Milton Friedman's Free to Choose - Page 6 - Politics and Economics

bobman0330 · 08-07-2012, 10:30 AM

The amount of confirmed furiousness from both the Misesians and the lefties makes MF look pretty strong ITT.

AlexM · 08-07-2012, 04:42 PM

Freedom costs a buck o' five IMO.

neverfoldthe1outer · 08-07-2012, 06:23 PM

I love the part where he talks about the south china sea being a shining beacon of capitalism(thanks to gov. non-intervention)....and forgets to mention it is a major source of revenue for pirates.

valenzuela · 08-07-2012, 11:24 PM

Milton Friedman defended the chilean economic system in 1980 and he said that we were on our way too prosperity, etc. In 1982 we had an awful crisis and even the military junta realized that complete laisses-faire was madness and they made some adjustments.
He also said that capitalism and democracy go in hand which is obviously wrong as proved by Asia in the last decade.

I do give him credit for realizing drugs and hookers should be legal though.

74Offsuit · 08-08-2012, 06:28 PM

Freidman is certainly a controversial figure in the UK too. On her election in 1979 Thatcher adopted monetarist policies to control inflation. Inflation fell but unemployment increased from around 1 million to 3.6 million and British industy was decimated. Between '78 and '83 manufacturing output dropped by 30%. (Source).

In her second term Thatcher threw Friedman under the bus and claimed she 'never subscribed' to monetarism. lol.

insidemanpoker · 08-08-2012, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 74Offsuit

Freidman is certainly a controversial figure in the UK too. On her election in 1979 Thatcher adopted monetarist policies to control inflation. Inflation fell but unemployment increased from around 1 million to 3.6 million and British industy was decimated. Between '78 and '83 manufacturing output dropped by 30%. (Source).

In her second term Thatcher threw Friedman under the bus and claimed she 'never subscribed' to monetarism. lol.

Causation/Correlation sir. Anyway, it's a great series and whether you agree with him or not, he provides his opinions very pragmatically and with understandable reason. So pick apart the content of what he says if you disagree and avoid the pissing match over the personality crap.

valenzuela · 08-08-2012, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by insidemanpoker

Causation/Correlation sir. Anyway, it's a great series and whether you agree with him or not, he provides his opinions very pragmatically and with understandable reason. So pick apart the content of what he says if you disagree and avoid the pissing match over the personality crap.

The stuff on the series look great on youtube but not so great when those policies are actually implemented.

neverfoldthe1outer · 08-08-2012, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valenzuela

The stuff on the series look great on youtube but not so great when those policies are actually implemented.

doesn't even look great on youtube imo. "Hey everybody, we can live like Hong Kong! Let's do it!"

74Offsuit · 08-08-2012, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by insidemanpoker

Causation/Correlation sir. Anyway, it's a great series and whether you agree with him or not, he provides his opinions very pragmatically and with understandable reason. So pick apart the content of what he says if you disagree and avoid the pissing match over the personality crap.

I understand correlation/causation, but economics is not a hard science. I think real world examples where policies he advocated have been implemented are relevant to the discussion. How else are you going to assess the effects?

I don't recall anyone criticizing Mr Friedman's personality in this thread.

valenzuela · 08-08-2012, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neverfoldthe1outer

doesn't even look great on youtube imo. "Hey everybody, we can live like Hong Kong! Let's do it!"

Lets be fair, it does look good on the video.

State education = rich kids having fun on the pool and teachers that dont care.
Private education = kids working hard and teachers that care.

LirvA · 08-08-2012, 10:47 PM

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Although Friedman never visited Estonia, his book Free to Choose exercised a great influence on that nation's then 32-year-old prime minister, Mart Laar, who has claimed that it was the only book on economics he had read before taking office. Laar's reforms are often credited with responsibility for transforming Estonia from an impoverished Soviet Republic to the "Baltic Tiger." A prime element of Laar's program was introduction of the flat tax. Laar won the 2006 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, awarded by the Cato Institute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton..._and_influence

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Mart Laar (born April 22, 1960) is an Estonian statesman, historian and a founding member of the Foundation for the Investigation of Communist Crimes.[2] He was the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002,[3] and is the leader of the conservative party Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica. Mart Laar is credited with having brought about Estonia’s rapid economic development in the 1990s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart_Laar

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Economic reforms

Estonia benefited from hindsight, in that its transition came two years after the transitions in the other former Soviet satellites of Central Europe. Estonia was able to implement many of their lessons while seemingly avoiding pitfalls.[14] Three innovations to the study of economic transitions stand out:

Hybrid privatization. By combining the Hungarian and Treuhand models on the one hand, with the Czech voucher privatization program on the other, Estonia implemented a hybrid privatization system which was perceived as both just and efficient while avoiding the pitfalls of the earlier models. Laar’s director of privatization was Jaan Manitski, a Swede-Estonian and former manager of the Swedish pop group ABBA. His primary advisor on privatization was the German economist Herbert B. Schmidt[15]
Flat tax. Estonia under Laar was the first country to implement a flat tax, which was partially emulated by some other countries, including Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania and others. Russia, for example, dramatically increased tax collection revenues while slashing tax rates. Laar claims the only book on economics he had read before becoming prime minister at the age of 32 was Free to Choose by Milton Friedman,[16] although according to his autobiography he is a Conservative, not a Libertarian.
Banking reform. Laar implemented harsh banking reform by encouraging the bankruptcy of banks suspected of having been taken over by the mafia. Though the International Monetary Fund at the time criticized this policy (as they did the Estonian policy of leaving the ruble zone in 1992), it was proven successful as Estonia did not suffer a banking crisis later as other transition countries did (even the Czech Republic). After 2000, the Yugoslavian reformers applied this same policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart_L...onomic_reforms

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As of 2012, Estonia remains the only euro member with a budget surplus, and with a national debt of only 6%, it is one of the least indebted countries in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia#Economy

valenzuela · 08-09-2012, 12:37 AM

That post shows how stupid your political position is. You are implying that the 2 most important things to know the welfare of a country are budget surplus and national debt.

With that said, flat taxes arent a bad idea in ex-soviet countries because there is a lot of tax evasion, however that doesnt mean flat taxes is a good idea for the rest of the world. Also I can definetly get behind letting banks owned by the mafia go broke, if Friedman is behind that idea, then give the man credit.

JayTeeMe · 08-09-2012, 08:11 PM

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Originally Posted by Ashington

Great thread and discussion JayTeeMe

Before I watch the series (and I do intend to watch), I have a question pertaining to the bolded. I understand Friedman's advocacy of free trade, and for the most part I agree with his theories. That said, in the series does he address the reality that "free trade" really isn't free at all when your trading partners are mercantilist/protectionist?

We get into freely trading with partners who use subsidies, etc. in part 2.

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Originally Posted by Doctor Zeus

Or that you can't have free trade with closed labour markets?
Does he talk about border control? Would be interesting imho

He seems to be very pro-open borders.

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Originally Posted by Regret$

That quote on welfare makes me wanna throw up. There are a lot of reasons that welfare could be good, or even better than without it, but milt just loves to talk in absolutes.

One of the things I really like about him is he seems to never talk in absolutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashington

You are correct. I was being sarcastic. What he did was to suggest that by eliminating welfare programs you will lessen the # of individuals on welfare (ldo) and in turn reduce poverty (not so obvious).

Fortunately we have the benefit of hindsight and can see from welfare reform in the 90s that his prediction was mostly false.

Using hindsight to evaluate the effects of Milt's ideas (that have largely been enacted) was exactly what I had in mind for a thread.

JayTeeMe · 08-09-2012, 08:38 PM

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Originally Posted by zikzak

Oh man, I don't know if I can hang. Fifteen minutes of this patronizing monologue has me on monkey tilt. Does it ever move past the point of being "Market Economics for Children"?

Well, the target audience was a typical PBS viewer. And the benefits of free trade weren't widely discussed by anyone in 1980, thus the need for the series.

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And claiming that Hong Kong thrived due to the absence of government involvement is pretty lol. Its very existence is 100% due to one of the worst examples of colonial oppression in history. HK also has the highest use of public transit in the world, most of that transit having been proposed and built by government, under recommendation by the government's urban planners. This all happened in the 70's, before Friedman paid his visit.

Friedman is advocating free trade, not abolishing the government. You're not arguing with pvn here.

As Friedman says "In all this, the government of Hong Kong has played an important part, not only in what it has done but as much by what it has refrained from doing. It has ensured that laws are enforced and contracts honored. It has provided the conditions in which a free market can function. It has not tried to direct the economy...There are no tarriffs or trade subsidies; Hong Kong is too depended on foreign trade."

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That's just a couple things off the top of my head. You'd have to be wearing pretty wide blinders to say that HK circa 1980 was a market utopia. It was poor, filthy, dangerous and desperate.

"Hong Kong is very far from utopia. It has its slums, its crime, its desperately poor people. But the people are free, that's why so many people have come here. Here, they have the freedom and the opportunity to better themselves, to improve their lot and many succeed."

To paraphrase, their conditions are appauling to us as we're far richer. But their conditions are not viewed as poor by the majority of the world. To them, the conditions as they exist in Hong Kong are something to aspire to.

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Originally Posted by zikzak

zOMG I missed the biggest ironyment so far. This thing originally aired on... PBS.

Was Friedman anti-PBS or something?

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Originally Posted by zikzak

17:20 "What brought together the people that made this pencil? It wasn't government."

50 seconds earlier...

16:30 "This eraser is rubber from Malaya, where the trees aren't native. They were imported by a businessman with help from the British government."

I think you missed the point of that story. Amazingly, literally thousands of people worked together without ever knowing it to make something as simple as a pencil. All without any central planner dictating they do so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zikzak

18:00 - Back in Hong Kong, now we're at the border extolling the virtues of FREEDOM one side and TYRANNY on the other.

I'm trying to give this thing a fair and balanced viewing, but this is straight up Cold War propaganda.

The people of Hong Kong are free. They have no democracy but they enjoy a tremendous amount of civil and economic freedom. The state of affairs in China was definitely tyranny. How far past Tianamen Square were we in 1980?

**Regret$** · 08-09-2012, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayTeeMe

One of the things I really like about him is he seems to never talk in absolutes.

Like in this one where he says 'the only cases in human history are where they had free trade' (a little big paraphrased ~1:00-ish). It is like he immediately simplifies every situation into free commerce good, everything else bad. His memory is very selective in supporting his case.

Maybe I am missing something.