Most people who are familiar with me have seen me in countless discussions on television or the Internet. Typically, these episodes include lots of shouting, quick interjections, some ridicule, and little chance to present serious ideas or explanations. It is rare that I have the blessing of uninterrupted time to explain why we have arrived in our current state of affairs, and how we can get out of it.

Such an opportunity presented itself this past weekend when I was asked to deliver the keynote speech at the annual Austrian Scholars Conference at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. The Institute is one of the premiere bastions of the type of free market economic thinking that is widely known as the "Austrian School." Fortunately, in addition to warm southern hospitality, the Institute also provided top-rate audio-visual equipment to record the event. (In stark contrast to the gear that I have been using for my daily video blog — don’t worry, we’re working on it.) Better still, they have graciously posted the material on their daily blog:

In the talk I provide a detailed overview of how the bubbles in both tech stocks and real estate were extremely easy to foresee and how government policy played such a large role in creating and nourishing the bubbles as they grew. I also spend a great deal of time analyzing why mainstream economists still do not understand the fundamentals of our current crisis, and how the government’s misguided stimulus and bailout policies are sowing the seeds for economic devastation.

So if you have a free 75 minutes (no one has ever accused me of being short-winded), click on the above link to get some straight answers with no commercial or political interruptions.

Peter Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets and Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse.

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