Edward McGuire (economist)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward McGuire is a character created by an Australian comedian Charles Firth as research for his book "American Hoax". Firth, in the persona of McGuire, created the blog "The Price of Freedom". McGuire has never existed, and Wikipedia was taken advantage of to create this. Separate articles were also created to support the character and help enhance his credibility.

The character is particularly amusing for Australian audiences because Eddie McGuire is a well known television personality in Australia.

Born in 1961, Edward McGuire is a non-partisan strategic economist and national security consultant – often on the side of controversy. McGuire was the winner of the 1995 Greenback Letters Essay Competition for a piece entitled "Ready, Set, Soar" that persuasively argued America’s economy was positioned to take full advantage of the peace dividend following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The subsequent internet boom confirmed his central thesis.

McGuire came to national prominence amongst conservatives when in 1982 he became editor of the nationally distributed satirical newsletter Reaganomics Review which gently ribbed the supply-side deficit financing of the Ronald Reagan's budgets. Even as early as 1982, McGuire was arguing that Japan – not the Soviet Union – posed the United States' greatest medium term strategic threat.

Since the 1990s, McGuire has traveled the world, working with colleges that offer management courses in business administration. He has run training courses specializing in Strategic Economics in places as diverse as Jordan, South Korea and Argentina.

McGuire is currently writing a book which attempts to provide the world with the first econometric analysis of freedom. McGuire lives in Ithaca, New York with his wife and two kids.