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| UPCOMING SPEAKERS |
Charles Murray
11 February 2009
Charles Murray is a political scientist, author, and columnist. He is one of the most thoughtful and controversial intellectuals of our time. He is currently fellow and W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has been a frequent witness before congressional committees and consultant to senior government officials of the US, the UK, Eastern Europe, and the OECD. He was named by the National Journal as one of the 50 people who make a difference in national policymaking.
He first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. He is best known for his book, The Bell Curve (with Richard J. Herrnstein, 1994), which discusses the role of IQ plays in explaining social phenomena. His latest book is Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality. He received his B.A. in History from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT.
Title: “Rethinking Education from First Principles”
Lawrence W. (Larry) Reed
18 March 2009
Larry Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), the nation's oldest free enterprise think tank, founded by the late Leonard Read in 1946 and headquartered in Irvington, NY. FEE is publisher of the acclaimed journal, The Freeman.
Prior to becoming the president of FEE in September 2008, Mr. Reed was president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan for 20 years. He has authored more than 1,000 articles and commentaries in national and local newspapers, magazines and journals in the U.S. and abroad. His famous speech, "Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy" has been translated into a dozen languages and in 2004 he delivered it to several hundred students and faculty at People's University in Beijing, China. His economic and political interests have taken him to 69 countries on six continents since 1985.
Mr. Reed holds degrees in economics and history from Grove City College and Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and honorary PhDs from Central Michigan University and Northwood University in Michigan. He taught economics and chaired the department of economics at Northwood University.
Title: “Character and The Free Society”
James Bullard
9 April 2009
James Bullard is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. As president he directs the activities of the Bank's head office in St. Louis as well as its three branches in Little Rock, Ark., Louisville, Ky., and Memphis, Tenn. In addition, he represents the Bank on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve's chief monetary policymaking body.
Dr. Bullard joined the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in 1990, and held increasingly responsible positions in the division. Prior to being appointed president, he was deputy director of research for monetary analysis. He has also written numerous scholarly papers published in professional journals and has been a peer reviewer for over two dozen periodicals or institutions. He has participated in over 150 conferences, symposia or lectures sponsored by foreign centrals banks, academic institutions and monetary policy groups around the world.
A native of Forest Lake, Minn., Dr. Bullard holds a Bachelor of Science degree in quantitative methods and information systems and economics from St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn., and a doctorate in economics from Indiana University.
Title: “Reflections on the Financial and Economic Crisis”
Eric Greitens
13 May 2009
Dr. Eric Greitens is a Senior Fellow at the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values at Washington University, where he teaches on public service, ethics, and leadership.
He was an Angier B. Duke Scholar at Duke University where he studied ethics, philosophy, and public policy. Selected as a Rhodes and Truman Scholar, he attended the University of Oxford from 1996 through 2000. There he earned a master's degree in development studies in 1998, and a Ph.D. in politics in 2000.
His doctoral thesis, Children First, investigated the ways in which international humanitarian organizations can best serve war-affected children. He has worked as a humanitarian volunteer, documentary photographer, and researcher in Rwanda, Cambodia, Albania, Mexico, India, the Gaza Strip, Croatia, and Bolivia. His book of award-winning photographs and essays, Strength and Compassion, grew from his humanitarian work.
Dr. Greitens is also a United States Navy SEAL officer, and he currently serves with a reserve unit at Special Operations Command. He has deployed four times during the Global War on Terrorism: to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and Southeast Asia. He has served as the Commander of a Joint Special Operations Task Unit, Commander of a Mark V Special Operations Craft Detachment, and as a Commander of an Al Qaeda Targeting Cell. His personal military awards include the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.
Dr. Greitens used his combat pay from Iraq to start The Mission Continues. The Mission Continues empowers wounded and disabled veterans to continue their service to their country and communities as citizen leaders here at home. Eric currently serves as volunteer Chairman and CEO. He has contributed over 2,000 volunteer hours and in October 2008, the President of the United States awarded him the President's Volunteer Service Award in recognition of his inspiring and national leadership on his work with wounded and disabled veterans.
Title: “Inspired Leadership for Challenging Times”
Robert Dierker, Jr.
18 June 2009
Robert Dierker has been a circuit judge of the 22nd Judicial Court of Missouri since 1986, when he was appointed by then Governor John Ashcroft. He holds his A.B. from St. Louis University, his J.D. from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and his LL.M from Harvard University.
As a practicing attorney, Judge Dierker handled labor and employment law matters and important constitutional limits on taxes, abortion, and civil rights. As a trial judge, he has presided over numerous civil and criminal trials, including nine capital trials and actions relating to partial-birth abortion and election contests. In 1990, he presided over a three-month Times Beach dioxin trial. He was presiding judge of his Circuit in 1997-98, and criminal assignment judge, supervising the St. Louis felony trial docket in 1989 and 1991. He also supervised the circuit's asbestos docket form 1993 to 2003. He has also sat by designation on the Missouri Supreme Court and the Missouri Court of Appeals.
Judge Dierker is the author of two books on Missouri criminal law and procedure and co-author of books on Missouri tort and contracts law. In addition, he is the author of a controversial book on the judiciary entitled The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault, published by Crown Forum in 2006.
Title: “Tolerance Triumphant: The Future of the Imperial Judiciary”
Kenneth W. Chilton
16 July 2009
Kenneth W. Chilton, Ph.D. is Emeritus Director of the Institute for Study of Economics and the Environment (ISEE) and professor of management in the School of Business and Entrepreneurship at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. Before coming to Lindenwood University he was a researcher and administrator at the Center for the Study of American Business (currently the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy) at Washington University in St. Louis for 24 years.
Ken is a gifted public speaker and a good friend of the Discussion Club. In 1988 he was the recipient of the Discussion Club's Spirit of Freedom award. He has published numerous reports and spoken to a variety of audiences about environmental issues. His recent studies include; Placing Children's Environmental Health Risks in Perspective; Four Suggestions for Improving Environmental Health Policy; and Are Economic Growth and a Sustainable Environment Compatible?
Dr. Chilton is contributing editor of two books - The Dynamic American Firm (1996), and Environmental Protection: Regulating the Results (1991). He is co-editor of two other -- American Manufacturing in a Global Market (1989), and Public Policy Toward Corporate Takeovers (1988). He received his BS and MS in management science from Northwestern University. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from Washington University (1992, 1994).
Title: “Prophets of Doom Versus the Dismal Scientists”
Hilton L. Root
16 September 2009
Dr. Hilton Root, an academic and policy specialist in international political economy and development, is currently a member of the faculty at the School of Public Policy, George Mason University. He was Freeman Visiting Professor of Economics at Pitzer College and Senior Fellow at Claremont Graduate University from June 2003 to June 2006. Dr. Root was Director and Senior Fellow of Global Studies at the Milken Institute; a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Initiative on Economic Growth and Democracy at the Hoover Institution and served the current administration as senior advisor on development finance to the Department of Treasury.
As a policy expert, Dr. Root advises the Asian Development Bank, IMF, the World Bank, the UNDP, the OECD, the US State Department, the US Treasury Department and USAID. He has completed projects in 23 countries. The analytical framework he contributed to the World Bank's Asian Miracle study (1993) was part of the effort to put institutions on the development agenda. He was chief advisor on governance at the ADB and principal author of their board-approved governance policy. At the OECD, he presided over a committee on governance indicators and initiated the restructuring of the Sri Lanka civil service as an advisor to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.
As an academic, Dr. Root has taught at the University of Michigan, California Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University. He has written and lectured extensively, publishing eight books and more than 100 articles. He is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal Asia, the International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. He has been awarded honors for The Key to the East Asian Miracle: Making Shared Growth Credible (with J. Edgardo Campos), which won the 1997 Charles H. Levine Award for best book of the year by the International Political Science Association. He has also won numerous other awards for best book and best article. Dr. Root received his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1983.
Title: “Cold War Lessons for the War on Terrorism”
Charles Brennan
14 October 2009
Charles Brennan started at KMOX 1120 AM in 1988 after working in Boston radio since 1982. He is a native of Cleveland and a graduate of Boston College. He is now in charge of the station's top-rated weekday mid-morning radio show . He has been voted St. Louis' favorite talk show host four times in the Readers Polls of the Riverfront Times. In 1998, he was named media Person of the Year by the St. Louis Press Club. He was named one of America's top 25 "most influential radio talk show hosts" in USA Today. Talkers Magazine has called Charles Brennan one of the 100 most important talk show hosts in the United States nine times. Charles also appears as a regular guest on KETC-TV's "Donnybrook", hosted by the Discussion Club's own Martin Duggan.
Charles is the founder of Rediscover St. Louis, a not-for-profit corporation marking 27 historic sites with informative plaques in Downtown St. Louis. In May 2001, he and Mayor Francis Slay cut the ribbon to a 1.5. mile trail linking more than 25 sites with a painted red line on the sidewalk. He is co-author of "Walking Historic Downtown St. Louis" with Ben Cannon. The book and the plaques each won Silver Quill Awards in 2001 from the International Association of Business Communicators for their exceptional design. The American Society of Landscape Architects presented him with its 2002 Civic Stewardship Award. The Associated General Contractors of St. Louis recognized him for "his outstanding job of community service" in 2002. The Jewish Community Relations Council give him its 2004 Norman Stack Award. He was named one of St. Louis' Most Valuable Volunteers by the St. Louis Business Journal in July 2001. The Riverfront Times called him St. Louis' "best non-native boost."
Title: “Eminent Domain”
Thomas Wyrick
11 November 2009
Thomas Wyrick is a professor of economics at Missouri State University, where he teaches courses on macroeconomics, the economics of the stock market, and money and banking. A student of Nobel Prize winner James Buchanan at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Dr. Wyrick was trained as a public choice economist. He frequently highlights the political dimension of economic policy making - including the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve. He has had articles published in journals of economic, political science and law.
Dr. Wyrick's textbook, The Economist's Handbook: A Research and Writing Guide has been used in universities both here and abroad to develop the research skills of both senior undergraduates and graduate students in economics. He has authored a regular newspaper column and numerous feature articles for the Wall Street Journal and other periodicals, served on the U.S. Small Business Administration Advisory Council and a credit union supervisory committee, owned a small business, and worked as an economics consultant in personal and corporal litigation.
Over the past decade, Dr. Wyrick has branched out into teaching World Economic History in partnership with an archaeologist and anthropologist, Juris Zarins. In that course, he applies modern theories about money's role to ancient settings - sometimes with surprising effect. In the title presentation, he will examine the Fed's oft-repeated promise to prevent the current unprecedented monetary stimulus from triggering a serious round of inflation during the economy's recovery from the current recession.
Title: “Can The Fed Reverse Course in Time to Avoid Serious Inflation?”
J. Martin Rochester
14 January 2010
J. Martin Rochester is Professor of Political Science and a Fellow in the Center of International Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has served as Chairperson of the Political Science Department in addition to teaching courses in international politics, international organization and law, and U.S. foreign policy.
Dr. Rochester has authored nine books including, Waiting for the Millennium: The United Nations and the Future of World Order; Between Two Epochs: What's Ahead for America, the World, and Global Politics in the21st Century? and Between Peril and Promise: The Politics of International Law. His latest book is U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: Gulliver's Travails. His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, and the Journal of Peace Research.
Dr. Rochester has an active interest in pedagogical concerns, including both higher education and K-12. He was one of the founders of the Consortium for International Studies Education and was project director of the International Studies Learning Package, which was designed to develop and disseminate innovative undergraduate educational materials combining the latest advances in both scholarly research and instructional technology. His international relations textbook The Global Condition (co-authored with Frederic Pearson) is now in its 4th edition and has been used in many countries and hundreds of American universities including Stanford, Duke, and the U.S. Naval Academy. He has just completed a new textbook entitled Fundamental Principles of International Relations (2010). He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Syracuse University.
Title: “U.S. Foreign Policy Under Obama: A Test of Soft Power”
Amity Shlaes
11 February 2010
Amity Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations, a syndicated columnist at Bloomberg, and the author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. This book was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books to read during a financial crisis. She has written for the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, where she was an editorial board member, also for the New Yorker, Fortune, The National Review, The New Republic, and Foreign Affairs. She is a sought after keynote speaker and has given a wide range of talks about the economy and the historical perspective of the Great Depression at corporations, financial institutions, universities, and historical societies.
Ms. Shlaes has appeared on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Fox News' Glenn Beck, ABC's Good Morning America, CNBC's Kudlow and Kramer, contributes to Public Radio International's Marketplace, and appears frequently on Bloomberg radio. Her book The Forgotten Man is part of a three-part history of the Twentieth Century, and has been widely praised by prominent figures such as George F. Will, Paul Volcker and Newt Gringrich, and in publications such as The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, and The National Review.
Ms. Shlaes is an award-winning journalist. She was co-winner of the Frederic Bastiat Prize (2002) and served as the J.P. Morgan Fellow for economics and finance at the American Academy in Berlin (2003). Ms Shlaes graduated from Yale University and studied at the Free University in Berlin on a DAAD fellowship following college.
Title: “Is Atlas Shrugging?”
Scott A. Hodge
18 March 2010
Scott Hodge is president of the Tax Foundation and is recognized as an innovative thinker on tax policy, the federal budget and government spending. Over the past 20 years he has been a leader in many successful efforts to change public policy. During the 1990s, he led the campaign to include the $500 per child credit and capital gains tax cuts in the Contract with America. These tax cuts were the eventual centerpieces of the 1997 tax bill and the Bush tax cuts in 2001and 2003.
Mr. Hodge has been the creative force behind the Tax Foundation's Putting a Face on America's Tax Returns project and the State Business Tax Climate Index, two programs that are changing the terms of the tax debate at the federal and state level. He has written and edited three books on the federal budget and streamlining the government and has authored over 100 studies on tax policy and government spending. He has authored dozens of editorials and opinion pieces for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Times; has conducted over 600 radio and television interviews - including NBC Nightly, CNN, CBS Nightly News and C-Span and has contributed to stories on wasteful spending aired by ABC's "Prime-Time Live" and "20/20," and NBC's "Fleecing of America."
Mr. Hodge was Director of Tax and Budget Policy at Citizens for a Sound Economy before joining the Tax Foundation. He also spent ten years at The Heritage Foundation, including eight years as Heritage's Grover Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs. He began his career in Chicago where he helped found the Heartland Institute in 1984. He holds a degree in political economy from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Title: “America's Fiscal Perfect Storm”