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Photos: London Event

A few photos are now available from the recent London event on The Financial Crisis. Please see this link for the photos & the previous post for information about the event.

Conference: Financial Crisis, State vs. Market

20 May 2009

Financial Crisis: State vs. Market Failure?

from 2:00pm

Please join us for a half-day conference and reception held by the Austrian Economics Center in cooperation with the Mercurius Society. The topic of the event will be the financial crisis, and is being held as part of the 2009 Free Market Roadshow (for more information about the Road Show click here).

For more information about this event, please click here

Participation in the event is free of charge

Please note: To attend, you must RSVP to:

registration@hayek-institut.at

Event: Reception in Kiev

27 March 09

Kiev Reception,
"Why Nationalization and More Government Intervention
are not the Solution: A Rational Agenda at a Time of Crisis"
with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation

Featuring a presentation by:
Dr. Tom Palmer
General Director of the Atlas Global Initiative for Free Trade, Peace and Prosperity

and comments by:
Peter Kaznacheev
International Director of the Mercurius Society

Politicians and some pundits insist that the origins of the 2008 crisis were in the lack of regulation and have called for nationalization and greater command-and-control regulation. Before prescribing remedies, however, it’s best to diagnose the causes of the financial crisis and then to identify remedies based on sound understanding of economic processes. The reception in Kiev addressed these issues with a public lecture and inaugural reception of the Mercurius Society in Kiev.

please read more about the Atlas Foundation Global Initiative here
photos from the evening can be found here
information about the evening can be found here in Russian
information about the evening can be found here in Ukrainian

Free Trade Petition

The Cato Institute and the Atlas Foundation will unveil their Petition for Free Trade today, just before the G20 meetings in London. "It is a part of a much broader campaign that will be mobilized around the world to alert the public to the dangers of attempts to block trade and to revive positive efforts toward increasing freedom of trade". We encourage you to read the entire petition here and circulate it to those who support efforts to stop economic nationalism.

(It is now available in over 30 languages)

excerpt:

The specter of protectionism is rising. It is always a dangerous and foolish policy, but it is especially dangerous at a time of economic crisis, when it threatens to damage the world economy. Protectionism’s peculiar premise is that national prosperity is increased when government grants monopoly power to domestic producers. As centuries of economic reasoning, historical experience, and empirical studies have repeatedly shown, that premise is dead wrong. Protectionism creates poverty, not prosperity. Protectionism doesn’t even “protect” domestic jobs or industries; it destroys them, by harming export industries and industries that rely on imports to make their goods. Raising the local prices of steel by “protecting” local steel companies just raises the cost of producing cars and the many other goods made with steel. Protectionism is a fool’s game.

But the fact that protectionism destroys wealth is not its worst consequence. Protectionism destroys peace. That is justification enough for all people of good will, all friends of civilization, to speak out loudly and forcefully against economic nationalism, an ideology of conflict, based on ignorance and carried into practice by protectionism.

Event: Islam and Democracy

11 March 2009

Islam and Liberal Democracy: How Muslims Can Combine the Two

6:30-8pm

Please join us for a presentation by Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, author of Who Needs an Islamic State? and comments by Wan Saiful Wan Jan, Director General of the Malaysia Think Tank and Head of Policy at the Conservative Muslim Forum.

The presentations will be followed by a discussion with the speakers. Those wishing to continue the discussion in an informal setting can do so over dinner at the same venue right after the reception.

Copies of Who Needs an Islamic State? will be available for purchase at the event.

If you are interested in attending,

please email us at mercurius@mercuriussociety.com

Participation fee charged at the door: £10

please read more about Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi

and Wan Saiful Wan Jan here...

The Cato Institute's Ad

With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

In response to President Barack Obama's statement on January 9th that "there is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help jumpstart the economy", The Cato Institute organized an ad in opposition which appeared in The New York Times.  The statement was signed by hundreds of prominent scholars and notable economists, including several Nobel laureates.  The ad statement reads as follows:

Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance.  More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.  More government spending did not solve Japan's "lost decade" in the 1990s.  As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today.  To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production.  Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

To see The Cato Institute's full ad, please click here

To read more from The Cato Institute please click here

Inaugural Meeting, Moscow

12 January 2009

Mercurius Society Inaugural Meeting in Moscow

Dukat-Plaza Business Centre | 7.30 PM

The Mercurius inaugural meeting was attended by people representing major Russian and international private sector players: banks, a law firm, a real estate company, an oil company, a rating agency, as well as think tanks and academia. The discussion was held over dinner and was dedicated to the following topic: "Promoting Free Market Ideas in Contemporary Russia: How to Approach the Business Community". Peter Kaznacheev kicked off the discussion by explaining the purpose of the Mercurius Society and giving a quick review of its previous meetings. Participants of the meeting thought that the Mercurius model would be quite attractive for those in the business community who favour free markets and individual liberty. It was agreed to hold bi-monthly dinner discussions in Moscow with prominent speakers.

London Reception

03 December 08

London Reception, "The Financial Crisis, A Market View"
Park Lane Mews Hotel, Mayfair | 7:00pm

In this time of economic turbulence, there is a popular perception that the financial crisis was caused by lack of regulation. A forum dedicated to this topic with distinguished economists was organized together with the Cato institute in London on 3 December 2008, featuring presentations by Tim Congdon, William Niskanen, and Andrei Illarionov. The event was attended by economists, shadow government advisors, heads of think-tanks, and others interested in deepening their understanding of the current financial situation. The presentation and question and answer session was followed by a dinner and discussion.

The Mercurius Society will continue to support efforts to identify principles for a forward agenda based on sound market policies.

read more about the event and the speakers here...