 I'm sure all of you are excited and happy to hear a talk tonight from Tom Woods So I would very much like to welcome all of you to the 2018 version of Mises you Mises University a program that's been going on for several decades Pat Barnett has provided me with some statistics. So we have 129 schools represented We have people from 24 countries and 33 US states. So a hundred ninety five people overall. So congratulations and And I really do mean congratulations. Congratulations for finding your way here for finding out about Austrian economics and for having the Wherewithal to be willing to to read books and engage in more intellectual pursuits than a lot of people your age are willing to do Before Joe Salerno comes up to introduce the faculty before Tom Woods comes up to give us talk I just wanted to speak for a few minutes About Mises University and about all of you I am sure at least at least probably two-thirds of you have never attended Mises you and it presumably have never been to the Institute itself So we're very proud of our building and our grounds and our gardens which have taken a lot of work and effort over the years I'm sure you've seen some of our libraries by now some of our books both downstairs and upstairs We actually have almost 50,000 volumes in this building which makes us one of the largest private libraries in the entire southeast of the country So it's actually quite an amazing collection and we have the the books that belong to Murray Rothbard Which are downstairs and they apparently filled his New York apartment to the rafters And if you'll notice if you take some of those off the shelves There's a lot of Murray isms in the marginalia which is really really neat to see for instance Isabel Patterson's God of the Machine has some great Murray notes in it. We also have Not all we have some of Dr. Gary North's books only about 10,000 That was just his politics and econ and history Okay, his other books his religion and other things were were given away somewhere else And I would hasten to add with regard to both Gary North and Murray Rothbard These were not vanity collections ladies and gentlemen that you have on yourself to impress people who come over They read every last one of these books and probably some of them more than once we also have Robert Higgs books He had he had moved away to Mexico and wanted to lighten his load. So we have Robert Higgs books We have the collection of Richard Ebeling. We have the books of Ralph Raco And I'm told I'm told well actually he insists on this I'm told that when when in 30 or 40 years when Walter Block dies That we're gonna get that we're gonna get his books as well But I wanted to also mention briefly that really if we think about it It's it's a almost a remarkable series of events that led all of you to be here tonight And I don't just mean the creation of and the founding of the Austrian school and then its resurgence in the United States later in The 60s and 70s in large part not entirely, but in large part due to the efforts of Murray Rothbard But not so much that the Austrian school is created But the fact that we're all here together this evening in Auburn, Alabama Across the street from Auburn University is really quite remarkable and think about what brought us all here Well first and foremost what brought us all here was Lou Rockwell Who as a young editor at Arlington house? Yes Lou is of course our founder but as a young editor at Arlington house was given the opportunity to edit some New editions of some Mises books and grew to become a messesian and later Actually met Ludwig von Mises as a result of that and of course became friends with and close with Margit von Mises as widow So that was one element of why we're all here tonight another one was a man named judge John Denson Who is a very important judge and it's a longtime attorney here in Lee County, Alabama? A lot of you will have an opportunity to meet him tomorrow evening and throughout the week who is a trustee at Auburn University in a period where Lou Rockwell was looking for a home for a new center to promote messesian and Austrian economics and Judge Denson happened to hear about this when he was visiting Washington DC So that's a very happy turn of events That those two gentlemen were able to get together and make one of the perhaps the third leg of the stool Was that there was an economist in the department at Auburn University and Roger Garrison who's with us this evening and a lot of you know him So we had that we had the combination of of Lou Rockwell wanting to set something up We had a friendly trustee and we had a friendly economics department across the street at Auburn So I think those are all very remarkable things So as a result of that we're all connected here this evening. We're all in Auburn, Alabama here in 2018 But I'd just like you to think about briefly how Being here tonight connects all of you to a Tradition and a history and to some very important people because as I mentioned earlier Lou Rockwell actually knew and met Ludwig von Mises Of course, he knew Margaret von Mises better Walter Block had met Ludwig von Mises Of course, there are many people in this room who were close with and knew Murray Rothbard quite well There are there are several people in this room who met and knew Ayn Rand There are people in this room, of course Lou Rockwell among them who Knew a great benefactor of this institution the late Henry Haslett and Of course, there are people in this room who knew and met The late Friedrich Hayek who is actually unbeknownst to a lot of people one of our founding board members here at the Mises Institute So in a sense you are all connected to these people through People who are still alive and with us in this room and as a result of some of the thinkers I mentioned We had a very now infamous conference in South Royalty in their early 1970s in Vermont That was part of a renaissance in the Austrian tradition and some people in this room were there The aforementioned Roger Garrison was there. Dr. Walter Block was there. Joe Salerno was there And they influenced a lot of people in their work people of that generation that you that many of you know people like Huerta de Soto in Spain people like David Gordon People like Hans Hermann Hoppe, Yuri Maltsev, Jeffrey Herbner, Tom Di Lorenzo who's here with us this evening So from these older thinkers turn of the century thinkers We had a couple of new generations and then if we think about the people they influenced we moved down a generation We have the the Mark Thornton's the Guido Halsman's the Peter Klein's the Sean Rittenauer's All of whom you you fortunate young people have the opportunity to meet and talk to and work with and email and Network with and get to know and pick their brain. So that's actually quite a privilege And then of course the gentleman I just mentioned Influenced a generation below them the Tom Woods and the Bob Murphy's and the Tim Terrell's of the world and Many of them were young mises you attendees like you are this evening and they in turn influenced some younger mises you attendees people like pair of Beeland and Lucas Engelhardt who I saw earlier and Carmen Dorbott and her husband Matt McCaffrey who were here this week and GP Manish and Malik Valenvik and I hear who were close to us here in Troy and Phillip Boggess and David Howden and They in turn influenced a whole new generation of thinkers Who many of whom are our summer fellows here that are spending the summer with us? And I really recommend that you get to know some of them because I think some of them are going to do Incredible great things. So how this connects all of you is that you are now all part of however small or large As you move forward in your lives and your college in your career You're now all part of a tradition and really more importantly a group of people human beings That you've met and we encourage you to do your part in Promoting and encouraging this tradition. So with that, please welcome our academic VP. Dr. Joe Salerno Hello and welcome to everyone here and everyone viewing online I would like to Reiterate thanks to our very generous donors who make Mises University possible Let's have a round of applause This is my favorite event that is carried on at the Mises Institute This week you'll hear lectures from a very distinguished faculty of economists historians philosophers and a very brilliant legal scholar I'm especially proud to inform you that more than half of the faculty has attended Mises University as you were doing right now as students and Some of them were students even as late as 2010 2011, but now they're faculty members at academic institutions On the other hand some of the faculty here have sat in Murray Rothbard's living room in the very beginning of the Austrian economics revival Way back in the early 1960s all to block But regardless of age all the members of the faculty have devoted themselves to studying teaching and writing Austrian economics for their entire adult lives And all have been greatly influenced by the works of Mises and Rothbard who are our mentors and our guiding spirits here Murray Rothbard once said in the late 1980s that the Mises University faculty represents the greatest assembly of Austrian brain power since Mises seminars in old Vienna Even with Murray gone There are enough additional people that he inspired To make that still true, I believe okay, there's maybe you know 40 of us make up for for Murray Okay So this week you have a wonderful opportunity to learn from the leading lights of the Austrian school All we ask of you is that you take full advantage of the program that we have organized for you Which means attending on a regular basis you're all on scholarship, and you're all obligated to attend and That's enforced by Gito Hulsmann Last name German I need not say more I Have several reminders for students Auburn University is a smoke-free campus including outside the dorm No alcohol is permitted in the dorm or a group is tossed out If you if the if the policy is violated students who have a car at the dorm This is important must have a parking pass or you will be towed by aforementioned Gito Hulsmann No Email pat at Mises dot org if you need a parking pass at the dorm check-in Make sure you take a bag of sheets or towels instead of one sheet or towel out of the bag So just take the full bag Okay, let's try to do that. That's a test of whether you stay longer at that if you can Okay, and please return the bags at check-in in the area of the dorm Please remember to wear your name tags when attending the sessions and in the dining area and All students on scholarship and I'm repeating this are required to attend class each period Okay, now for the task I relish the faculty introductions except in a few selected a few selected exceptions And we have such a large and great faculty for you that I'm just going to read their names And if they're here they will stand up and hold your applause, please until the end Walter block Get out We're not holding it this year Can't follow instruct okay But you're libertarians right you defy you defy authority Gito is smiling though and licking his chops Mark Branley William Butos Thomas De Lorenzo Carmen Dorbat Lucas Engelhardt when proud to say is a 2018 Gary G. Schlarbaum professor at Mises University Thank you, Roger Garrison David Gordon Jeffrey Herbner Jorg Gito Hulsman Carl Friedrich Israel Peter Klein GP Manish Matthew McCaffrey if you can just stand so people can at least see you not you Matt sit down Robert Murphy Malavika Nair Judge Andrew Napolitano Jonathan Newman Patrick Newman the good and the bad newman's respectively no no Benjamin Powell Joe Salerno you can Edward Stringham Timothy Terrell Mark Thornton and Tom Woods Yeah