Posted on 02/16/2022 2:06:13 PM PST by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Five myths cloud our perception of both the past and the present:
(1) The “robber baron” myth which holds that in late nineteenth-century America there were powerful men who became rich at the expense of the poor. The reality is that they became wealthy by being productive, and that there is no other period in history which saw such a rapid and widespread improvement in the well-being of the average individual.
(2) The myth that the Great Depression was caused by a failure of business. It was, in fact, produced by a failure of government and specifically by the Federal Reserve System.
(3) The myth that government in the economy has expanded in response to public demand. Actually, the public has had to be sold “hard” for politicians to enact every major social program.
(4) The “free lunch” myth. No matter how the government raises money—by taxing individuals, by taxing businesses, or by printing more money—it is the individual who pays.
(5) The myth that government, like Robin Hood, transfers wealth from the rich to the poor. The reality is that the government usually transfers wealth and income from both the very rich and the very poor to those in the middle.
#5 So the middle class should be pushing for more and bigger government? Maybe he was juiced when he came up with that one.
1) Free movement of labor is a great thing and will have no downside.
2) Being one of the few truly free trading nations has only helped us vis-a-vis closed markets like China and Japan.
3) The best policy regarding monopolies is to do nothing because they will eventually do themselves in. Maybe not in our lifetime, but eventually.
4) Corporations are just like people and don't behave like psycopaths.
5) It's best not to interfere with business's purchasing activities even if what they are purchasing is politicians and favorable legislation.
6) Tariffs are always bad.
7) Ayn Rand was a genius and Objectivism isn't a laughable excuse for a philosophy.
” The reality is that the government usually transfers wealth and income from both the very rich and the very poor to those in the middle.”
Makes no sense.
The wealth gets transferred FROM the middle class to the elites. No where else to get it; the poor don’t have any and the rich have the resources such as financial professionals to use “avoidance” as a strategy (I sure as heck would be paying less of a percentage of my income and/or wealth if I had 10 million a year coming in than I do with 1/200th of that, it just takes employing the right people).
Bingo.
ALL large entities are untrustworthy. I trust any large corporation no more than I trust any government or union.
Exactly.
Good video
Isn’t that they guy that put us into the Great Recession in 2008?
He died in 2006.
Thinking of Alan Greenspan, perhaps?
NO
This is great! Thank you for posting.
Milton Friedman was a great economist. Check out the many YouTube videos of him. He stood up to socialists like Donohue and the typical leftist college student. A great man.
Supporters of Milton Friedman failed to protest our trade policies and manufacturing going abroad.
Even the great man Walter Williams was wrong about free trade.
In theory it is great, except communist and fascist nations distort the market, and make it cheaper to manufacture there, by using essentially slave labor, and sell it to here. That giant sucking sound is all around us now...tip ‘O’ the hat to Ross Perot.
The robber barons got that name in large part for their readiness to steal and to cheat the public. Rockefeller, for example, was notorious for bribing judges, legislators, and other public officials to get preferential treatment for his companies. In a pinch, he would even have thugs wreck or blow up the oil rigs, refineries, and pipelines of his competitors.
Thank you. Yes, that is who I am thinking of. Thanks.
Yes, it was Donald Trump who taught me the advanced lessons in capitalism and government — and he absorbed these truths from Milton Friedman - and common sense.
The “sucking sound”. Thanks for recalling that beautiful metaphor from Ross Perot.
Thanks for another great post. And FReepers in their comments are wise enough to point out some weak points of this king of economic theory.
Love the discussion here.
ALL large entities are untrustworthy. I trust any large corporation no more than I trust any government or union.
* * * *
It’s wise to withhold that trust. After all, large corporations are looking after themselves. The stakeholders and stockholders have avarice that their company’s value will increase to enrich themselves.
Thus the fruits of competition and controls on monopoly power are necessary.
The whores at the rating agencies did 2008. Full stop. Warren Buffett, if you can hang the whole thing on one guy, is your man.
He gets on TV and exposes Fitch and S&P for the bonds they were rating AAA, and it all ends immediately. AIG never insures those bonds, and there is no market for swaps. Game over.
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