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

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
Natural
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Economics
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More quotes by Milton Friedman

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The evidence of history speaks with a single voice. I do not know any exception to the proposition that if you compare like with like, the freer the system, the better off the ordinary poor people have been.
Milton Friedman
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Richard Nixon was a very intelligent and able man. And he had the right ideas. But he did not have the adherence to principles that [Ronald] Reagan had. He did some very good things. We owe to Richard Nixon the volunteer army - he got rid of the draft. And that was a major increase in freedom.
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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Making prohibition work is like making water run uphill it's against nature.
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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China's productive system draws upon the other East Asian countries to a great extent. The volume of trade is much larger than the net amount being exported from China. China needs substantial reserves to finance all that.
Milton Friedman
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I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of.
Milton Friedman
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A society that puts equality — in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.
Milton Friedman
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Statistics do not speak for themselves.
Milton Friedman
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The one thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash, a method whereby on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B, without A knowing B or B knowing A.
Milton Friedman
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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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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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The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the rule of the game and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.
Milton Friedman
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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.
Milton Friedman
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Germany has a very able and productive workforce. It has high-quality products that are valued all over the world. It has every opportunity to be a productive, growing state. It just has to give its entrepreneurs a chance. It has to let them make money, hire and fire, and act like entrepreneurs.
Milton Friedman
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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
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Every economist knows that minimum wages either do nothing or cause inflation and unemployment. That's not a statement, it's a definition.
Milton Friedman
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What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.
Milton Friedman
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Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
Milton Friedman
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Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
Milton Friedman