Great Friedman anecdote here.
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Milton Friedman dead at 94
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on November 17, 2006 at 8:38 am, filed under Asides. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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13 Comments
yes, a sad day indeed.
There are few people in any profession who have had as great an impact on the modern western world as Milton friedman and the other chicago school economists. at least he lived to see it.
Indeed, that is sad news. May the slayer of Keynes RIP.
Interviews
Yup, the people hiring all them illegal immigrants are crying
william,
i think you need to have another look at liberal economics. the foundation (as with liberal democracy) is the rule of law.
If things were operating properly there wouldn’t be much hiring of ilegal immigrants, the work would move to the poorer countries. Unfortunately governments and lobby groups are more interested in looking after their own interests and maintain trade protections in the case of the developed countries, and are too selfish or too incompetent in the case of the developing countries.
basically if you look at the so called “market failures” you will find that the vast majority are actually government failures. a true market failure is actually a fairly rare thing.
God Speed good man.
Put forth some great things he did and lived to a ripe old age. If we all could be so lucky.
The final comment from the Lazarus piece suggests that Friedman was a pragmatist, but I think that’s false. Friedman fought on principle for principles that if he had been a pragmatist he would have neither accepted nor fought for. When I was studying economics in the 1970’s the only references to the Chicago school were as the butt of jokes.
He fought on principle against the military draft, for economic liberty, for a predictive economic science. He was a major intellectual fountainhead of the wave of rationality that has overtaken central bankers around the world in the last 30 years. It was an exceptional intellect married to his courage and integrity and intellectual forcefulness of purpose that made him so influential.
And he was avuncular. I met him once, and took the opportunity to thank him for his inspiring influence, and he was touched. A deeply benevolent presence, not at all captured by the idea that the only thing that mattered in his world was what worked.
A huge portion of the current US elite relies on the state to maintain the global system. Freeing restraints on capital has made things worse for the vast majority of us peasants.
In the name of John Rawls I exorcise the ghost of Milton Friedman from economic history!
“wave of rationality that has overtaken central bankers around the world in the last 30 years” Watching from LA Wrote.
I must strongly disagree with this one. What’s rational about Central Bankers fron Asia buying Trillions of dollars in US Treasury debt, that is losing value and is denominated in a currency that is losing value. What is rational about most central banks selling most of their gold reserves at the very low of the gold price only to see the price of gold appreciate nearly 3 fold.
What is rational about all the ‘paper money’ that they are printing and debasing their currencies. The US dollar has lost 98% of it’s value since the 1930’s.
What is rational about printing so much money that it leads to property bubbles, and stock market bubbles.
What is so rational about being so lax in banking regulations and reserve requirements that 25% of mortgages in the US are made to sub prime borowers.
Show me a fool, and an incompetent (on a grand scale), and I’ll show you a central banker.
Austin,
Inflation as a monetary phenomenon was a major Friedman theme, and he was influential in reviving that idea. Inflation has decreased dramatically virtually everywhere in the last 30 years, and that has largely been because central bankers are more rational in their handling of the degree to which they debase the currency. Even Brazil, long an inflationary basket case, has improved dramatically.
I am sympathetic than you might imagine to your view that central bankers are deluded fools, but under Friedman’s influence, they are less deluded and their behavior has been less foolish than before. You don’t have to achieve perfection to achieve great progress….
As I sit here in South Korea typing on my computer on a high speed internet connection in a country that was, only two generations ago, one of the poorest countries in the world, it’s quite obvious that government intervention in the economy doesn’t work.
Hi ‘Watching from LA’
Inflation has decreased dramatically virtually everywhere in the last 30 years.
Yes, its called China, also don’t believe the inflation numbers- GOVERNMENTS LIE. Ask any housewife.
The components that make up the basket of goods that is used in calculating inflation, has had those items that have gone up greatly, (housing costs, some food, energy) EXCLUDED! People don’t eat, live in houses, or use energy! The US Central Bank is no longer supplying money supply figures M2, why , coz it’s going through the roof.
Government intervention does work. IF they get it right, most times it’s a f*ck up.
Anway back to the real purpose of this thread Milton Friedman RIP
Austin,
i think you only need to look at the stability of western economies in recent years as evidence of the improved inflation control. You could perhaps ignor some inflation through manipulation of the basket used for inflation calculation but it wouldn’t last long, like insolvent trading by a large multinational.
“The US dollar has lost 98% of it’s value since the 1930’s.” relative to what?
bulgasari,
True the government can intervene to improve things early in the deverlopment stages, but it usually comes back to bite them in the ass. government intervention inevitably creates inefficient industries which rely largely on government protection and a very distorted market which often creates more pain when protections are removed. If korea had concerntrated more on the development of good legal and economic fundamentals it would be far better positioned for future economic and social success.
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