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One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

Milton Friedman

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Milton Friedman
Age: 94 †
Born: 1912
Born: July 31
Died: 2006
Died: November 16
Economist
Essayist
Statistician
University Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Milton Fridman
Politics
Judge
Rather
Intention
Great
Mistakes
Judging
April
Program
Intentions
Policy
Programs
Mistake
Policies
Results
Economics

More quotes by Milton Friedman

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In the current world, with the skills needed, dropouts [like no secondary education] are condemned to being members of the underclass. In my view, this is a fault of the American school system, which is a government monopoly.
Milton Friedman
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Central bankers always try to avoid their last big mistake. So every time there's the threat of a contraction in the economy, they'll over stimulate the economy, by printing too much money. The result will be a rising roller coaster of inflation, with each high and low being higher than the preceding one.
Milton Friedman
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The Federal Reserve the privately owned U.S. central bank definitely caused The Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by one third from 1929 to 1933.
Milton Friedman
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There's no point in comparing an actual, operating system with an ideal system that doesn't exist.
Milton Friedman
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Governments never learn. Only people learn.
Milton Friedman
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Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse - for both the addict and the rest of us.
Milton Friedman
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When a private enterprise fails, it is closed down when a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. Isn't that exactly what's been happening with drugs?
Milton Friedman
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And where are you going to get these angels who are going to run society for us?
Milton Friedman
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China has seen a great deal of economic progress. It's certainly rather of a miracle. The growing role of the market in the economy will force China to open up its political system over time and to move toward a more democratic society. So taken as a whole, the one real failure in this whole business has been Russia.
Milton Friedman
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See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.
Milton Friedman
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Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Milton Friedman
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. . I think the Adam Smith role was played in this cycle i.e. the late twentieth century collapse of socialism in which the idea of free-markets succeeded first, and then special events catalyzed a complete change of socio-political policy in countries around the world by Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.
Milton Friedman
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The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits.
Milton Friedman
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There is not a line in 'The Wealth of Nations' that is not still applicable to this day.
Milton Friedman
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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
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How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant.
Milton Friedman
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Money is a very powerful thing, which you hardly notice when it goes right, but which can create havoc when it goes wrong.
Milton Friedman
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Our emphasis here is based not only on the growing seriousness of drug-related crimes, but also on the belief that relieving our police and our courts from having to fight losing battles against drug use will enable their energies and facilities to be devoted more fully to combating other forms of crime.
Milton Friedman
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How can thinking people believe that a government that cannot deliver the mail can deliver gas better than Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Gulf, and the rest?
Milton Friedman
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Individual price and wage changes will not be prevented. In the main, price changes will simply be concealed by taking the form of changes in discounts, service, and quality, and wage changes, in overtime, perquisites and so on…. But to whatever extent the freeze is enforced, it will do harm by distorting relative prices.
Milton Friedman