Gene Epstein

Gene Epstein is the Director of the Soho Forum, a debate series he co-founded in 2016 that meets monthly in downtown Manhattan. He recently stepped down from a 26-year stint as Economics and Books Editor of Barron’s, with plans to write long-form articles and books. His last published book was Econospinning: How to Read between the Lines when the Media Manipulate the Numbers. He has taught economics at the City University of New York and St. John’s University, and worked as a senior economist for the New York Stock Exchange. He’s appeared on podcasts that include Russ Roberts’ “EconTalk,” “The Tom Woods Show,” and the Reason podcast, and has delivered talks at the International House in Tokyo; Loyola University in Baltimore; Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City; the Romanian-American University in Bucharest; and the American Center in Moscow. He has defended the negative successfully (in terms of Oxford-style voting) at four Soho Forum debates: on Adam Smith (6/13/17); on Ayn Rand (1/16/18); on socialism (10/15/18); and on Social Security (6/17/19) —and will be again defending the negative on socialism this coming Nov. 5.