Posts Tagged ‘Milton Friedman’
Obama vs. Friedman on Capitalism
Obama on Capitalism (source):
… there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.
Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. (Laughter.) But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. (Applause.) It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.
Friedman on Capitalism:
Milton Friedman talks about “greed”
As true today as it was 30 years ago.
For all you younger people out there, Phil Donahue was a left-wing TV talk show host back in the 1970s and 80s, before the Americans discovered AM talk radio. Of course, there were no conservative voices on TV.
I recall Donahue often being a much more argumentative sort than is shown in this clip, kind of like a left-wing version of Sean Hannity. In fact, my disdain for gotcha interview techniques, from either the left or from the Americans, dates back to The Donahue Show. However, this interview appears to be one of the few times he actually let his conservative guest speak.
Milton Friedman was a great American.
