What Would Milton Say?

Milton Friedman was one of the greatest economists of our time. He was the grandmaster of free-market economic theory in the postwar era and a prime force in the movement of nations toward less government and greater reliance on individual responsibility.


Milton was brilliant. He was a recipient of the Nobel prize in economic science. He was enjoyable to listen to. He passed away at age 94 in 2006.

In my series of articles about the size of government and the exploding deficit & US debt, one wonders what Milton would have said about this. I'm sure he would have commented on how quickly our presidents & Congress have inserted themselves into the picture in the past twelve months, such as:

• Bail out of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac mortgage companies
  
• Bail out & significant ownership of insurance giant, AIG
• The $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
• Bail out & stakeholder ownership of General Motors & Chrysler
• The $787 billion economic recovery package
• Congress (and now the President) intent on controlling executive compensation
• The Obama administration's insistence that the GM chief executive, Rick Wagoner, step down
• An onerous cap & trade bill that was passed by the House
• An effort by the federal government to gain significant control over health care in the US, even it is means going $1 trillion further into debt over the coming decade
• Appointment of about 30 czars (and the expense of their staff & budgets) by the White House for about every government intrusion imaginable
• Ongoing "pork barrel" spending by Republicans & Democrats alike
  

In this interview, Milton explains the dynamics that naturally lead toward collectivism---and away from the far preferable state of individual liberty.

Milton's point about power-hungry politicians couldn't be more poignantly illustrated than last fall when now current White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel said regarding this current series of massive government interventions that You don't ever want to let a crisis go to waste: It's an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid. It appears that he wants to use a temporary crisis as a pretense to engineer a permanent increase in the size of government.



In regard to Milton's very last point in this video segment, one significant example this year has been the Tax Day Tea Parties that have aroused the interests of so many American citizens.