Milton Friedman, 1912-2006

[Jimbean]

Milton Friedman, an economist known as the leading monetarist, died today at the age of 94.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/econom...n_x.htm?csp=34

I wonder what type he was?

[Expat]

I think ENTj is likely.

[Dioklecian]

[Dioklecian]

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
Milton Friedman

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
Milton Friedman

Governments never learn. Only people learn.
Milton Friedman

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
Milton Friedman

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
Milton Friedman

I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
Milton Friedman

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
Milton Friedman

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
Milton Friedman

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
Milton Friedman

Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.
Milton Friedman

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Milton Friedman

The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.
Milton Friedman

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
Milton Friedman

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.
Milton Friedman

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.
Milton Friedman

The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes.
Milton Friedman

The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.
Milton Friedman

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.
Milton Friedman

The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.
Milton Friedman

There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Milton Friedman

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
Milton Friedman

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
Milton Friedman

[Dioklecian]

With respect to teachers' salaries .... Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output... A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it can make an important contribution to a stable economic society.
The Counter-Revolution in Monetary Theory (1970)
With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.
Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin ISBN 067080410X
The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic foundation of the free market system they purport to represent and defend.
Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin
Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.
"An Open Letter to Bill Bennett" in The Wall Street Journal (7 September 1989)
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.
Interview by John Hawkins (16 September 2003)
There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.
Fox News interview (May 2004)
'The Federal Reserve definately caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of money in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933'
National Public Radio interview (Jan 1996)
'The stock of money, prices and output was decidedly more unstable after the establishment of the Reserve System than before. The most dramatic period of instability in output was, of course, the period between the two wars, which includes the severe (monetary) contractions of 1920-1, 1929-33, and 1937-8. No other 20 year period in American history contains as many as three such severe contractions.
This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during and just after World War I is attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System... and that the severity of each of the major contractions - 1920-1, 1929-33 and 1937-8 is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, (so) that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power wihtout any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank... To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers.'

The Money Masters The Money Masters Video: [1]

'I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression'
The Money Masters The Money Masters Video: [2]





One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programmes by their intentions rather than their results.'The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure that I would as of today push it as hard as I once did'
Financial Times [UK] June 7, 2003

'I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintainence of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind. It requires a willingness to put up with temporary evils on the basis of the subtle and sophisticated understanding that if you step in to do something about them you not only may make them worse, you will spread your tenticles and get bad results elsewhere.'
Interview with Richard Heffner, The Open Mind, December 7, 1975
'The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them
Interview with Brian Lamb, In Depth Book TV, 2000

[Dioklecian]

image missing

[Dioklecian]

Wife looks ESFP

[Dioklecian]

Err wife is ISTJ IMO.

[Dioklecian]

[Dioklecian]

I think ENTj is likely.

Me too. Why do you think that Expat?

[Gilly]

E
N
T
j

F
T
W

[Expat]

I think ENTj is likely.

Me too. Why do you think that Expat?

From his writings, interviews, and from watching him in his series Free to Choose, especially when debating with others in the final segments -- his style was sheer emotion-creating Te, that is, demolishing other people's arguments with pitiless courtesy throughout. Not much Se or Fe.

[Expat]

Two good examples of what I meant above --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxXmW7zjj6M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDNgggITxfU

That's a real ENTj there.

[CuriousSoul]

Milton Friedman said this and that...

I do not believe in typing by quoting.
I have no idea what really works though.

[Dioklecian]

Milton Friedman said this and that...

I do not believe in typing by quoting.
I have no idea what really works though.

MYstic I don't type only by quotes, they are there to help me and others know more about the person. Quotes are some the few things that are easily available on line, so I try to make some use of them.

[World Socionics]

I'd say someone with Introverted Logic in his Ego Block.



"You're not arguing about principle"

Glad to use this video validly to support my argument for once.

[Suz]

He's ISTp. The vast majority of his reasoning—if you actually pay attention to what he consistently writes and lectures about—tends to be primarily substantive () in nature. Example:

But how would that be not consistent with ENTj? (Te-dom)
i.e. why are you opting for ISTp > ENTj?

[Jenna]

ILI

[Capitalist Pig]

I have never truly understood the appeal of Milton "Money Matters" Friedman. Sure, he gained favor with libertarians for being openly critical of public healthcare, and I certainly give props for his valiant opposition to the War on Drugs, despite the alienating effect it had on his conservative fan base (see his open letter to the US Drug Czar in 1989). However, I question the noteworthiness and originality of Milton Friedman's alleged contributions to economic theory. His monetary analysis, as detailed in the highly overrated A Monetary History of the United States, 1867 - 1960 (1963), suffers from the antinomy of the obvious influence of Friedrich Hayek's veracious treatment of the Great Depression (correctly inculpating the Federal Reserve for pursuing a policy of reckless monetary expansion throughout the Roaring Twenties), yet simultaneously rejecting a specie standard (such as gold) in favor of fiat money. From there, Milton Friedman continued on to antagonize the Keynesians with his restatement of the quantity theory of money, naïvely stipulating the central bank's role as custodian of the money supply and progenitor of long-term economic growth. In this respect, there was cohesion between the Monetarists and the Keynesians; they both concede a central bank to constitute a vital instrument for economic adjustment, boiling the argument down to the petty details of the ideal means to achieving that end.

Long story short, they are both wrong.

Though Friedman has the relief of only being half-wrong, if only because his theory of money is merely incomplete. Perhaps he should have paid closer attention to Hayek when they were colleagues at the University of Chicago. The Austrians had already established a fairly comprehensive macroeconomic model and fully developed monetary theory.

[ArchonAlarion]

His son, David Friedman (The Machinery of Freedom, Hidden Order) is awesome though. He is a consequentialist, Chicago School style anarcho-capitalist.

Also, he is an infamous member of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism; ancient/medieval/renaissance crafts, history, sport-fighting/warfare, etc.), known as "Duke Cariadac of the Bow", and a Fantasy novelist.

SCA lore:

"One day, almost 30 years ago, Cariadoc of the Bow, the King of the Middle, got bored with peace and declared war upon the East, loser to take Pittsburgh. The King of the East read the declaration of war, filed it away and forgot about it. Time passed. Cariadoc moved to New York and subsequently became King of the East, whereupon he retrieved the declaration from the file cabinet and said, 'Let’s fight.' The Middle won, and Cariadoc has the distinction of being the only king who declared war upon himself and lost."

I want to meet him at an SCA event so badly lol.

[717495]

I agree total deltaness going on zomg.

See I'm happy for people like Ashton who stress some level of precision in typings lol, just makes me feel hopeful for humanity in general.

[ashlesha]

I agree total deltaness going on zomg.

See I'm happy for people like Ashton who stress some level of precision in typings lol, just makes me feel hopeful for humanity in general.

what do you mean by "precision?"

[Capitalist Pig]

I do respect Milton Friedman for his contributions in the realm of free-market activism; otherwise I agree with you that he contributed little of original value in the way of theory that the Austrian school hadn't already conceived better—though it typically goes that the best theoreticians tend to be lousy promoters.

I think Milton's friend and colleague, George Stigler (also a student of Frank Knight), was much more interesting for his exposé on the tendency of economic interventionism and regulatory agencies to serve the interests of lobbyists and major firms within the scope of bureaucratic oversight, termed regulatory capture. Sadly the public choice theorists prefer to ignore the underlying issue and ask, "How can we mitigate this outcome in the future?"

His son, David Friedman (The Machinery of Freedom, Hidden Order) is awesome though. He is a consequentialist, Chicago School style anarcho-capitalist.

Eh, I don't really care for his economics, either.

[Absurd]

Polikujm.

[717495]

what do you mean by "precision?"

Just that on a lot of typings people spout some bullsh** on how they fit the stereotype yet don't understand enough about the specific cognition which makes them that way or not. Always some half-ass hunch that doesn't appropriate to the big picture, rather adhering to peoples' lazy conceptual process that forms their understanding of types in the first place. So by precise I essentially mean well-understood in foundation and diversity.

[mikemex]

Milton Friedman was IEI. I had a teacher at the school who was an almost carbon copy of him.

[World Socionics]

He's ISTp. The vast majority of his reasoning—if you actually pay attention to what he consistently writes and lectures about—tends to be primarily substantive () in nature. Example:

Telling someone where the different parts of a pencil comes from isn't something I'd necessarily see as down to in the ego block. What I am baffled by is how you are able to call him a Delta Logical when this video is so focused.

[World Socionics]

Nevertheless, I wouldn't call him Fe PoLR.

[glam]

Just that on a lot of typings people spout some bullsh** on how they fit the stereotype yet don't understand enough about the specific cognition which makes them that way or not. Always some half-ass hunch that doesn't appropriate to the big picture, rather adhering to peoples' lazy conceptual process that forms their understanding of types in the first place. So by precise I essentially mean well-understood in foundation and diversity.

why so arrogant man

[mikemex]

Aristocracy should be obvious and the profiency about Fe. So EIE or IEI. I rule out EIE because he wasn't really a show man.