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Austrian Economics In Shanghai

Extraordinary things are happening in China, as we know. On the liberty-loving front, we can report a really interesting and path-breaking conference organised by our friend Ken Schoolland: The Shanghai Austrian Economic Summit A milestone event this summer in China. Sponsored by the International Society for Individual Liberty, we have 20+ speakers, 8 from the Mont Pelerin Society, attendees from across Asia, Europe, and the US, and a post conference tour. On a related note, Sean Corrigan informs us of another exciting development for Chinese liberalism: Mao Yushi Wins the Cato Institute’s 2012 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing LibertyForbes

Bandits With Begging Bowls

A recent CNBC article by Catherine Boyle has some classic quotes from Sean Corrigan:

The euro zone’s banks, seen by many as the source of the region’s debt crisis, will ultimately be bailed out by “vested interests,” Sean Corrigan, chief investment strategist, Diapason Commodities Management, said. “There may be one or two forced to merge or to fall by the wayside, but all the vested interests will come back together,” he said. “We don’t allow for the market or competitive forces to come to their full severity, and when these guys act like bandits in the good times and come with begging bowls in the bad, we criticize capitalism.”

On the euro zone deal:

“They have averted a collapse this way, but they themselves don’t know what they have put in place,” Corrigan said of the EU leaders. “There’s this idea that it will conduct some little bit of magic, that these guys in the financial markets, who we hate, have been conducting and this will simply make Italy’s debt lower and Greece competitive. Yet nobody knows what the details are.”

On policy closer to home:

“Whether or not you believe the government should be setting banking policy rather than bankers, the issue is that the government didn’t take any executive control,” Corrigan said. “If that’s going to happen, there should be a clear program of forcibly putting the bank back in the hands of the market in a set time. I don’t see that happening in Britain.”

Sean of course had more to say that didn’t make it into the article, but even so, it’s great to see our message relayed in the mainstream press.

The Privileged Few Have Eaten Everybody Else’s Lunch

Another great interview with Sean Corrigan on CNBC

Airtime: Mon. Jul. 18 2011 | 7:00 AM ET Big US banks should have been allowed to fail, Sean Corrigan, chief investment strategist at Diapason Commodities Management, told CNBC Monday. “The privileged few clustering around the Treasury Secretary and the Fed have eaten everybody else’s lunch,” he said.

CNBC: China Reflects ‘Vampire Economy’

Sean Corrigan’s latest appearance on CNBC is well worth watching (3m 42s).

Mon 27 Jun 11 | 02:00 AM ET The Chinese economy reflects the ‘Vampire Economy’ of Germany in the 1930s where the state controlled prices at the expense of profit, Sean Corrigan, chief investment strategist at Diapason Commodities Management told CNBC Monday. He added Chinese inflation figures were “not realistic of the stress in the system.”