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Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics in the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland, and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (1979) and a B.A. in economics from Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pa. (1976).

Dr. DiLorenzo's major research and publication interests are economic history, industrial organization, and political economy. He's the author or co-author of fourteen books, including The Real Lincoln and, his latest, How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present. Among his other books (co-authored with James T. Bennett) are Official Lies: How Washington Misleads Us; "Underground Government: The Off-Budget Public SectorThe Food and Drink Police: America's Nannies, Busybodies, and Petty Tyrants; and Destroying Democracy: How Government Funds Partisan Politics.

Dr. DiLorenzo has held full-time faculty positions at George Mason University, Washington University in St. Louis, State University of New York at Buffalo, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is widely published in the academic economics literature, including the top journal in the field, the American Economic Review, and many others including Economic Inquiry, Public Choice, Southern Economic Journal, International Review of Law and Economics, Public Finance Quarterly, Journal of Labor Research, Quarterly Journal of Business and Economics. He is also widely published in more popular publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Barron's, Reader's Digest, and dozens of other newspapers and magazines. He is a columnist for the web site LewRockwell.com, has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CSPAN Book TV, and has been a guest on the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show, as well as hundred of other talk radio shows. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and a past winner of its Olive W. Garvey essay contest.

The New York City Junto is a forum for individualists modeled after Benjamin Franklin’s famous discussion group. Victor Niederhoffer is founder and sponsor of the group. Meetings take place on the first Thursday evening of each month. Every meeting has a speaker, most of whom are leading individualist philosophers and economists. The idea is not to listen reverentially, but to arrive at a better mutual understanding of important issues. Lively debate is encouraged. For information on coming meetings, visit www.nycjunto.com.

Admission Free: No reservation necessary

• The speaker is only a part of Junto. Lively participation by attendees is highly encouraged.
• Ad hominen attacks are unacceptable.
• We socialize starting at 7 p.m. The meeting begins at about 7:30 p.m. with a discussion of current issues and events.
• The featured speaker is introduced at about 8 p.m.
• The meeting continues until about 10 pm.

Subway:
 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central û 42nd Street
 B, D, F, V to 42nd Street û Sixth Avenue
 1, 2, 3, 9, N, Q, R, S, W to Times Square û 42nd Street

Invitation from Victor Niederhoffer to the NYC Junto

Inspired by Benjamin Franklin, I would like to invite you to apply to join the Junto and join some select friends who believe strongly in the appreciation of the sanctity of life, liberty, and property.  Those of us who share these views are all too rare in this society. Hopefully, all of us can benefit by meeting to exchange ideas and insights.  

For more than 30 years of his life, Ben Franklin held a series of weekly meetings of what he called the Junto, a group of 12 men who would gather to discuss truth, morality, and intellectual issues in an attempt to improve themselves and their society.  My goal is to accomplish the same for ourselves. 

Guided by science, logic and rationality, Franklin attempted to explore all aspects of his world and learned a tremendous amount.  By his pursuit of knowledge, happiness and self-benefit he was able to create a tremendous amount of good for his society. The idea of a Junto is appealing to me--each month, I look forward eagerly to bringing together successful, intelligent men and women who share these ideals.

In Franklin's original Junto, the members used as a guide a series of 24 questions, such as:

• Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable or suitable to be communicated to the Junto, particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?
• What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?
• Has any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause? Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving well, and by what means?  Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?
• What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other folly or vice?  What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of moderation, or of any other virtue?
• Do you think of anything at present in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind?
• Have you any weighty affairs in hand in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?  In what manner can the Junto, or any them, assist of in any of your honorable designs?

Franklin included additional questions reflecting his group's position as an influencer of city and state politics.  I see our group as more of an intellectual exercise -- rather than influencing the government directly, I would prefer that we have a positive beneficial impact on each other.  With this in mind, we have a more up-to-date version of some of these questions, as well as some additional ones suggested by today's world:

• What is the most interesting or unusual thing you have read, seen, or heard about in the last month?  What is the most potentially dangerous or harmful?  The most beneficial? The most significant for the people here today?
• What can we learn from world events today? Has there been any notable failure or success, financial, political, or otherwise, from which we can gain insight and understanding?
• Can a man or woman arrive at perfection in this life? What is the proper balance between idealism and pragmatism in our existence? (Franklin's own question)
• How can we judge the goodness of art, music, drama or literature? 
• Is science compatible with religion? What is the appropriate role of religion in our lives, if any?
• What is the most important political issue facing this country in the next five years?
• Whom do you respect most? Why?

I believe that by considering these important issues, as well as others which you will suggest, we can improve our minds, our lives, and the minds and lives of people around us.