Established by financial economist Mark Skousen as an alternative to the Davos G20 economic summit, FreedomFest gathers together some of the top free market experts once a year to discuss economic trends and investment strategies.

In his opening keynote address, Skousen spoke about forecasts and strategies for 2011 and how the financial crisis creates danger and opportunities in an investment portfolio. Specifically, the economist drew attention to growth in emerging markets, particularly China.

“China has put ‘capital’ back into ‘capitalism’,” said Skousen. “China has had real growth rate of 10 per cent for the past 30 years, as opposed to the US, which has had real gross domestic product growth of 3 per cent since 1980. That’s growth of two or three times that of the US. It is the world’s fastest growing major economy.”

Skousen, however, warns that money supply is growing like “wild fire”, 26 per cent last year alone, which is likely to lead to an inflation problem. “China has created an unsustainable boom and bust cycle in prices of goods and real estate … so a collapse is inevitable. No one knows when, but it will come.”

Other speakers at the three-day conference, including Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal, Peter Schiff and Forbes columnist Ken Fisher, will be addressing investment opportunities and wealth management.

The summit runs February 16-19 and can be attended on a day-to-day basis.