism Marxism they all fit on the side of collectivism mysticism and living for others the problem in America and this is you know unfortunately this is gonna be a long answer but the problem in America is that the founding fathers got the politics right they got the idea of individualism right they rejected collectivism they rejected statism and they stood by the individual but there has never been a philosophical defense since the enlightenment since the 18th century a reason and of moral individualism of egoism and until we have that defense we will continue to lose if you believe that morally you owe an obligation as a primary to others statism will always win if you believe in epistemology I'm getting technical right that mysticism is the way we know the world it's all about intuition it's all about revelation we will always lose why because if mysticism is the way to truth then how many of you commune with the spirits we don't we need an expert we need a philosopher king we need a pope we need some spiritual leader to guide us we need to be told how to live that's what religion is always done told us how to live because we don't know for ourselves what reason has done is liberated the individual to decide for himself what is good for him without the need of authority so what we need is to liberate ourselves from mysticism liberate ourselves from other ism that the idea that our purpose in life is to live for others and rid ourselves of collectivism and in my view and I'm biased in my view but I'm also right in my view the only thinker that has taken these ideas on head-on and straightforward and provided an alternative answer is Einrand and that's why I encourage you to read Einrand and you see from the founding fathers until Einrand there were no philosophers the American philosophers were terrible people like James Dewey and others were awful where they were so they were they were status they were collectivists and they were they were not individualistic they were not there was no foundation laid for the ideas of liberty and this is why it hasn't only failed in America over time now remember it lasted 200 years so the founders did a pretty good job right but it's failing all over the West because we don't have the philosophical defense of capitalism that's what we need that's what Einrand has provided let's study it embrace it and go out there and fight thank you okay if if somebody wants to ask you question in Ukrainian please do we do have a translation oh that side so please stand up good morning you said a lot about fighting for freedom and freedom at any cost and you brought some examples from Chile from Singapore how justified is to use the instrument of force and unfreedom for achievement of freedom and the very connected question to this how much time do you think Ukraine will survive without using the traditional democratic methods of free market before it will sink into the more of socialism populism which we are on the way to and I'll just repeat it when is it justified to use force in order to achieve freedom like they did in Chile and like they do in Singapore ultimately never it's never right but look Pinochet was in power not to bring economic freedom Pinochet rose to power in Chile because he wanted to rule Chile but it was failing from an economic perspective so he approached some economists who by chance complete chance were good and he implemented some good strategies and it worked right but it's never right to say you know Ludwig von Mises in my view the greatest economist ever Ludwig von Mises was one at once asked what would be the first thing you would do if you were dictator of the world you you you you were the top guy you could do anything what would be the first thing you would do and you know what his answer was resign because you cannot bring freedom by force it's not right and it doesn't last as maybe Chile is a good example of it the second question how long does Ukraine have before it succumbs to socialism or populism or something else I don't know I don't know enough about your economy I don't know enough about your country to be able to give you a timeline I don't know how long America is gonna survive never mind how long Ukraine is gonna survive so time specifying timelines is is not is not a is not a good policy it's very dangerous but let me make this one point about populism I again agree with Tom Palmer I'm agreeing too much with Tom I'm gonna have to check my premises socialism in many respects is dead in many respect socialism is no longer the enemy because socialism is being discredited it doesn't work anyway nobody likes socialism except in the United States because they're too ignorant to know how bad socialism is what's really dangerous are two phenomena's populism and cronyism and both disguise themselves as if they're pro-capitalist it's like Donald Trump I'm a businessman so I am pro-markets no the fact that he's a businessman doesn't give him any qualifications for anything other than to run a business and I'm not sure how good he is at that even but populism and cronyism are the real enemies that we have to watch for you're not gonna get a national explicitly socialist movement in Ukraine you're much more likely to get a nationalist populist movement or the continuation of what you have which is corruption and cronyism and those need to be fought and you can only fight those with an alternative and in our case luckily we have an alternative which is freedom property rights individualism so we have one question oh this side at least here at last are you asking in English or yeah English okay let me keep them thank you for your very emotional presentation but nevertheless the first question from the left side we're not socialists but anyway how would you explain such a phenomenon that in Ukraine yeah since 1991 we're independent free market post communist country but still minus 35% GDP as it was in 1989 and the only the best progress in economy was exactly when president kuchma was due to due to statistics and state controlled and influence of state was done yeah first point second point actually you are still a bit manipulating facts yet concerning China particularly there are a lot of companies which are in top hundred of the world state controlled definitely so maybe it's about the balance between state and free market what you say all economies are mixed and the last one financial crisis in US yeah was exactly happened in 2008 after Wall Street yeah was absolutely uncontrolled free market etc etc and that's what okay okay so let me start with what I know well which is the 2008 financial crisis thank you for asking that I'm a finance guy I'm a PhD in finance this is stuff I know in 2007 well let me let me backtrack three industries failed in 2008 banks mortgages real estate those are the three industries right these three industries are the most regulated most controlled industries in the United States without any question so it's not an accident those failed now you say Wall Street was that was a cowboys cowboys and Indians and on Wall Street in 2007 that is insane that is just not true Wall Street is regulated so regulated you know how many government officials go to work at JP Morgan every single day government officials at the bank in 2007 how many government officials went to work at JP Morgan every single day over a hundred they were so controlled and regulated everything a bank does in the United States requires government approval regulatory approval the United States has no freedom in Wall Street Wall Street is controlled and regulated like no other industry in the United States and what controlled the mortgage business Freddie and Fanny two entities created by government protected by government their bonds were at the same interest as government bonds why because everybody knew that their bonds would be backed up by the government because they are government entities I have a big mortgage I have a huge mortgage in the United States you know why I love mortgages you know why because I get a tax deduction on my mortgage why do I get a tax deduction because the government has decided to encourage me to take a mortgage government is everywhere in housing is everywhere in mortgages is everywhere in banking the 2008 crisis was a crisis of government a crisis of regulation a crisis of central planning and I'll add one element to the crisis which is crucial and those of you who know Austrian economics will appreciate this when you hold interest rates as the Federal Reserve did in 2002 below the rate of inflation for two and a half years you create mal investments you create bubbles so we had a bubble and it burst a bubble created by the Federal Reserve a government institution on by Wall Street and it had to burst bubbles always burst why did the bubble go into housing because the government wanted it to go into housing because the government incentivized people to go into housing and the government also told the banks you're too big to fail so if you make money keep it and if you lose money we'll bail you out that's not capitalism that's not free markets that's all statism the 2008 crisis just like the American Great Depression were caused by Federal Reserve and government policies they were caused by the the Great Depression was caused by smooth holly the trade and by the Federal Reserve just like the 2008 crisis and this is not me speculating in five ten years every economist in the United States will admit it today they're two partisan not to now the other two questions oh Ukraine 1989 today I don't know enough to explain it but let me say this yeah let me say is when you're very statist and poor and today you're still very statist and poor the differences are not that big in terms of the amount of freedom in the economy and the differences are not that big in terms of the wealth if you want to become rich it's easy it really is completely privatized the economy not a little bit not a piece here and a piece there I don't know what impact those have sometimes you create more distortions by privatizing this and not this and doing it in the wrong order privatize it all not a little bit and it's not an issue of balance and yes most economy let's put everything on the table right most economists in the world particularly those who have noble prizes disagree with me most economists in the world are wrong most economists the world ignore facts ignore reality ignore history but if you study history if you study economies what you will see is economies like like the Czech Republic like Estonia they move fast that privatize quickly that reduce the size of the government fast they eliminate corruption economic growth goes way faster Poland today is richer than Ukraine why because they privatized quicker than you did but Poland is poor relative to Czech Republic why because the Czech Republic did even faster than Poland you want to stay poor that's fine I don't care right I'm just a visitor here keep the policies you have today the corruption the cronyism the state control of land the state control of industries that's how you stay poor throughout all of history this is an emotionalism these are the facts and the 2008 crisis proves that even in an advanced economy like the United States when the government starts meddling they create enormous damage private markets never cause systemic risk like 2008 no bank is big enough to cause systemic risk like the Federal Reserve can like Freddie and Fanny government institutions can like tax policy that affects everybody can yes a bank would fail here a bank would fail there but you don't get systemic risk unless the government is involved it's just exactly the same thing and a great depression 90% of economists agree with me there's no comp contradiction in the great depression anymore there's no disagreement even people like you know no conventional economists today believe that the Great Depression was caused primarily by bad Federal Reserve policies and then smooth Harley which raised tariffs and if you look at FDR's policies government spending government involvement the Great Depression was just as bad in 1937 as it was in 1933 when he took office and indeed World War two just made it even worse people were poorer during World War two what changed what got the economy going again was after World War two reducing government controls getting the government out of the economy and the soldiers coming home motivated to go to work and the fact that the rest of the world needed building and the United States was the only country that wasn't completely devastated right but the Great Depression was caused by government nobody nobody questions that anymore most is most economics books today will say that the Federal Reserve I mean Milton Friedman in Schwartz wrote this big book about the history of that period and showed that the Federal Reserve and what it did and that's just economic fact now it's not even opinion 2008 it'll take some time for the consensus to build but the Great Depression I know in history classes they still teach who the market failed there was no market failure there was a small recession caused by the collapse of the stock market that turned into depression because of government policies we have time for the last question okay and I suggest to you to decide who will ask well let's let's take that guy in the back there sorry I had to choose somebody thank you I have a question of immigration problem yes right now Europe has to gain people from Syria from other countries yes but this make a big problem for this as a for high educated countries and America choose the way to take a green card five hundred thousand a year if I'm not mistaken what is the right way for our countries and for for the world itself for the problem of immigration thank you wow that's the last question huh for 15 minutes at so my view is that immigration should be freer in the United States that the United States is much too restrictive in terms of immigration and as long as you have a welfare state what you should do is anybody who can come anybody can show they've got a job should be given the ability to come into the country so the idea of building walls and restricting immigration is a losing idea Donald Trump is a loser for having that idea right I love calling Donald Trump a loser but so what you want generally put aside the Islamic immigration I'll get to that in a minute what you want generally is more immigration not less immigration immigrants fuel economic growth immigrants do jobs people don't want to do and they they become entrepreneurs and they build and if you have a culture that is self-confident that believes in it's it what it stands for in freedom for example in individualism then the immigrants assimilate they become part of your culture they adopt your culture and that's what you want you want a confident culture that believes in freedom that believes in individualism and demands that immigrants assimilate into that culture and if you have that I'm not afraid of immigrants bring them on now the Islamic immigrants a special because there's a war going on now in the West we don't want to acknowledge that there's a war we pretend there isn't one and we you know we bury our heads in the sand or we evade the fact that there's a war but there's a war they are radically slommest over there in the Middle East who want to kill us or convert us to Islam they really believe that they what they want to take over the whole world and impose you know Muslim theology on all of us so my view is there's a war let's go and win it let's destroy these radical Islamists while we are at war you don't accept immigrants from the party that you're at war with so I'm fine with block immigration from Muslim countries while the war is going on but let's do it in a way that we win the war and we can get on with life and open up our borders and have new immigrants come in so as long as there's a war it's problematic importing large numbers of radical Muslims but let's win the war the war is winnable that's a different topic in a different time I'd be happy to tell you how to win the way I've got a book on it called winning non-winnable war it's on Amazon it's called winning non-winnable war it's not hard to win the war just like it's not hard to be rich but it takes will and it takes identifying who the enemy is which most people in the West refuse to do so if we win the war I'm for open immigration and you got to get rid of the welfare state because you don't want people coming in just to get welfare but anybody who has a job should be allowed to come in anybody's gonna work for living should be allowed to come in immigrants are great America was built in immigrants I'm an immigrant how could I be against immigration I love immigrants partially because I like myself thank you all