Dear Thinker:

You are cordially invited to a learning opportunity that comes along only once in a lifetime—and there is no seminar fee for attending.

The conference is intended for free-market economists at leafy universities and for free-market scholars at think-tanks in D.C., Manhattan, Stanford and other sophisticated locales.  But it's open to anyone else who wants to meet and observe these superior intellects in action.

Attendees will be able to meet face-to-face with small-town Americans who have seen their lives upended and their towns devastated by Schumpeterian creative destruction and global trade.  Warning:  Many of these people are—gasp!—Trump supporters.

The economists and think-tankers in attendance will have the chance to educate the locals on the errors of their thinking about trade, economics and politics. There is no doubt that with their superior intelligence and communication skills, they will be able to show the rubes that they are better off with free trade than they otherwise would have been.

Highlights of the experience will be a tour of shuttered plants, of a substance abuse center, of closed stores on Main Street, and of the local Dollar Store and Walmart on the day that people receive their welfare payments.   The tour will stop at a local tavern patronized by burly, bearded working stiffs in flannel shirts and hunting caps.  Attendees can continue the discussion into the night, over beers and shots, as well as play shuffle board and admire the stuffed animals on the walls.  Certainly, the locals will enjoy hearing from the economists and think-tankers about their economic theories and what life is like at their sophisticated urban enclaves.

Can you think of anything more fun than watching what unfolds?  Anyway, here is more information:

Dates:  Arrive Friday, Sept. 28, and depart Sunday, Sept. 30.

Location:  Westline, Pennsylvania.  Westline is a is a bucolic hamlet in a valley in the middle of the Allegheny National Forest about 75 miles southeast of Buffalo.  A fishing stream winds through the town on its way to a lake, and a hiking trail borders the trail for six miles as it cuts through a dense forest.  Accommodations are limited, so arrangements will be made with locals to stay at their homes or at one of the scores of hunting cabins in the hamlet.  A side trip will be made to the old industrial town of Bradford, which is a twenty-minute drive from Westline.  Bradford has an airport served by a commuter airline.

As your host, I will be staying with my father-in-law at his modest frame house in Westline.  He will join us for the conference, which is a huge positive, given that he knows everyone in Westline and a lot of people in Bradford, as well as knowing the history of the area and what it was like before global trade.  The home base for the conference will be the Westline Inn, which is a landmark tavern and restaurant.  Below my signature is a photo of the dining room of the Inn and the kind of people you will meet there—the kind of people that Hillary Clinton finds deplorable.

Please let me know if you plan on attending.

On second thought, never mind.  Economists and think-tankers don't have the courage or open-mindedness to attend something like this.

Sincerely,

Mencken's Ghost