Cynical Nation

I can't say that I agreed with him on much, but he was amazingly consistent, and that's really something.

> I can't say that I agreed with him on much...

Well, he opposed the war in Iraq (although his wife didn't.)

I know I'm biased here, but I can't see as how much that he said should be controversial. He fought against centralized planning of economies and fought for freedom and liberty, economic and otherwise.

One of the world's greatest economists, certainly THE best over the last forty years.

Right up there with von Mises & Hayek.

Ever notice how there really aren't any true economists who are Keynesians?

Hell, Karlo Marx wasn't an economist, in fact, J M Keynes himself was NOT a trained economist, either.

If you look at the Nobel Prize for Economics, there is hardly a one over the past fifty years that hasn't gone to a Free Marketeer - either a Supply-Sider, a Moneterist (like Friedman) or a member of "the Austrian School" (like von Mises and Hayek).

The question is, "Why would ANYone try and rationalize central planning and the state managed ecconomy?"

Maybe it just "sounds good" to the economically ignorant?

At any rate, it's hard to figure.

One of the greats of his field and a strong defender of freedom and liberty.

He will be greatly missed.

The WSJ Journal lionized him today, noting the times they've disagreed (over set exchange rates and drug legalization), saying, "Getting spanked by Milton Friedman is one of life's most humiliating experiences."

Dick Armey remembered asking some Eastern Block nations how they turned their economies around so drastically, claiming they answered, "With free market economy,"

"But HOW? How so quickly?" he asked.

By reading this," they reportedly answered, holding up a copy of Friedman's, Free to Choose.

Before Friedman and Rothbard, most economists, and thus most people believed the Great Depression was the result of a "market failure."

Even Alan Greenspan once believed that.

Friedman proved that it was the 31% contraction in the money supply that actually caused and deepened the Depression and FDR's government spending actually deepened and lengethened it.

There were 3.5 million Americans out of work in January of 1933, when FDR took office, and over 12 million out of work by December of 1941.

Friedman proved that the contraction of the money spply created the "Great Depression" and Rothbard proved that World War II, NOT FDR's Keynesian social spending got America out of it.

The great thing is that Friedman's legacy lives on in "The Chicago School" or "The Monetarist School" of economics.