Milton Friedman

[Yeahman]

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8313925

I must admit that he had a considerable impact on my views. "Capitalism and Freedom" and "Free to Choose" are highly recommended reads. Not that I agree with his extreme measures. But at a time it was unpopular, he showed the world the deficiencies of socialism. You can't underestimate the effect he's had on economic politics in the last 30 years. He practically created Chile's economic system. Because of him nobody thinks that price ceilings are a good idea anymore. Ironically he gave us the payroll tax, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and I'm sure had a lot of influence under Reagan in transforming the Federal Reserve into a respectable institution.

He was on Charlie Rose last year I believe. And he was saying how a unified government wasn't good and that we need a divided government with Dems and Reps splitting Congress and the presidency.

Also, ironically, I was trying to get a hold of his PBS documentary as a Christmas gift for my dad. I couldn't find it but I imagine it'll be easier to find now.

[LaiSteve66]

Too bad people didn't start paying attention to him until stagflation when the flaws of Keynesian economics were exposed. At least that's my understanding of it.

[bluemonq]

i agree, nobody should talk about anything except iraq. if you do, you must be someone who hates america. i hope iraq's the only thing you ever talk about these days, ihatemalechinks. because you don't hate america, right?

oh, it's "trickle-down economics". what a laugh, can't even spell it right.

[Yeahman]

Uh... Reaganomics wasn't Friedman's idea. It had absolutely nothing to do with him. In fact supply-side theory opposes Friedman's monetarism to an extent.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

In general, I admire Friedman, but his descriptions of the Hong Kong economy completely missed the boat. Aside from tradable goods, it's blatantly not an example of positive non-interventionism ... the most obvious being in the property sector, where the government holds all the land, deliberately jacks up prices in order to deliver profits to a few oligopolists, then uses a small portion of the proceeds to put all the poor people who can't afford the jacked-up housing prices into crap public housing. Worse yet, this model is going on to infect Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, etc.

Anyway, rest in peace.