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The central banks cannot control interest rates. That's a mistake. They can control a particular rate, such as the Federal Funds rate, if they want to, but they can't control interest rates.

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
Federal
Central
Rate
Particular
Funds
Control
Rates
Mistake
Banks
Interest
Cannot
Fund

More quotes by Milton Friedman

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There's a smokestack on the back of every government program.
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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.
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What does it mean to say that government might have a responsibility? Government can't have a responsibility any more than the business can. The only entities which can have responsibilities are people.
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Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It's a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It's a good thing for the United States. It's a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it's only good so long as its illegal....
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The government doesn't have any money. The only power it has is to take from some and give to others.
Milton Friedman
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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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Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune.
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[T]he burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends.
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Governments never learn. Only people learn.
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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?
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Economists may not know how to run the economy, but they know how to create shortages or gluts simply by regulating prices below the market, or artificially supporting them from above.
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I am a limited-government libertarian.
Milton Friedman
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I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. ... because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending.
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The invisible hand in politics operates in the opposite direction to the invisible hand in the market.
Milton Friedman
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The Great Depression was not a sign of the failure of monetary policy or a result of the failure of the market system as was widely interpreted. It was instead a consequence of a very serious government failure, in particular a failure in the monetary authorities to do what they'd initially been set up to do.
Milton Friedman
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The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
Milton Friedman
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In a free society, it is hard for 'good' people to do 'good', but that is a small price to pay for making it hard for 'evil' people to do 'evil', especially since one man's good is another's evil
Milton Friedman
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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.
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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.
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It doesn't worry me a bit that China and Japan hold so much US debt. In a way, it seems foolish for them to do it because they get lower returns than they might elsewhere. But that is their business.
Milton Friedman