I've tutored graduate level economics, have read the original works of Smith, Marx, and Keynes for fun, and probably understand more about economics than is healthy for anyone. Yet most of what I've learned has come not from a textbook or a classroom, but instead from trying to eek out a living as a small business owner, starting from scratch in a heavily anti-competitive, almost mercantilist industry that is overtly hostile to the new or little guy.

I'm a native Marylander and have been in Baltimore since 2003. I'm a veteran with six years in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (honorable discharge, of course). I began in the mortgage business with three years as a loan officer and then for five years kept a roof over my head as a mortgage broker with my own small mortgage company. 

In 2010, I sought the GOP nomination for Maryland's 2nd District, and the Baltimore City Paper endorsed me. You can see me in an August 2010 TV interview HERE:

Behind most of my writing is my basic message: The collusion of big business and big government is dangerous to a free society, to peace, and to prosperity. 

I apply pure Adam Smith philosophy to today's economic problems. While today's corrupted version of Smith is a justification for the Goldman Sachs and Angelo Mozilos of the world, pure Adam Smith philosophy is almost socialist. Smith's sympathies were with the poor and the downtrodden. His philosophy was revolutionary in that he suggested that lifting the poor from the depths of poverty was a good thing. Far from the anti-government anarcho-libertarian he is often portrayed as, Smith advocated progressive taxes, public works, and public schools. What Smith opposed was anti-competitive regulations.

Smith would see every protectionist policy that has been crafted to protect producers as being inherently harmful to consumers and therefore harmful to the wealth of the entire nation.