James G. Rosenbaum
Jim grew up in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. His paternal grandfather was a Russian immigrant and cobbler who established a successful shoe business in Kalamazoo Michigan. Jim’s father became a cardiologist and moved his family to Wisconsin in 1946. Jim pursued the study of geology, earning bachelor’s (Lawrence University) and master’s (Stanford University) degrees. He attended UWM as well, earning a BBA in finance in 1984. He is the proud father of two daughters living in the Bay Area, California. His multiple interests include collecting rare books, model trains, and sailing.
Impact
I feel obligated to set up this fund. Originally trained in Geology, I my career migrated into the used book business in part due to health problems. I completed an undergrad BBA from UW-Milwaukee, to be more enlightened in managing my own finances. About this time, in the late 1970s, I became aware of Milton Friedman and his writings on market capitalism and libertarian/minimalist government. He died ca. 2006, so his works and thought are unfortunately fading from public awareness. Friedman argued that social problems and financial inequality frequently occur because of rather than in spite of economic and social engineering. This is a viewpoint rarely heard on college campuses. He also took pains to distinguish market capitalism from state capitalism, the type in which financial planners pick winners and losers among companies. He emphasized the requirement for private property and the rule of law as basic for economic progress. The purpose of my travel fund is to enable students to attend meetings in which they could be exposed to the thinking of Friedman and others who share Friedman’s views such as Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Johan Noberg, John Stossel, and Jason Riley, among many others. Historically, there is Frederick Hayek, and Frederick Bastiat, the 19th century French economic journalist, who wrote the wonderful satirical essays on the Negative Railroad, and the Petition of the Candle makers of Paris begging relief from the competition of the Sun.