Milton Friedman Discusses John Maynard Keynes

To Watch the Entire Free to Choose series:
http://commonsensecapitalism.blogspot.com/p/free-to-choose.html

http://commonsensecapitalism.blogspot.com

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• milton friedman
• john maynard keynes
• common sense capitalism

[itcanbecheezcaketime]

Ironically, I wish Friedman would have lived another 6 years. I wonder what he would say today.

[UngratefulLiving420]

@bigge525 Yes its funny how people blame the "failure of the free market" for things like the housing crisis. But in a free market, the banks/lenders set the interest rates and decide who qualifies for a loan, not the government. Thats why the banks got insurance on the risky mortgages from, say, AIG. Looking at the risk/reward, AIG really shouldnt have insured all those bad mortgages, but they mustve felt less risk knowing that if shit really hit the fan, the govt could NEVER let them fail...

[tugger]

@itcanbecheezcaketime Neither deflation/inflation are bad things in themselves. There are overall fluctuations in currency value due to 'natural' phenomena.

[tugger]

@zacharycat: That's where you are mistaken. Capitalism is not an idea. It was not conceptualized into being. It is the name we have given free exchange between free individuals. Sort of like how Evolution is not an invention, it is a discovery.

[SrijitSanyal]

So generous. In reality, even Keynes' own original teachings were horribly unclear on the point that "stimulative" activities only applied during the persistence of an output gap - that stimulus pressing against potential output would yield inflation not growth. The root problem was his overemphasis on the "outmodedness" of the Classical doctrines which preceded him. Keynes did have a valuable contribution - he taught us to care about aggregate demand. But Friedman knew he got a lot else wrong.

[Greylin91]

321 banks in the USA have been allowed to fail since 2008. Just sayin' brah.

[zacharycat]

Friedman's points about taking any idea to an extreme are valid. That includes Keynesianism, socialism, or laissez-faire capitalism.

[itcanbecheezcaketime]

@migkillertwo

That's ridiculous. Anyone would agree that deflation is a bad thing.. and so is inflation. But the banks and the monopolies falsely prop up the value of the money in the first place. They should not be there to begin with. You're missing the bigger picture here. He would not agree that taking taxes from people to prop up huge, multi-national, mega-banks is what we should do. Absolutely not! He would say LET THEM FALL. Let the economy return to its natural state.

[SuperGuitarman69]

@migkillertwo In regards to what Milton Friedman would of thought of the bank bailouts? For you even to suggest that Milton was such a monetarist and would have favored bank bailouts is insane.. I served in 1996 on a think tank team under his direction in the mid west.. We knew that this was going to happen.. We seen policy factors that were trending in the direction of Nationalization of the banks.. Friedman was completely against this.. Banks needed to fail.. We all said it!

[SuperGuitarman69]

@migkillertwo Doesn't matter what you wrote.. Krugman is a moron.. He was pushing that Fannie and Freddie were solvent.. When Peter was screaming at the top of his lungs (including me) that it was going to crash housing.. Secondly, we are expected to hit 8.2% inflation this year.. So Schiff was correct once again.. The trend will not end if Obama remains in office.. And as far as Krugman goes? He isn't worth discussing. He is paid off by the Democratic party.. A Princeton reject

[migkillertwo]

@itcanbecheezcaketime

"All of his rhetoric alludes..."

No, no, no, a million times no. Friedman said, unequivocally, that the Federal reserve should have had a more aggressive inflationary monetary policy in 1929 to prevent the Great Depression in the book he coauthored with Anna Schwarts "A Monetary History of the United States." He understood perfectly well that deflation destroyed our economy then, and it would have destroyed our economy in 2008.

[itcanbecheezcaketime]

@migkillertwo

I disagree. I think he would have let those banks fall too. All of his rhetoric alludes to the fact that he would avoid government intrusion into any aspect of the market, including the banks. The banks are monopolies propped up by the federal government and I'm certain he would have wanted them to fail.

Those financial arms shouldn't exist in the first place and they wouldn't without the government.