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Amity Shlaes

Amity Shlaes is the author of four New York Times bestsellers, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man: Graphic, a full length illustrated version of the same book drawn by Paul Rivoche, and Coolidge, a full-length biography of the thirtieth president, which debuted at number three on the Times list and The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americas Crazy. National Review called the Forgotten Man “the finest history of the Great Depression ever written.” The Economist wrote of Coolidge that the book “deserves to be widely read” and made it an editor’s choice for 2013. Miss Shlaes is under contract to write “The Silent Majority,” a third volume on the twentieth century.

Miss Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, a national foundation based in the birthplace of President Coolidge. The Foundation’s goal is to share Coolidge with Americans, by hosting debate and events at the Coolidge site and through newer media. She is especially interested in education.

Miss Shlaes is winner of the Hayek Prize and currently chairs the jury for the prize, sponsored by the Manhattan Institute. She has twice been a finalist for the Loeb Prize in commentary. In 2002 she was co-winner of the Frederic Bastiat Prize, an international prize for writing on political economy, and later chaired the jury for that prize. In 2003, she was JP Morgan Fellow for finance and economy at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2004, she gave the Bradley lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. Her lecture, titled “The Chicken vs the Eagle” looked at the effect of the National Recovery Administration on the entrepreneur in the New Deal. Over the years she has served at the Council on Foreign Relations (as senior fellow in economic history) and the George W. Bush Presidential Center, where she was one of four directors, working on economic program.

Many readers know Miss Shlaes from the Wall Street Journal, where she served on the editorial board, writing on foreign policy, taxation and other topics, or from the Financial Times and Bloomberg, each of which carried her syndicated column over the years. Currently Miss Shlaes appears in print Forbes and in National Review. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale College, Miss Shlaes is married to fellow journalist and editor Seth Lipsky. The Lipskys have four children.

Jon Najarian

Co-founder, Market RebellionFollow @jonnajarian

Jon “DRJ” Najarian is a professional investor, noted media analyst and speaker, and cofounder of Market Rebellion, a leading site for options and equity traders. Following a brief stint as a Chicago Bears linebacker, Jon launched his financial career at the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) in 1981, trading in the pits for some 25 years. In 1989 he founded Mercury Trading, running the company for 15 years until 2004, when he sold his floor-trading operations to Citadel. Jon has developed and patented trading applications used to identify unusual activity in stock, options, and futures markets, notably the Heat Seeker® program, which scans up to 10 million quotes per second. Jon’s research and analysis is widely cited by leading financial media as he appears daily on CNBC as well as articles published in Barrons, the Wall Street Journal and other leading financial periodicals. OptionMONSTER has been described by Securities Industry News as “content king of the options business,” and enjoys syndication agreements with CNBC, TheStreet.com, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and NASDAQ. Jon & his brother Pete also run a private equity fund and are consultants for Najarian Family Office, a wealth management firm based in Chicago & Minneapolis. Read more.

Joel Elconin

Joel’s introduction to trading was in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index futures pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Also, during his time at the CME, he was involved in Index Arbitrage as well as trading foreign currency futures and options. From 1994-1999 he was a proprietary trader for Olde Discount Corporation. Following his tenure at Olde Discount, he founded the Detroit office of Bright Trading, LLC. His responsibilities included trader recruitment, orientation and education as well as the day to day management of the office. He held this position office until 2003. Since 2003, Joel has been an independent trader researching and developing proprietary indicators and trading systems for the equities and futures markets. In 2007, Joel joined JC Trading Group as a Market Consultant and trading supervisor. He provides daily market commentary at www.premarketinfo.com. Joel obtained his Bachelor of Art in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1985. Also, he is a graduate of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Continuing Education Program. He also holds his Series 7 and 63 licenses and is a licensed real estate broker.