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Milton Friedman Quotes - Page 8

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The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.

The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.

Milton Friedman
People, Way, Solve
"Why it isn't Necessary to 'Throw the Bums Out'". Milton Friedman's speech about changing Congress, www.youtube.com. circa 1977.

Not all schooling is education nor all education, schooling.

Milton Friedman
Schooling
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.86, University of Chicago Press

The Internet is the most effective instrument we have for globalization.

Milton Friedman
Internet, Globalization, Instruments
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

So long as large sums of money are involved - and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal - it is literally impossible to stop the traffic, or even to make a serious reduction in its scope.

Milton Friedman
Long, Drug, Serious
Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman (1985). “Tyranny of the status quo”

We do not influence the course of events by persuading people that we are right when we make what they regard as radical proposals. Rather, we exert influence by keeping options available when something has to be done at a time of crisis.

Milton Friedman
People, Events, Times Of Crisis
Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman (1999). “Two Lucky People: Memoirs”, p.220, University of Chicago Press

Had drugs been decriminalized, crack would never have been invented and there would today be fewer addicts... The ghettos would not be drug-and-crime-infested no-man's lands... Colombia, Bolivia and Peru would not be suffering from narco-terror, and we would not be distorting our foreign policy because of it.

Milton Friedman
Ghetto, Men, Land

The Fed was largely responsible for converting what might have been a garden-variety recession, although perhaps a fairly severe one, into a major catastrophe. Instead of using its powers to offset the depression, it presided over a decline in the quantity of money by one-third from 1929 to 1933 ... Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government.

Milton Friedman
Garden, Government, Investing

When something goes wrong, the natural tendency is to say, "By God, we need to pass a law and do something."

Milton Friedman
Law, Needs, Natural
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Adam Smith's key insight was that both parties to an exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange can take place unless both parties do benefit.

Milton Friedman
Party, Keys, Long
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.19, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Why is it that private insurance companies are not in trouble because people are getting older? Aren't they subject to the same demographics? The difference is that they've accumulated a fund, not a pay-in, pay-out system.

Milton Friedman
Differences, People, Getting Older
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Is there some society you know of that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed?

Milton Friedman
Running, Thinking, Russia
"The Phil Donahue Show", www.youtube.com. 1979.

The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic foundation of the free market system they purport to represent and defend.

Milton Friedman
Foundation, Influential, Businessman
Milton Friedman (1984). “The suicidal impulse of the business community”

Business corporations in general are not defenders of free enterprise. On the contrary, they are one of the chief sources of danger....Every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that's a different question. We have to have that tariff to protect us against competition from abroad. We have to have that special provision in the tax code. We have to have that subsidy.

Milton Friedman
Competition, Special, Different
"Defaming Milton Friedman" by Johan Norberg, reason.com. October 2008.

The great virtue of free enterprise is that it forces existing businesses to meet the test of the market continuously, to produce products that meet consumer demands at lowest cost, or else be driven from the market. It is a profit-and-loss system. Naturally, existing businesses generally prefer to keep out competitors in other ways. That is why the business community, despite its rhetoric, has so often been a major enemy of truly free enterprise.

Milton Friedman
Business, Loss, Community

You can only make money if you buy a product, whatever it is - maybe a currency, maybe wheat and maybe something else - at a relatively low price and sell it at a higher price than you buy it at. There's no other way to make money.

Milton Friedman
Way, Wheat, Making Money

If we have system in which government is in a position to give large favor - it's human nature to try to get this favor - whether those people are large enterprises, or whether they're small businesses like farmers, or whether they're representatives of any other special group. The only way to prevent that is to force them to engage in competition one with the other.

Milton Friedman
Government, People, Giving
Milton Friedman - Big Business, Big Government, www.youtube.com. September 14, 2012.

Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.

Milton Friedman
Real, Lying, Taken
Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.14, University of Chicago Press

What is not forbidden in Sweden, is obligatory.

Milton Friedman
Sweden, Forbidden

And where are you going to get these angels who are going to run society for us?

Milton Friedman
Running, Angel

My major problem with the world is a problem of scarcity in the midst of plenty ... of people starving while there are unused resources ... people having skills which are not being used.

Milton Friedman
Skills, People, Greed

Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.

Milton Friedman
Mean, Government, Income
"We Have Socialism, Q.E.D". Milton Friedman, The New York Times, December 31, 1989.

There's no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan was by far the greatest. Because he had real principles and he stuck by them. He made clear what he was going to do, and he did it. He didn't back down.

Milton Friedman
Real, Doubt, Mind
Source: www.foxnews.com

Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive.

Milton Friedman
Majority, Investing, Columbus

It's a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don't approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else.

Milton Friedman
Hurt, Government, People
"Friedman & Szasz On Liberty and Drugs". Interview with Randy Paige on "America's Drug Forum", www.druglibrary.org. 1991.

...theories should be judged by their ability to predict events rather than by the realism of their assumptions.

Milton Friedman
Events, Investing, Assumption

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