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Milton Friedman Quotes - Page 15

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I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintenance of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind

I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintenance of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind

Milton Friedman
Self, People, Maintenance
Interview with Richard Heffner on "The Open Mind", December 7, 1975.

If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited. The people who were here benefited. The people who came benefited. Because nobody would come unless he, or his family, thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere. And, the new immigrants provided additional resources, provided additional possibilities for the people already here. So everybody can mutually benefit.

Milton Friedman
People, Benefits, Way
"Illegal Immigration: A Feature, Not A Bug, Said Milton Friedman" by Brian Doherty, reason.com. May 11, 2011.

For one thing, there are many "inventions" that are not patentable. The "inventor" of the supermarket, for example, conferred great benefits on his fellowmen for which he could not charge them. Insofar as the same kind of ability is required for the one kind of invention as for the other, the existence of patents tends to divert activity to patentable inventions.

Milton Friedman
Patents, Example, Benefits
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.127, University of Chicago Press

What kind of society isn't structured on greed?

Milton Friedman
Greed, Kind, Capitalist
Milton Friedman (1975). “An Economist's Protest”

I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money, and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression.

Milton Friedman
Country, Decline, Knows
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.50, University of Chicago Press

How do you hold down government spending?

Milton Friedman
Government, Spending, Government Spending

Significant changes in the growth rate of money supply, even small ones, impact the financial markets first. Then, they impact changes in the real economy, usually in six to nine months, but in a range of three to 18 months. Usually in about two years in the US, they correlate with changes in the rate of inflation or deflation." "The leads are long and variable, though the more inflation a society has experienced, history shows, the shorter the time lead will be between a change in money supply growth and the subsequent change in inflation.

Milton Friedman
Real, Years, Significant Change

My interest in political philosophy was rather casual until I met Hayek.

Milton Friedman
Philosophy, Political, Hayek

We don't have a desperate need to grow. We have a desperate desire to grow.

Milton Friedman
Desire, Needs, Desperate

The argument for collectivism is simple; free market is not.

Milton Friedman
Simple, Argument, Free Market

The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure that I would as of today push it as hard as I once did.

Milton Friedman
Target, Use, Today
Financial Times (UK), June 7, 2003.

There is still a tendency to regard any existing government intervention as desirable, to attribute all evils to the market, and to evaluate new proposals for government control in their ideal form, as they might work if run by able, disinterested men free from the pressure of special interest groups.

Milton Friedman
Running, Men, Evil
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.197, University of Chicago Press

I do not believe there is a natural resource economics. I believe there is good economics and bad economics.

Milton Friedman
Believe, Economics, Natural

If, for example, existing government intervention is minor, we shall attach a smaller weight to the negative effect of additional government intervention. This is an important reason why many earlier liberals, like Henry Simons, writing at a time when government was small by today's standards, were willing to have government undertake activities that today's liberals would not accept now that government has become so overgrown.

Milton Friedman
Writing, Government, Important
Milton Friedman (2017). “Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman”, p.45, Hoover Press

But on the other hand, if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro-rata share of the pot, to take an extreme example, or even to a low level of the pie, than the effect of that situation is that free immigration, would mean a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level. Of course, I'm exaggerating, it wouldn't go quite that far, but it would go in that direction. And it is that perception, that leads people to adopt what at first seems like inconsistent values.

Milton Friedman
Mean, Hands, Pie

The invisible hand in politics operates in the opposite direction to the invisible hand in the market.

Milton Friedman
Hands, Opposites, Invisible Hand
Milton Friedman (1972). “An economist's protest: columns in political economy”

We measure poverty by what I believe is a very, very crude concept. We actually measure poverty by trying to get some kind of an estimate of the minimum expenditures on food that are required to maintain health, multiplying that number by three, and saying that's the level of poverty. And it's a very crude, inaccurate arrangement.

Milton Friedman
Believe, Numbers, Trying
Source: www.pbs.org

The problem is that, in a world of floating exchange rates, as Italy was before the euro, if one country is subjected to a shock which requires it to cut wages, it cannot do so with a modern kind of control and regulation system. It is much easier to do it by letting the exchange rate change. Only one price has to change, instead of many.

Milton Friedman
Country, Cutting, Floating
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

I believe that the monetary stability is an absolutely critical element in the satisfactory operation of a system.

Milton Friedman
Believe, Elements, Operations
Source: www.pbs.org

No central banker would disagree with the proposition that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. Not one of them will disagree that every inflation has been accompanied by a rapid increase in the quantity of money and every deflation by a decline in the quantity of money.

Milton Friedman
Bankers, Rapids, Increase

I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

Milton Friedman
Government, Income, Concerned
Source: www.foxnews.com

It is true that a competitive market is not the whole of society. A great deal depends on the qualities of the population and the nation in how they organize the non-market aspects of society.

Milton Friedman
Quality, Population, Aspect
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Germany's problem, in part, is that it went into the euro at the wrong exchange rate that overvalued the deutsche mark.

Milton Friedman
Germany, Problem, Mark
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a monetary union, putting out a fiat currency, composed of independent states.

Milton Friedman
Independent, Unions, Currency
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

What central banks can control is a base and one way they can control the base is via manipulating a particular interest rate, such as a Federal Funds rate, the overnight rate at which banks lend to one another. But they use that control to control what happens to the quantity of money. There is no disagreement.

Milton Friedman
Way, Use, Interest

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