To the author...
That's because there is no downside, you commie b*tch.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Low taxes, low unemployment, dramatic lowering of interest rates, increased competition and productivity! SOMEONE HANG THAT SOB!
The same could be said about the NYT!
Ginia, I think you need a xanax.
This is how the hard left controls the media. Never a whining low-life sniping about Al Gore's or Michael Moore's preposterous lying propaganda.
New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante is a third rate mental midget biting at the heels of one of the intellectual giants of human history.
Now you know how us conservatives feel 98.7% of the time Ms.Bellafante
Yes, well I'm sure the NYT would be equally upset if a PBS show about Marx failed the downsides of Marxism.
Not.
The only downside of deregulation is that elected and appointed policymakers lose their power over others.
So, in an odd way I totally agree with the NYT -- this downside should have been more fully developed.
What can I say?
Who write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers?
Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no more.
Who review the books?
People who never wrote one.
Who do up the heavy leaders on finance?
Parties who have had the largest opportunities for knowing nothing about it.
Who criticise the Indian campaigns?
Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and who never have had to run a foot race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with.
Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing bowl?
Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it in the grave.
MARK TWAIN
People who criticize Friedman's theories typically have no clue what his theories say.
Galbraith didn't do didly. He was factually inaccurate when he accused Milton of being a one-hammer worker with Monetary Policy.
Hardly. The program thoroughly documented Friedman's low government, flat tax, free choice arguments, none of which had anything to do with Monetary Policy.
So the reporterette couldn't even find one critic who could score a point against Friedman. That's natural, since I'm not aware of any of his core findings or philosophies that have been disproved by subsequent analysis or events.
Clearly, Bellafante has some kind of agenda here and, as pointed out in the article, didn't do the research. As to John Kenneth Galbraith, perhaps some of you don't know that he's a very tall man...6'7" I believe...and once made the comment: "I've never met another economist I looked up to." And he meant that in the worst way.
Most of the ideas that he built his reputation on were stolen from Thorsten Veblen and Veblen's thoughts on conspicuous consumption. Further, Galbraith's reliance on Russian statistics is also dangerous. The Russian system was based on either 5 or 7 Year Plans (depending on the time frame) using production quotas. One of my grad school profs spent a year in Russia and got to know the man in charge of the Moscow - Vladivostok rail line. Near the end of the 7 year plan deadline, he was almost a million metric-ton miles short of his quota. So, he got this huge train of gondola cars, filled them with crushed rock, and ran then back and forth between Moscow and Vladivostok. He exceeded his quota and got a bonus "for his good work". Such behavior shows up in Russian statistics as "real" output. If one is to believe JKG's conclusions of what a great economic power Russia was, one is hard-pressed to explain the grinding poverty that most Russian citizens experienced.
In my opinion, JKG would be about the last person on the planet I would use to discredit Milton Friedman.
The liberal elitists who read the Times won't watch the documentary, anyway.
Looks like that stupid kid ended up writing for the New York Slimes where Keynes is still god, Galbraith is still considered smart and Marx never goes out of style.
The best compliment I ever heard of Freedman was from a Socialist Econ Professor I had in college. The guy was actually a pretty good instructor who made no secret that he was a socialist but who taught Economics straight down the middle without letting his bias sneak in. He said that he didn't agree with Freedman but he honestly didn't know why and couldn't poke a hole in anything Freedman taught.
After getting to know him over the years hanging out in the local pub over beers, it turns out the guy was a socialist more out of envy then any real intellectual reason. He was a very bright, well educated guy but didn't fit any corporate mold and was jealous that people far less "intelligent" than he were running large corporations and making more than he ever would.
Melanie Morgan of KSFO reported that the Times forced the "reporter" to apologize for making such an unseemly statement!!!
It musta been too much "Triumphalism" and too politickly incorrect!!!
I watched it last night. After 24 wrapped up I was flipping through the channels and found the Friedman bio on KQED. At first I thought "Whoa, I can't believe they're running this." In the course of the program they managed to:
- Show the downside of FDR's New Deal
- Compliment Nixon for his intellect
- Laud Pinochet's economic sense in Chile
- Show Carter's ineptitude
- Praise Reagan to the rafters
- Interview Dr. Thomas Sowell
Somebody was asleep at the wheel when they gave this the green light.
Yeah, PBS can put out a thousand programs which support a communist viewpoint (sometimes entire programs, others just include a false statement or phrase which is included as if it were true), and that's OK.
Let one pro-America, pro-freedom program get through the "commie only" filters and it's scandalous.