Posted on 01/30/2007 12:21:42 PM PST by freemarket_kenshepherd
American taxpayers are making possible the January 29 airing of a documentary in praise of one of the 20th century’s greatest free market advocates. And that doesn’t sit well with New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante, who complained of an imbalanced presentation.
Bellafante lamented that Friedman’s theories were only criticized once in the January 29 documentary on Friedman’s life and economic thought entitled “The Power of Choice: The Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman.”
“The film is so unabashedly venerating… that it ultimately does its subject a disservice,” Bellafante complained, adding later in her review that “nowhere” in the documentary “is the downside of the massive deregulation that Reagan eventually implemented given much attention.”
Bellafante complained that the late John Kenneth Galbraith, long a critic and rival of Friedman’s, scored the only critical sound bite of Friedman in “Power of Choice.”
The Times reviewer left the reader uninformed that Galbraith is famous for, among other things, insisting during the 1980s that the Soviet Union had a fundamentally stronger economy than the freer market capitalism that typified the United States economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org ...
To the author...
That's because there is no downside, you commie b*tch.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Low taxes, low unemployment, dramatic lowering of interest rates, increased competition and productivity! SOMEONE HANG THAT SOB!
"The film is so unabashedly venerating… that it ultimately does its subject a disservice"
I must of miss this comment about al whores movie
The same could be said about the NYT!
Ginia, I think you need a xanax.
This is how the hard left controls the media. Never a whining low-life sniping about Al Gore's or Michael Moore's preposterous lying propaganda.
New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante is a third rate mental midget biting at the heels of one of the intellectual giants of human history.
Now you know how us conservatives feel 98.7% of the time Ms.Bellafante
Yes, well I'm sure the NYT would be equally upset if a PBS show about Marx failed the downsides of Marxism.
Not.
The only downside of deregulation is that elected and appointed policymakers lose their power over others.
So, in an odd way I totally agree with the NYT -- this downside should have been more fully developed.
What can I say?
For those unfamiliar with Estonia, when they left the Soviet Union they were one of the poorest nations in Europe. High inflation, 35% unemployment, it was a mess. They introduced the economic models of Milton Friedman which included eliminating corporate taxes and instituting a flat income tax. Today it is the largest growing economy in Europe and businesses are flocking in to rake advantage of the lenient tax structure. My one question is, why can't we do that here?
Who write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers?
Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no more.
Who review the books?
People who never wrote one.
Who do up the heavy leaders on finance?
Parties who have had the largest opportunities for knowing nothing about it.
Who criticise the Indian campaigns?
Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and who never have had to run a foot race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with.
Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing bowl?
Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it in the grave.
MARK TWAIN
People who criticize Friedman's theories typically have no clue what his theories say.
The irony is that the Rubin Democrats have embraced Friedman's signature theory of "crowding out" so fully that it has essentially become a Democratic Party core philosophy. Of course, they ignore the rest of what Friedman said.
I don't think Galbraith really knew much about economics. He was more interested in politics. Maybe you could stretch that to include political economy. But he had no earthly clue how the economy really works.
Galbraith didn't do didly. He was factually inaccurate when he accused Milton of being a one-hammer worker with Monetary Policy.
Hardly. The program thoroughly documented Friedman's low government, flat tax, free choice arguments, none of which had anything to do with Monetary Policy.
So the reporterette couldn't even find one critic who could score a point against Friedman. That's natural, since I'm not aware of any of his core findings or philosophies that have been disproved by subsequent analysis or events.
My first thought too, without the extra verbiage. I can not help but reflect on the book "Witness", by Whittaker Chambers(sp), which outlines the early ambitions of communists in America. One was to infiltrate the media and influence it. What we see with this...er...critic is a hand-me-down commie wannabe. She does not have the guts nor the dreams of her predecessors. She is a half-pint Marxist with the unremarkable talent of being a first class whiner.
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