13 March 2009

Your Friday Friedman. (UPDATED)

Econiomist Milton Friedman, some 30 years ago, nailed the problem with The Obama Deal:



We need more like him.

Hattip: My buddy Karl.

UPDATE: What?? The White House agrees?

UPDATE 14MAR09: Via Instapundit, Ilya Somin over at The Volokh Conspiracy points out the utter hypocracy of the Administration's sudden embrace of Gordon Gekko. Read it all.

3 comments:

Ontario Emperor said...

While Friedman is right in the power of greed as a motivator, I can think of three examples in which collective action, rather than individual action, advanced the economy dramatically.

1. The Interstate Highway System, which was not individual initiative, but a military project. (Don't think Phil would necessarily care for that.)

2. The Internet, which was also a military project.

3. Milton Friedman's own education, in which he maximized his economic potential by accepting government money for education.

As an aside, I miss Phil Donahue. While I do not agree with him politically, he was able to ask the right questions and do so in a thoughtful way. (I'm trying to imagine a modern economist showing up on The View.)

Anonymous said...

Contrary to popular belief, the internet was *not* a military project.

.....CLIFFORD said...

"the internet was *not* a military project."

Are you sure? Al Gore was in Vietnam for a few days...