Free Republic

The authors who are read most widely are those who are no longer around. Former Accuracy in Academia executive director Dan Flynn pays homage to a quartet of them in his latest book, Blue Collar Intellectuals. America may never again see the likes of Will and Ariel Durant, Mortimer Adler, Milton Friedman and Eric Hoffer. For one thing, all ascended to intellectual heights from modest means, if not actual penury. Moreover, although their political viewpoints spanned the ideological spectrum, all shared a love of country, namely the one in which they lived and worked. For example, Will and Ariel Durant,...

Milton Friedman was an extraordinary Nobel Prize-winning economist whose ideas helped underpin modern conservative economic theory. His contributions to economics and the conservative movement cannot be underestimated. Sadly, Milton Friedman passed away a little more than five years ago at the ripe old age of 94. Although Friedman is no longer with us, his words, his ideas, and his legacy live on. In honor of Friedman, here are some of his best quotations. 10) "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." 9) "I am in favor...

Economy: President Obama had nothing but praise for Chile's democracy and economic miracle, declaring it a model "for the region and world." So why is he obstructing the same reforms in the U.S. that gave Chile its success? Arriving Monday in Santiago on the second leg of his Latin American tour, the president told El Mercurio he picked Chile as one of his three stops because: "The Chilean experience, and more particularly its successful democratic transition and sustained economic growth, is a model for the region and the world. ... It is also a powerful example of how the opportunities...

Locked up, abandoned and forgotten, the vacant six-flat standing at the northeast corner of 57th and Maryland has no plaques or statues and few clues to its history. Now, the little-known childhood home of Ronald Reagan in Hyde Park could soon be torn down by the University of Chicago, which has quietly plotted its demolition, the Sun-Times has learned. The plan has made unlikely allies of conservatives who consider Reagan an icon and liberal Hyde Parkers who say the university’s secrecy is typical of how it has treated its neighbors for decades. It puts the school that provided the intellectual...

Milton Friedman answers a question about what rich people do with their profits.

It's careful, it's complicated, it's got a catchy name, and it's first. At face value, that's what I see in the Mortgage Bankers Association's proposal to formulate a new, government-guaranteed, mortgage backed securities market to take the place of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Let's start at the very beginning, with the MBA press release: The centerpiece of MBA’s recommendation is the creation of a new line of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Each security would have two components – a loan level guarantee provided by privately-owned, government-chartered and regulated mortgage credit-guarantor entity (MCGE) and a security-level, federal government-guaranteed wrap.America, meet the MCGE,...

Pensions: Nearly 30 years ago, on the very day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as U.S. president, Chile became the first nation to privatize its social security system. Three decades hence, it has surpassed all expectations. Decades ago, Chile's then-military dictatorship shuddered at a proposal from then-Labor Minister Jose Pinera to privatize Chile's liability-laden pension system. The military men argued that the public was too ignorant to manage its own affairs and only government's firm hand could be trusted to provide. Pinera explained that the pension liabilities the government then couldn't pay were not only perfectly payable, but could be...

Economist Milton Friedman debates a liberal about medicare in 1978...a very prophetic speech.

A cottage industry is building around the question: What would Milton Friedman do? With the U.S. Federal Reserve on the brink of announcing a new round of quantitative easing to pump a fresh supply of money into the U.S. economy, people are looking around for economic guidance. Prof. Friedman, the Nobel-winning free-market economist who died in 2006, earned his Nobel on the basis of his monetary-policy work. He was a “monetarist” who promoted the idea that steady and stable increases in the money supply were needed to keep growth high and inflation low. The consensus, more or less, appears...

The caption to the video tells us that it is a young Michael Moore throwing a tough question to Milton Friedman. If this is Michael Moore, I can hardly recognize him. But is it ? CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

The headline of a story in today's Detroit Free Press characterizes Gov. Jennifer Granholm's understanding of the state film production subsidies: "Goal of film tax credit is jobs, not more revenue." There's a story from the 1960s about the late economist Milton Friedman visiting a large public works project in a third world country that was funded by U.S. foreign aid. Given the substantial investment, the famous economist was surprised to see thousands of men with shovels moving dirt one spadeful at a time. He asked his host, "Why don't they use bulldozers?" "It creates more employment this way," came...

Professor Friedman examines the dynamics of "doing good" with other people's money.

Special thanks to user mnehring for pointing me in the direction of this video; an interview all Freepers would enjoy watching. I've already sent it to all my Liberal friends. Brilliant interview on youtube (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) Milton Friedman WikiIf you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

For you radio guys, the audio of this is worth playing — no video needed to get the point. Milton Friedman defends capitalism to Phil Donohue. (2 minute video clip at link)

Milton Friedman's brilliant PBS series, "Free To Choose" is back online - for free. If you have not seen it and are even remotely interested in economics, this is a MUST SEE series. Much more so in light of our nation's current backslide into the cesspool of Socialism and Statist thought, 'neo'keynsian economics and police state regulation.

With everybody but college professors acknowledging the left-wing bias in academia, the next question becomes, when did it start? Well, it goes back at least a half a century. “While teaching at Ohio State University in the 1960s, I had a bumper sticker that read, Bury Goldwater and was shunned by colleagues until one took a close look at it and said, ‘Ah, it says Bury Goldwater, we thought it said Barry Goldwater,’” author Alston Chase remembered. “Would you like to go to a party?,” the colleague asked Chase. Despite the image of the 1960s as one in which left-wing...

So the question is, aside from Rush Limbaugh and a few other talk show hosts, where are the people defending freedom to the masses the way in which Milton Friedman was able to do it? If you would like to see Milton Friedman in action, Click Here

I just returned from a nice little luncheon given by the Heartland Institute (www.heartland.org) in beautiful downtown Chicago, Illinois. The purpose of the gathering of free-market supporters and like-minded individuals was to celebrate the life's work of famed economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman. The principal speaker was Richard H. Timberlake*, student and friend of the celebrated economist and an accomplished free-market economist in his own right. I've done several such events for some of the conservative think tanks and state policy groups in the Windy City and I enjoy these events in Chicago because I always get the...

Little something from the late 1970s, which means Moore is somewhere in his early to mid-twenties. At first you won’t believe that’s him, but hang in there. He’s much younger and thinner (weren’t we all), so you have too look and watch closely. After a while, the eyes, gestures, double talk, appeals to emotionalism and complete inability to understand or respect logic and facts will start to look familiar.

Mitch Daniels on American Conservatism In this interview, which helps define an emerging political figure, possible Presidential contender for 2012 Mitch Daniels plants himself firmly on the dynamist, anti-traditionalist side of the conservative divide. Two of the books you’ve chosen are about freedom and two are about social dynamism. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, I would say, is about both. It’s also the first of these books to be published, in 1944. Do you want to start with that one? Hayek, when I thumb back through it and look at what I marked when I first read it, was the book...

NEW DELHI: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told TOI that he is in favour of a moderate tax regime for individuals, giving a strong indication that the government may stick to the lower tax slabs proposed in the original draft of the Direct Tax Code (DTC). The first draft of the DTC, released in August 2009, had proposed to tax incomes up to Rs 10 lakh per annum at 10%, incomes above Rs 10 lakh and up to Rs 25 lakh at 20% and incomes beyond Rs 25 lakh at 30%. However, the revised draft released on Tuesday suggested that some...

America's current struggles notwithstanding, life here is pretty good. We have a standard of living that's the envy of most of the world. Why did that happen? Prosperity isn't the norm. Throughout history and throughout the world, poverty has been the norm. Most of the world still lives in dire poverty. Of the 6 billion people on earth, perhaps 1 billion have something close to our standard of living. Why did America prosper when most of the people of the world are still poor? Milton Friedman taught me the answer. More than any other American, Friedman, who won the Nobel...

I’ve seen the movie, De-Lovely, at least six times now. Cole Porter’s personal life was a wreck, But with words and music he had no peer. Not even in two people at once, like Gilbert and Sullivan, or Rodgers and Hammerstein, for instance. I begin this column with a Porter quote from ‘You’re the Top,” and the subject is Paul Krugman. As my wife says of people who take themselves with far too seriously, “He sends his shirts out to be stuffed.” By all that’s right and holy, Krugman should be one of the great men of our generation. He...

Dr. Milton Friedman describes changes in the public image of labor unions; from when they started compared to the present day.

The Tyranny of Controls follows two countries with remarkably different outcomes: Japan and India. Where Japan has embraced an economy based on the free markets, India’s pathway followed that centralized planning and government controls. The effect of the measures to ‘protect’ India’s weavers prevented more productive jobs from emerging. Mr. Friedman explains that while governments will self-profess to be ‘forward-looking,’ in practice, however, they look backward. This is because they are either protecting select industries or encourage the ventures they have decided to undertake. This type of government selection works to hinder new technologies and industries that would surely develop...

MILTON Friedman was notoriously sceptical of the euro, predicting it was "going to be a big source of problems, not a source of help". When crisis hit, monetary union would prevent the eurozone countries from adopting solutions tailored to their individual circumstances. As large fiscal transfers between countries became necessary, old enmities would resurface and the edifice would collapse. Though Friedman was not one to rejoice in the misfortunes of others, one can imagine a wry smile as he watches, from wherever he may be, the European debacle, in which the euro bears a central responsibility. Without the euro, Greece...

Milton Friedman gives his brilliant assessment of equality in the context of inherited wealth. Thomas Sowell ...

"Milton Friedman has been dead for more than three years. But his spirit was surely hovering protectively over Chile in the early morning hours of Saturday. Thanks largely to him, the country has endured a tragedy that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse." ... "As for Chile, Pinochet appointed a succession of Chicago Boys to senior economic posts. By 1990, the year he ceded power, per capita GDP had risen by 40% (in 2005 dollars) even as Peru and Argentina stagnated. Pinochet's democratic successors—all of them nominally left-of-center—only deepened the liberalization drive. Result: Chileans have become South America's richest people....

"Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government." - Milton Friedman The art of medicine requires the health care provider to make an accurate diagnosis in order to formulate an effective treatment plan. This is also true of the art of policy making and is magnified by the fact that one piece of legislation affects the lives of millions of individuals whereas the art of medicine affects only one. Proponents of the health care reform bills coming out of Congress claim the bills will decrease medical cost growth over time, making...

Here's a transcript of what's said: Unknown voice: "We need to change congress" Friedman: No, we don't need to change congress, excuse me. You know, people have a great misunderstanding about this. People in congress are in the business, they're trying to buy votes. They're in the business of competing with one another to get elected. The same congressman will vote for a different thing if he thinks that's politically profitable. You don't have to change congress. People have a great misconception in this way they think the way you solve things is by electing the right people. It's nice...

Milton Friedman puts forward a compelling case for the legalization of drugs

At the suggestion of our editor, Rich Lowry, I’ve been reviewing some correspondence leading up to National Review’s endorsement of what became known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP. I was energetically opposed to our endorsement of that action and, upon reviewing my notes from the debate, it strikes me that I may even have been intemperate in my rhetoric. I trust Mr. Lowry will have forgotten my references to his “diseased mental siftings” and my sneering at “the panicked rantings of country-club Republicans in Greenwich, Conn.” In retrospect, that seems a bit much. I was happy that he...

Sometimes it's best to go back and listen to the heavyweights in order to truely learn. Some answers don't deserve to be forgotten. _ Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into motion when government imposes itself into the health care system. (1978) _

Rose Friedman, who was partner and collaborator with her late husband Milton on many of his most important works of political thought and advocacy, has died of heart failure. Though her birth records in her native Russia are lost, she was believed to have been 99. The Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation has a notice of her death, which also sums up the achievements of her life: She will be remembered both as a talented economist and an influential advocate of freedom. Her economic work helped to discredit the idea of government management of the economy, rolling back policies that...

Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into motion when government imposes itself into the health care system. Speech given at the Mayo Clinic -- 1978

Rose Friedman, widow of renowned economist Milton Friedman, passed away in Washington, D.C. today. Records do not clearly indicate her date of birth, but she was deemed to have been 98. Her husband passed away in November 2006. Education experts in Pennsylvania and beyond lauded the work she and her late husband performed to popularize efforts to allow parents to choose schools for their children. “Rose Friedman was an extremely powerful voice in promotion of freedom. In addition to being a vocal supporter of human liberty, her work helped to discredit government management of the economy,” Andrew T. LeFevre, executive...

Each new day Capitalism is attacked by the Left. They say it promotes greed and a gap in social classes. You know what I like about Capitalism? The idea that by tomorrow I have the potential to make $1 million. Greed has led to innovations beyond that of which any other system can produce. Watch and listen to Milton Friedman explain greed unlike anyone can articulate. Quote him when someone attacks Capitalism.

Thanks to John Romano over at BigHollywood.com for digging out this old YouTube video of Milton Friedman teaching dumbfounded liberal Phil Donahue a few things about how capitalism and the real world work. You can help but love the crestfallen look on Donahue’s face.

Nobel Prize-winning economist explains to liberal host why capitalistic societies thrive.

When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the "social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system," I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free en­terprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing em­ployment, eliminating discrimination, avoid­ing pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of re­formers....

Challenging Samuelson on Keynes, government intervention and market regulation. "It is not enough that I should succeed," Gore Vidal once remarked. "Others must fail." Economist Paul Samuelson evidently agrees. A big government man from way back--in an edition of his best-selling college textbook Economics, he argued that "the remarkable fact is not how much government does to control economic activity, but how much it does not do"-- Samuelson, now 93, gave an interview not long ago. The current crisis, he claimed, validates his own economic views--and invalidates those of his longtime rival, the late free-market economist Milton Friedman. "Today we...

Is U-Chi Free to Choose? by: Deborah Lambert, February 12, 2009 When word surfaced at the U. of Chicago that a new institute would be named in honor of Dr. Milton Friedman, it sparked some controversial opinions, particularly from left-wing faculty members who made no secret of their distaste for any vehicle that would promote Friedman’s free market principles to students instead of fostering "an open environment that would also include competing academic theories.” They posed numerous questions: Would the new institute have to follow the wishes of its donors to the letter? Would it become known far and wide...

February 2, 2009 4:00 AM PST The next frontier: 'Seasteading' the oceans Posted by Declan McCullagh Patri Friedman, executive director of the Seasteading Institute, previously worked in Google's Mountain View headquarters as a software engineer.(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News) PALO ALTO, Calif.--This chic, tree-lined California town might seem an unlikely place to begin the colonization of Earth's oceans. Palo Alto is known for expensive modernism, Stanford University, al fresco dining, and land prices so high a modest cottage still sells for well over $1 million. If Patri Friedman gets his way, the area will also be remembered for birthing a political...

Arnold Schwarzenegger came into the governorship as a fervent disciple of free market economist Milton Friedman. When Friedman died in 2006, the governor declared him "one of the great thinkers and economists of the 20th century, and when I was first exposed to his powerful writings about money, free markets and individual freedom, it was like getting hit by a thunderbolt." Five years into his governorship, however, Schwarzenegger has morphed into an acolyte of Friedman's chief rival in the arcane field of macroeconomics: John Maynard Keynes, who advocated government spending to ease economic recession. As the New York Times obituary...

Learning From Conservative History: Main Trails . . . and Less-Traveled Paths - 01/02/09 This is part three of a symposium on contemporary conservatism hosted by ISI at Yale in November, 2008. Read part one. Read part two.By training, I am an historian. I love the discipline and believe that historical mindedness—the ability to see and understand the grounding of current institutions, issues, and events in the complex matrix of the past—this is the superior way to make sense of reality.All the same, I have been troubled for over a decade by the growing interest of American conservatives in...

Over dinner with Milton Friedman several years before he died, I offered the great man a compliment. He refused it. I had just re-read God and Man at Yale, the 1951 book in which William F. Buckley Jr., denounced the leftist attitudes he had encountered among the Yale faculty and administration as an undergraduate. Buckley singled out the department of economics as the most collectivist department on the campus. "Today," I said, "nobody would call the economics department at a major university 'collectivist.'" Academia as a whole may have continued its long, sorry wobble to the left, I continued, but...

Improbable as it might seem, perhaps the most important fact for a voter or politician to know is: No one can make a pencil. That truth is the essence of a novella that is, remarkably, both didactic and romantic. Even more remarkable, its author is an economist. If you read Russell Roberts's "The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity" you will see the world afresh—unless you already understand Friedrich Hayek's idea of spontaneous order. Roberts, an economist at George Mason University and Stanford's Hoover Institution, sets his story in the Bay Area, where some Stanford students are...

Plans by the University of Chicago to establish a research institute named after legendary free-market economist Milton Friedman have caused an uproar at the school on the city's South Side. More than 100 tenured faculty members have signed letters and a petition opposing the institute, which would be paid for by private donations and would conduct research in economics, medicine, public policy and law. Critics say that they are concerned the institute will be a partisan, elitist organization and that it shouldn't be under the auspices of a university.

It's not often someone in the media challenges the liberal point-of-view - especially on the issue of taxes when they become a means to redistribute income. CNBC "Squawk Box" fill-in co-host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera wasn't afraid to buck the trend and challenge Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. Goolsbee appeared on the August 14 "Squawk Box" to defend an op-ed he wrote for the August 14 Wall Street Journal outlining Obama's tax plan. Caruso-Cabrera invoked the name of Milton Friedman, an economist who was a primary defender of free markets throughout the 20th century. Ironically, Friedman...