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Cutting government spending and government intrusion in the economy will almost surely involve immediate gain for the many, short-term pain for the few, and long-term gain for all.

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
Many
Spending
Long
Short
Cutting
Intrusion
Economy
Involve
Almost
Immediate
Term
Surely
Pain
Gain
Government
Gains

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We have a freer world because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the changes in China. Those two have been the main contributors to freedom in our time.
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The only reason free markets have a ghost of a chance is that they are so much more efficient than any other form of organization.
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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. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.
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The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
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Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.
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The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights.
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The excuse for the destruction of liberty is always the plea of necessary ' that there is no alternative
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There is only one social responsibility of business
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The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.
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If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.
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There's no point in comparing an actual, operating system with an ideal system that doesn't exist.
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What's the difference? How can people be so inconsistent? Why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today? Well, there is a sense in which that answer is right. There's a sense in which free immigration, in the same sense as we had it before 1914 is not possible today. Why not?
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When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union - like public housing in the United States - look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.
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Germany's problem, in part, is that it went into the euro at the wrong exchange rate that overvalued the deutsche mark.
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If you look at the balance sheet, the US is heavily in debt. If you look at the income account - the amount of interest the US pays abroad - it is almost exactly equal to the amount of interest that it receives from abroad. American assets held abroad are earning a higher rate of return than foreign assets held here.
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There's no way to avoid a burden on your freedom. The costs themselves are a burden on your freedom. The restrictions that are necessary in order to get rid of the terrorists are a burden to your freedom. So there's no way in the short run to avoid a restriction on your freedom.
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Complete free trade is not politically feasible. Why? Because it's only in the general interest and in no one's special interest.
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I would say that in this world, the greatest source of inequality has been special privileges granted by government.
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The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of the country.
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Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
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