The deflation of Friedman (Barf-Alert!)

Guardian Unlimited ^ | November, 18th. 2006 | Richard Adams

[Bishop_Malachi]

The deflation of Friedman

The great monetarist's one real success helped to create the sort of big government he despised

Richard Adams Saturday November 18, 2006 The Guardian

The death of Milton Friedman has provoked an outpouring of tributes to one of the modern era's most controversial economists. But given how little success he had in translating his ideas into practice, it is worth asking just what his legacy is. Thanks to his status as a hate figure for the left, many assume that Friedman's agenda was cemented by the Reagan and Thatcher regimes of the 1980s - especially his famous view that inflation is solely influenced by changes in money supply. But few of his most cherished proposals were ever put to the test. Of those that where, such as monetarism, almost all dissolved into failure.

[Bishop_Malachi]

Does the author of this article really believe what he's writing?

[facedown]

An impudent child sneering at a sage.

[GSlob]

'Does the author of this article really believe what he's writing?"
He doesn't have to. The worst ones are those who end up believing their own BS, as the founder of my previous workplace used to warn his fledgling company.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

The guardian is the newspaper of the British Labor Party and bound to be unhappy with Thatcher's policies (she was an adherent of Friedman). Those policies radically changed and saved the UK from economic stagnation. Yes the left believe this crap and plenty are drinking the same koolaid.

[Old North State]

The scum at the guardian will reach into a warm grave to try to strip the bones of anyone they hate. No class, no class at all.

[saganite]

The same invective appeared after Ayn Rand died. It hasn't changed her legacy.

[nicollo]

Man, this guy's got his head up his ass:

A starter:

Friedman clamoured for school vouchers to be adopted, to little avail; his libertarian leanings led him to call for recreational drugs and prostitution to be legalised; and the bulk of his lobbying against environmental protection and regulations of all kinds was happily ignored. Even the economic reforms in Pinochet's Chile that he is said to have inspired have run into trouble.

1) Vouchers are in place. I teach at the first federal voucher school. It's working.
2) Yes, Friedman extended his theories to moral behaviors; it's debatable. Does the author suggest that prohibition was a success? From a purely economic point of view, moral regulation is a failure. That it's not good public policy in no way negates Friedman's point.
3) EPA rollbacks are among the larger successes of modern Republican administrations (uh, post-Nixon, that is). Does this bastard not remember the leftist disgust and vitriol for Watt and Gorsuch? As bad as is the EPA, more of Carter and Clinton, and we're really screwed.

Then this idiot complains that Friedman's early career involved work in the FDR withholding program. Friedman repudiated it. I guess he should have been even more a genius to have erased it from the past altogether.

The supposed point of this article is that monetary policy is Friedman's legacy and that monetary policy doesn't matter. This author still believes in Bretton Woods. Too bad Milt helped bring down that Chinese wall.

[daviddennis]

Friedman introduced a lot of people, including me, to the basic Libertarian ideals, and he did so in a highly convincing manner. He pretty much single-handedly converted me to the conservative cause.

I had a leftist academic family, so the conservative cause needed a highly persuasive advocate, which it definitely had in Friedman.

Friedman's support of withholding was meant as a wartime measure, and it was probably correct at the time. Enormous government spending is certainly justifiable during a war that consumed enormous resources.

He underestimated the governmental addiction to money, which is a shame.

He was definitely a great popularizer for free markets, and perhaps the best assessment of his importance is that the Guardian felt a need to mock him.

D

[hinckley buzzard]

Does the author of this article really believe what he's writing?

Yes. but then, he is economically illiterate, so what he believes is all mumbo-jumbo anyway.

Eg, inflation is not "influenced by changes in the money supply." Inflation is defined as a change(increase) in the money supply.

[headsonpikes]

The cowardly scum writer of this farrago of lies lacked the courage to pen it while Friedman was alive, I see.

Devotees of socialist death cults, such as this Richard Adams and his Grauniad colleagues and readers cannot abide those who speak the truth - thus this article.