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The big issue is whether the United States will succeed in its venture of reshaping the Middle East. It is not clear to me that using military force is the way to do it. We should not have gone into Iraq. But we have.

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
United
Iraq
Bigs
Succeed
Force
Military
States
Issues
Reshaping
Way
Middle
Venture
Clear
Issue
Gone
East
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More quotes by Milton Friedman

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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.
Milton Friedman
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The history of mankind is the history of money losing value.
Milton Friedman
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The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them.
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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Pick at random any three letters from the alphabet, put them in any order, and you will have an acronym designating a federal agency we can do without.
Milton Friedman
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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.
Milton Friedman
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There is only one social responsibility of business
Milton Friedman
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You never can cure poverty. Poverty is in the eye of the beholder.
Milton Friedman
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Everywhere, and at all times, economic progress has meant far more to the poor than to the rich.
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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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.
Milton Friedman
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Economic freedom is ... an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.
Milton Friedman
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The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.
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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Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
Milton Friedman
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World trade depends on differences among countries, not similarities. Different countries are in different stages of development. It is appropriate for them to have different patterns, different policies for ecology, labor standards, and so forth.
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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The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.
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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There's a smokestack on the back of every government program.
Milton Friedman