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Milton Friedman - Good and Dead

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Milton Friedman - Good and Dead

If anyone could be said to be the father of the Libertarian Party, it would be Milton Friedman. Many men have had many bad ideas, but few have had the opportunity of putting them to such universal use.

Father of supply side economics, Friedman is responsible for each of us paying 20% of our federal tax bill for interest on the Reagan and Bush debt. Friedman’s philosophy puts the bill for greed now – pay later on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

While the rest of the civilized world has an overall average tax of about 40%, we have the lowest at 30% (we are the least taxed nation who complains the most), which Friedman has said should be fixed below 10%. One can well imagine the chaos and ponder how we would deal with it. The answer is quite simple, just follow the man’s overall philosophy; bigger guns and more methamphetamines. How cool is that? Where do I sign up! Here’s a place to begin: http://freerepublic.com

He is also most responsible for creating our all-volunteer Army. During the Vietnam War the officer corps was about 65% Republicans with the enlisted personal at about 55%. Today 96% of officers and 70% of enlisted men are beholden to the GOP. If the mathematical projection holds, in less than ten years both will settle in at 99%.

If we still had the draft we would not be in Iraq now. Our decision makers would not want Senator’s Sons and President’s daughters chancing into flag draped coffins. The streets would be pounding with less connected draft age sons and daughters burning draft cards and chanting Hell No We Won't Go. And this war would not now be fought primarily by weekend warriors from Walmartville, USA.

Friedman is also one of the central figures in destroying the public school system through vouchers. To not only further racial and class segregation, but to hand over the education of our children to our American Taliban.

There is nothing good about this guy atall other than he is dead.

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In a Jewish World Review article it says Milton Friedman dedicated the last ten years of his life to school choice.

Are you not for the children? That liberal publication then shows he was a liberal economist when Cal Thomas states:

"Friedman did not fit the stereotype of an economic conservative. Friedman first proposed school vouchers in 1955, but it wasn't until 1996 that he and Rose started their foundation to take advantage of the growing interest in school choice."

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas112106.php3?printer_friendly

"If school choice becomes the norm in America, it will be Milton Friedman's real legacy and every poor child who is liberated from a failed government school will owe him a lasting debt of gratitude."
#1 Equal Time on 2006-12-05 09:17 (Reply)
Thanx for the heads up! I rewrote the article to include what I had so sorely overlooked!
#1.1 rackjite on 2006-12-05 12:42 (Reply)
Friedman was a liberal economist? Man, whatever you're smoking has got to be great stuff. Either that or you're so far to the right that you think Genghis Khan was a pinko.

Friedman was the archtypical anarcho-capitalist libertarian. In his 1962 book "Capitalism and Freedom," he advocated minimizing the role of government in a free market as a means of creating political and social freedom. In his television series and book "Free to Choose," Friedman explained how the free market works, emphasizing that its principles have shown to solve social and political problems that other systems have failed to adequately address.

His political philosophy, which Friedman claimed was "classical liberal," stressed the advantages of the marketplace and the disadvantages of government intervention. This shaped the outlook of American neocons and libertarians. He was a founder of the Chicago Boys, the folks who managed to drive the Chilean economy into the ground. Friedman wrote "Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government." (Two Lucky People, p 233) This is not the statement of a liberal economist.
#1.2 Ambidexter on 2007-01-06 17:47 (Reply)
Milton Friedman had nothing to do with founding supply side economics. Friedman focused on monetary policy and banking history, not tax and fiscal policy. See his book Monetary History of the United States as an example of what he really wrote. This rackjite person in rather misinformed.
#2 me (Homepage) on 2007-01-03 08:47 (Reply)
Friedman did indeed support supply side economics.
The problem with Frieman was his multiple personality disorder.
When he wrote academic papers he was very careful to dot every I and cross every T. As he got further from the academic he became more of a sloppy booster of libertoonian ideas that had no basis in reality.
See Krugman's article on Friedman in The NYT.
#2.1 Buzzcook on 2007-02-06 02:25 (Reply)
RJ claimed that MF founded supply side economics, not merely that he supported it. This is false. Friedman made several important contributions to economic science, all of which pointed towards libertarian conclusions. First, he demostrated that the Federal REserve Bank played a major role in causing the Great Depression. All economists agree on this now. We just differ as to how much blame we ought to assign to the Fed. Second, he refuted the idea that there is a stable trade off between GDP and unemployment. This was a central belief of leftist economists in the mid 20th century, and Friedman refuted it. Third, Friedman's 'permanent income hypothesis' posed a serious challenge to leftist Keynesian economist. This is not accepted by all economists, but by many. Fourth, Friedman proved that 'long and variable lags' confound efforts by the government to regulate the economy. Leftist economists all admit that this is a problem, and none of them know how to solve this problem. Friedman made some other contributions, but they not not worth listing here- simply because I have already demostrated that RJ is a know nothing idiot on these matters, and the title of this bit shows that RJ is a hate-monger anyway. Does this sound harsh? OK, but prove me wrong. Lets see RJ post a refutation of Friedman's economic arguments. OR let RJ prove that there is in fact a disconect between Friedman's economics and his libertarian politics. RJ is just a mindless government worshiper, who has no real arguments, and can only manage baseless ad homonym remarks.
#2.1.1 Me on 2007-03-08 06:30 (Reply)
Gosh... Have I been invaded by Freepers? :)

Founded, advocated, pushed, spokesman for... it dont mean doodleysquat.

The point is that his ideas are not new, they are the same PURE capitalism that drove the fuedal system of the Dark Ages through the Middle Ages.

And he represents the most selfish, self centered, callous, and personally disgusting sentient beings in this or any adjoining Galaxy. LOONEYTARIANS.

Love

RJ
#2.1.1.1 rackjite on 2007-03-11 01:12 (Reply)
Thats a problem! You gotta pay $8 a month to read Krugman, Rich and Dowd!
#2.2 rackjite on 2007-03-11 01:14 (Reply)
Pure capitalism in the middle ages? ROLFL!!! The middle ages were a time of mercantilist government policies: guilds, protectionism, high complicated taxes. Adam Smith and David Hume ended the stagnation of the middle ages by making their case for free trade, easy taxes, and globalization. The middle ages ended with the free trade/low tax policies of the Manchester School of Economics. Try learning history instead of making up nonsense.

As for supply side economics, its standard textbook stuff now. Bruce Bartlett sums up hos Supply Side Economics is now accepted economics (though distorted by politicians) here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/opinion/06bartlett.html . All economists agree with it, because there is no denying that tax increases must at some point reduce the potential tax base. Even the most prominent leftist economists have agreed with this:
“Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget. For to take the opposite view today is to resemble a manufacturer who, running at a loss, decides to raise his price, and when his declining sales increase the loss, wrapping himself in the rectitude of plain arithmetic, decides that prudence requires him to raise the price still more--and who, when at last his account is balanced with nought on both sides, is still found righteously declaring that it would have been the act of a gambler to reduce price when you were already making a loss.”
- John Maynard Keynes
The Means to Prosperity (1933): p. 338)

This is a good example of how the intellectual inferiority of leftwing cranks like RJ. You guys are simply ignorant and weak minded.
#3 me on 2008-01-30 07:00 (Reply)
No accolades here. Friedman did more damage than any economist I know.

(1) The current account deficit grew by 4,870 trillion dollars while he presided.

(2) Housing prices rose more during his tenure than in the previous 100 years. He created the largest boom-bust period in U.S. history.

(3) He didn't sterilize fx reserves nor Euro-dollar borrowings.

(4) He advocated "Laissez-faire" economics. He was the father of securitization (see Freddie Mac). He was a long time supporter of un- regulated derivatives.

(5) Milton was loath to grant central bankers much discretion in formulating and executing monetary policy.

(6) Milton eliminated 1/2 of all legal reserve requirements for commercial banks. He eliminated requirements against euro-dollar borrowings & non-personal time deposits.

(7) Milton encouraged "retail sweep" accounts further emasculating the Fed's ability to control the money supply.

And there is no such thing as a "variable" economic lag. All lags are exact, unvarying & precise. The evidence is unambiguous.

That's some legacy.
#4 flow5 on 2008-02-18 19:21 (Reply)
I really screwed up (mixed Greenspan with Friedman - both are thoughly laissez faire).

(1) Milton Friedman-inspired scheme created a new re-lending agency, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or as it is more commonly known, "Freddie Mac." The Friedmanite new wrinkle to the process is that "Freddie" was allowed to purchase loans and resell them in the markets, thus opening the housing lending market to "securitization."

(2) Friedman couldn't define/kept changing the definition of the "money" supply to target.

(3) the "monetary base/high powered money” [sic] is not a base for the expansion of the money supply.

(4) Friedman (1959) has long advocated the payment of interest on reserves at a market rate in order to eliminate the distortions associated with the tax on reserves (that is, pay the banks twice, once on reserves & again on the their free earning assets from fractional reserved banking)

(5) Friedman pontificates variable lags; economic lags are unvarying)
#5 flow5 on 2008-02-24 14:46 (Reply)

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