Milton Friedman: dead

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Not exactly sure whether to say RIP or not.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

cue the sound of grover norquist crying.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

huh. cue also a zillion op-eds debating his legacy, whether he's been misunderstood, whether his death is symbolic of the decline of movement conservatism, etc etc etc.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:15 (nineteen years ago)

good riddance

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

Well, the Rutgers Alumni family mourns the loss of a well-known, if not particularly great for the world, alumnus.

― B.L.A.M. (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

Well, the Rutgers Alumni family mourns the loss of a well-known, if not particularly great for the world, alumnus.

indeed -- the R.U. economics department NEVER let you forget that it was responsible for uncle miltie!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

i hope west virginia beats y'all.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

RIP.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

sorry for your loss, don.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:36 (nineteen years ago)

thanks man. all I have left are the memories.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

i will miss him

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

even if you all are socialist scum

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:54 (nineteen years ago)

in the spirit of pure curiosity, i wonder if all the thatcher haters on this board have a different suggestion for what could have been done with britain in the 1980s.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:00 (nineteen years ago)

I presume they might suggest burning you in effigy.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

hmm, that's not a bad idea. maybe they could have opened a govt ministry to give out jobs to effigy makers and burners.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:09 (nineteen years ago)

paid for out of the effigy workers tax money, natch.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:10 (nineteen years ago)

Lets Celebrate The 25th Anniversary Of Margaret Thatcher Coming To Power. May 03 1979

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

i wonder if all the thatcher haters on this board have a different suggestion for what could have been done with britain in the 1980s.

i would think that they have quite a few.

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:12 (nineteen years ago)

i think i phrased my question poorly. i'm interested in hearing their suggestions, not just whether they have any.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:29 (nineteen years ago)

I have long since stoppped arguing with Thatcher apologists - it's just not worth the stress.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:37 (nineteen years ago)

I never hated Freidman even if I didn't agree with much of his positions. He had a good sense of humor and was decent in debate mostly and I always loved that the monetarist god of the right lived in wacky, left-wing San Francsico.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:37 (nineteen years ago)

xpost. "Apologists" is a bit strong as there's not a hell of a lot of apologising going on. "Supporters" is more accurate.

― everything (everything), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:38 (nineteen years ago)

I kind of assumed he died about 30 years ago...

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:39 (nineteen years ago)

oh my god, ned, i don't care to argue with you. i'm just curious. i don't know much about british politics or economics and the bits that i have read suggest to me that britain's economy was bogged down by the massive state apparatus. i don't know enough about britain to argue. i just want some insight from people who were there.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

xposts. Apologist means someone who defends a position against attacks.

― Dan Barramouss (jimnaseum), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

"He said government should allow the free market to operate to solve inflation and other economic problems. But he also urged adoption of a "negative income tax" in which people who earn less than a certain amount would get money from the government." - From the AP obit.

I liked that his positions didn't come from fear and resentment but were essentially resurected Enlightenment utopianism, or rather, that many people who are associated with him are far more misanthropic than he was.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:41 (nineteen years ago)

The worst inefficiency in a free market is the distribution of information. Mr. Friedman undervalued this fact by (I believe) several orders of magnitude.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:41 (nineteen years ago)

unlike his pupils, he had the good sense to distance himself from South American dictators.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, i don't get the hate either, miguel, given that he was basically just fleshing out the the economic side of locke's ideas.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

aimless, i agree with that. the biggest problem with market theory (and most popular theories of justice) is its assumption of rationalism. i don't think there have been many credible attempts to address that although if you know of any i'm very interested.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:44 (nineteen years ago)

he had the good sense to distance himself from South American dictators

He did get a lot of stick for visiting Chile in '75.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:46 (nineteen years ago)

But never went back (as far as I know), though he made excuses for the Chicago boys. Whether his lack of direct contact was a principled stand or just how things worked out, I have no idea.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:49 (nineteen years ago)

given his basic commitment to liberty i would say it probably derived from his principles

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Sorry to sound so prickly but the whole 'there is no alternative' is pretty much the line trotted out by Thatcher and gang for years and years and so whenever someone says (however innocently) 'what was the alternative?' my natural reaction is to go somewhere else because i spent far too long back in the 80s and 90s arguing about that and getting exactly nowhere.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Thursday, 16 November 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

I still think Marx, who admired the force of capitalism was right about its natural tendency towards conglomeration and I would have far, far less against the results of 'free market' principles if the huge corporations that rule more of economy than they did when I was a kid were made more accountable and responsive locally and if they were somehow made to act as if their shareholders weren't their sole raisons d'être.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

i think that the brits may have more beef w/ friedman than americans do wr2 fiscal policy, in that thatcher was more upfront in her espousal and implementation of friedmanesque/monetarist ideas. reagan, on the other hand, used supply-side (which is another batch of poison altogether from monetarism) to sugarcoat his brand of economics (which, in many important ways, was much more keynesian than the reagan administration and THEIR apologists let on).

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

the one major issue i know about was the privatisation of council housing (this means govt owned housing, right?), which people think was a scam because "why should you have to pay for something you already own?" if selling the houses to their residents was no good, what would have been a better way to distribute the housing as part of a transition from socialism to capitalism. or should it not have been privatised? you have to understand that to an american this all seems very common sense le duh type stuff which means that we are operating in very different paradigms. i promise not to get catty.

xxpost

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

also, friedman was the dude responsible for direct withholding of federal taxes from paychecks -- he came up with that while working for the federal government during WWII. (he actually started off working FOR the new deal and FDR -- shockah!!)

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

ugh, the new deal. what a nightmare!

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

worst thing to happen to our economy in the 20th century except for the great depression.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:06 (nineteen years ago)

worst thing to happen to our economy in the 20th century except for the great depression.

?!?!?!?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

1. it didn't get us out of the depression.
2. it created a precedent of massive govt bureaucracy from which we have yet to recover.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

it did give the govt the credibility it needed to stay in power, so i suppose that was pretty positive.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

it pretty obviously shaped friedman's ideas

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

a very interesting case of politicians balancing their power with the economy on the fulcrum of the electorate

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

You would have loved D. Aziz.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

RIP
I don’t agree Aimless, Friedman understood the lack of perfect information in markets only too well, he wasn’t an idiot.
I thought Freidman made his name by "addressing" this assumption of rationalism by arguing it doesn’t matter if assumptions are flawed-- all that matters is accuracy of predictions.

― Kiwi (Kiwi), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

I'm ambivalent about his legacy, but drool like this is just marvelous:

He was a senior advisor to President Ronald Reagan who put these ideas into play during his transformative presidency.

When you look around the world, at newly capitalist economies sprouting up in Russia, Eastern Europe, China and India, you can’t help but see the hand of Friedman.

– Larry Kudlow

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:29 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, they applied his ideas pretty poorly

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:32 (nineteen years ago)

well, india actually seems pretty good, eastern europe is uneven, but russia and china are terrible. i predict that the russian state will fail within fifteen years.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Thursday, 16 November 2006 20:34 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 28 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

A right-winger addresses right-wingers -- no Friedman content but still good fun.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 November 2006 23:39 (nineteen years ago)

even if you all are socialist scum

Milton Friedman was a leftist when he younger and actually had a had in drafting some of the provisions in the New Deal.

― Cunga (Cunga), Friday, 17 November 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

someone already mentioned my trivia...

― Cunga (Cunga), Friday, 17 November 2006 00:13 (nineteen years ago)

setting aside everything else about the new deal - from the establishment of social security to the works progress administration - it got america working again under a massive federally-directed effort that was in many ways the perfect kind of practice run-up to the national mobilization of energy and resources required by world war II. it's quite easy to argue that wwii would have gone a very different direction without the new deal

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Friday, 17 November 2006 00:50 (nineteen years ago)

I wish more people had listened to him on the drug war.

― Pete Scholtes (Pete Scholtes), Friday, 17 November 2006 01:41 (nineteen years ago)

i was joking when i said "even if you all are socialist scum."

i'm not libertarian, either. i have a mostly classically liberal background but i am very much of a pragmatist when it comes to actual policy formation. i just think that friedman was pretty fucking smart and i thought someone should stand up for him after ned's snarky opening comment.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:30 (nineteen years ago)

and hstencil's, and shakey's, and gypsy's...

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:31 (nineteen years ago)

Smart != cannot be snarked about.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:36 (nineteen years ago)

He also had some pretty good ideas. He revolutionised parts of economics (and therefore government policy) with the quantity theory of money, the permanent income hypothesis and the natural rate of unemployment.
ILx probably wouldn't like his opinions regarding managers being solely agents of companies, but his logic is pretty hard to argue with in my opinion, and it definitely had a lasting impact. You don't have to agree with all of his ideas to be sorry he is dead.

― webber (webber), Friday, 17 November 2006 06:58 (nineteen years ago)

i was joking when i said "even if you all are socialist scum."

I know but sometimes I have an insatiable desire to get pieces of trivia off my chest. That was a perfect example of my problem.

Smart != cannot be snarked about.

Why wouldn't he get a rest in peace from you anyway?

― Cunga (Cunga), Friday, 17 November 2006 07:01 (nineteen years ago)

i'm not gonna dig up the adrienne shelley thread but didn't someone get ip banned for being snarky there? some people are sad about friedman's death, you know.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 07:02 (nineteen years ago)

of course if friedman was an attractive woman no one would have taken him seriously, sadly

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 07:03 (nineteen years ago)

not that i'm suggesting a ban, just some respect

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 07:06 (nineteen years ago)

Perfect for a message board, whaddya mean?

BAN ALL ATTRACTIVE WOMEN!!

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 17 November 2006 07:54 (nineteen years ago)

i just think that friedman was pretty fucking smart and i thought someone should stand up for him after ned's snarky opening comment. ... and hstencil's, and shakey's, and gypsy's...

i wasn't even snarky! i don't know enough about economics to be snarky. although having lived through reagonomics and bushynomics i sure's fuck know enough to be skeptical.

these big sweeping anti-statist declarations might have looked smart mid-century if you believed gubmint=stalinism, but that stance itself looks as quaint and narrow now as any 1930s proletarianism. i guess what i've never understood about these prometheus-unbound types is why it's so hard for them to admit to how fast their "liberty" turns into rank rancid greedheadism. they'll excuse any goddamn thing as long as it's not got the taint of state on it. (even though inevitably it does anyway, since the free marketeers know how to game the public system way better than any cadillac crack whore.)

my superficial uneducated take on friedman is that he was right about some things that look pretty basic from the current vantage -- allowing that part of the reason they look basic is received wisdom from friedman -- but also terribly naive, didactic and narrowly ideological on other points.

and he can r.i.p. all he wants, that's fine. but the man lived for argument, so he couldn't have taken offense at people arguing over him post-mortem.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 17 November 2006 09:13 (nineteen years ago)

and the keynesian policies that held favor in the 1920s combined with irrational investor behavior made the crash sort of inevitable.
-- a name means a lot just by itself (lfamula...), November 16th, 2006.

hahahahaha you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 09:16 (nineteen years ago)

was it all to do with the mismanagement of the federal reserves as the guardian obit says? please enlighten

― barbarian cities (jaybob3005), Friday, 17 November 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

clue: j. m. keynes had nuthin to do with it.

― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 11:15 (nineteen years ago)

that's ok then.

― barbarian cities (jaybob3005), Friday, 17 November 2006 11:19 (nineteen years ago)

Friedman was probably the greatest economist of the 20th century. He got some things wrong, sometimes he wasn't very political astute (hi Chile), and some of his theories never bore out the way he thought he did. He was a useful tool for many, which at times clouds his great contributions. There is no denying the genius of his economic mind or his profound influence on research and theory. The guy earned his legend status many times over.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 17 November 2006 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

and like gypsy noted, he is reknown for his desire to argue like a motherfucker. he probably loved snark as much as anyone around here.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 17 November 2006 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

maybe friedman is the right's marx, in respect of the "ok every application of his ideas was a fucking disaster but he was good people" meme. only friedman actively backed fascist dictatorships.

― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

is the fact that every open economy on the planet controls their economic activity via interest rates "a fucking disaster"? because it seems to work pretty well to me

― webber (webber), Friday, 17 November 2006 13:05 (nineteen years ago)

"ok every application of his ideas was a fucking disaster but he was good people"

that's bullshit.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 17 November 2006 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

not to mention that depicting Marx as legitimate economist doesn't pass the laugh test.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 17 November 2006 13:16 (nineteen years ago)

looking round post-thatcher britain, i'm comfortable calling disaster, bucko.

― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:36 (nineteen years ago)

is the fact that every open economy on the planet controls their economic activity via interest rates "a fucking disaster"? because it seems to work pretty well to me

-- webber (mrs_shiple...), November 17th, 2006 1:05 PM. (webber) (later) (link)

otm, Friedman pointing out the relationship between money supply and inflation was pretty essential in postwar economic growth.

― Dionne Warrick Dunn football psychic hotline (Matt Chesnut), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:45 (nineteen years ago)

you talk about 'economic growth' like its evenly spread across society which it isn't; and anyway if friedman's thinking on money supply was in play during the postwar recovery, how to account for the 70s?! i think you overplay his role before then.

― benrique (Enrique), Friday, 17 November 2006 14:52 (nineteen years ago)

I obviously can't account for uneven distribution of wealth, but 'economic growth' isn't a meaningless accomplishment. And you're right that Friedman's monetarism didn't really begin until following the stagflation period.

But as for the inflation in the 70s (I can only speak for the US) came from Fed reserve chiefs being dumbasses and raising the money supply too much, causing inflation which later caused slowdown. Rather than solve the inflation problem by raising interest rates, they put more money in thinking that the eceonomy needed more stimulus with lower interest rates and this just exacerbated the problem further. OPEC certainly didn't help.

― Dionne Warrick Dunn football psychic hotline (Matt Chesnut), Friday, 17 November 2006 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

"economic growth" is such a fudge word it's crazy; saying you can't account for uneven income distribution just makes it obvious

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Friday, 17 November 2006 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

sorry benrique, i meant to say catchings, not keynesian! i got my tit in a twister over the whole thing.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

i'd like to see who of marx's contemporaries don thinks described capitalism and its social consequences better.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Friday, 17 November 2006 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

Here's a good debunking of Monetarism
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-chimonetarism.htm

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 17 November 2006 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

i'd like to see who of marx's contemporaries don thinks described capitalism and its social consequences better

Marx wasn't an economist, so I don't know what you're getting at.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 17 November 2006 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

xpost to tracer

I'm not really in love with Friedman, as his (and his disciples) blind eye to things like uneven income distribution is troubling to me, but I don't think his contributions were competely without merit.

― Dionne Warrick Dunn football psychic hotline (Matt Chesnut), Friday, 17 November 2006 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

Can we all agree that Friedman is 100 times livelier and more entertaining than his followers?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 17 November 2006 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

he didn't so much turn a blind eye to uneven income distribution as much as he accepted it as a natural part of a free society

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

A bit like Christ saying "You'll always have the poor," then.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 17 November 2006 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

I prefer the 'hang self on own rope' option here.

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 17 November 2006 19:22 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

this fucking guy

― metally ill (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 June 2011 15:43 (fourteen years ago)

haha they quote the woman who was temporarily my thesis advisor

the thing reads like an onion article "the goateed Friedman says, wiggling his toes in pink Vibram slippers."

― iatee, Friday, 3 June 2011 15:48 (fourteen years ago)

look forward to this asshole drowning in a pile of garbage off the coast

― metally ill (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 June 2011 15:51 (fourteen years ago)

Everything about that article is hilarious. They're going to build a floating libertopia because "Like Muni is so slow." hahaha With $2 million.

― unmetalled world (wk), Friday, 3 June 2011 17:04 (fourteen years ago)

Friedman's mission is to open a political vacuum into which people can experiment with startup governments that are "consumer-oriented, constantly competing for citizens," he says.

stabstabstab

― boots get knocked from here to czechoslovakier (milo z), Friday, 3 June 2011 17:06 (fourteen years ago)

Disney Corp. tried something like that already, I think. In Florida. Last I heard it was not going according to plan.

― Aimless, Friday, 3 June 2011 17:11 (fourteen years ago)

When asked what his team is working on right now, Friedman leaps up and writes "SEASTEADING" on the whiteboard, circling it and drawing four lines down, "RESEARCH, LAW, BUSINESS, MOVEMENT," underlining each before collapsing back into his chair and checking his phone.

http://kistenet.com/brandon/images/Blog/2010/May/Characters/Glengarry%20Glen%20Ross.jpg

― buzza, Friday, 3 June 2011 17:12 (fourteen years ago)

you're crazy aimless, disneyworld is awesome

― iatee, Friday, 3 June 2011 17:13 (fourteen years ago)

patri friedman: dying

― http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhiteAmericanFolks.jpg (nakhchivan), Friday, 3 June 2011 17:16 (fourteen years ago)

haha, the epcot parallel is kind of funny though. was supposed to be a utopian city of the future, but after walt died, the free market decided that it should become just another amusement park selling Disney merchandise. I don't see why the same thing wouldn't happen here. if you had a bit of money and got some control over the place, wouldn't you just kick out the loser libertarians and turn it into a floating casino/brothel/opium den for tourists?

― unmetalled world (wk), Friday, 3 June 2011 17:18 (fourteen years ago)

My goodness, if I ever wondered what would happen if hippies became financially ultra conservative now I know.

― EDB, Friday, 3 June 2011 18:35 (fourteen years ago)

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