“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.“ Thomas Sowell

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[–][deleted]  (12 children)

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    [–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

    Friedman was a fraud, a genius yes, but still a fraud. He was an undercover Postmodernist. He made Libertarianism the topological anti-type of Liberalism and Individualism, which facilitated the highjacking of the 1970's Neo-Liberal movement in order to expand Pax Americana to include the Gulf states. In Europe this meant subversion of central bank orthodoxy in a similar way to Japan and Germany under the Marshall plan. And in Britain it meant shutting down hundreds of small circulation newspapers. Not very Libertarian. Friedman's on my list of Nobel price winners that should have their awards revoked, as well as Obama and Kissinger.

    [–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

    Agreed. Further, read "The Shock Doctrine" for insight into the devastation those Chicago School plans wrought.

    [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    The shock doctrine is full of factual errors, for example the Chicago School were mostly french economists that had nothing to do with Chicago.

    [–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

    Interesting. It's a terrific book nonetheless. If you know of any critical analysis of it I'd love to see it for a wider perspective.

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    Wikipedia entry for the IMF used to be very good. Basically, the IMF was setup so that surplus countries could lend to deficit countries that were in trouble. It was to be an alternative for what was called the ‘classical remedy’ to deficits. Which meant inducing a recession to reduce consumption. But since the 1970s the IMFs purpose was subverted. The US had become the largest surplus country but remained the IMFs largest contributor. So the IMF became a means of applying the ‘classical remedy’ to deficits. And I should add that the IMF has always been run by Europeans, just with American money, so it’s subversion was a joint effort.

    [–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    It's interesting how it all gets corrupted.

    For some reason microloans sprang to mind. They sound good, and can help people start up for themselves, but it's been corrupted into a problem. A micro loan lost is a hit most westerners can easily absorb. But they've got it so that all the microloan people of a region keep track of each other so they rat each other out in order never have losses which is impossible.

    [–][deleted]  (3 children)

    [deleted]

      [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

      He logically argued against Keynesian economics...

      Did he? Keynesianism resurfaced in 2008 because excluding banks and money from economic models produces a nonsense view of the economy.

      Did you know that The Bank of England didn't know how to create new money during the 2008 financial crisis? They had to dig through dusty old books in storage to find out. That was the result of people like Friedman 'burying' Keynesian economics.

      There's a famous video clip of Friedman arguing about cheaper prices. The thing is, wages are prices and no one likes cheaper wages.

      As for unintended consequences being the cause for most government failures I only partially agree. The cross over between government and private interests seems to be the epicentre of most failures, especially when they decide they've defeated the business cycle once again.

      Edit: typo

      [–]Jesus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      Classical economics.

      [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      I personally like Hayek more than Friedman.

      [–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      Read "The Shock Doctrine" for insight into the devastation those Chicago School plans wrought.