Milton Friedman Dead

[Colr]

No mention on the news - maybe he should have done I'm a Celebrity!!!

Great free market thinker.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6156098.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_friedman

[Hampden_Hibby]

Originally Posted by Colr

No mention on the news - maybe he should have done I'm a Celebrity!!!

Or re-released 'Lucky Stars'.

[hibadelic]

Originally Posted by Hampden_Hibby

Or re-released 'Lucky Stars'.

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Colr

No mention on the news - maybe he should have done I'm a Celebrity!!!

Great free market thinker.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6156098.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_friedman

Indeed. Didn't agree with the extremity of his position, but still a giant of the field.

[Littlejohn]

Originally Posted by Hampden_Hibby

Or re-released 'Lucky Stars'.

Quality

[Archie]

Like many big ideas people it kinda unravelled on application. Still an important figure who, IIRC recanted a bit on his pure money supply ideas.

[Lix]

Amazingly influential in my studies and career ... reckoned he got a lot wrong, but still ...

RIP

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Archie

Like many big ideas people it kinda unravelled on application. Still an important figure who, IIRC recanted a bit on his pure money supply ideas.

I'm not an economics expert, but it seems to me that Milton's monetarist ideas can't really apply in a globalised market place where no govt has control of the monies in the market place.

Niall Ferguson was writing about this in today's sunday telegraph. I think he was making a similar point though the argument was a bit technical for me (I believe that he is primarily an economoc historian despite the broader brush he wields in his mass market stuff). One point he did make was the frightening amount of western, specifically US currency, being bought up by the chinese. seems to me they could do some catastrophic damage if they chose to devalue the dollar.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

I'm not an economics expert, but it seems to me that Milton's monetarist ideas can't really apply in a globalised market place where no govt has control of the monies in the market place.

Niall Ferguson was writing about this in today's sunday telegraph. I think he was making a similar point though the argument was a bit technical for me (I believe that he is primarily an economoc historian despite the broader brush he wields in his mass market stuff). One point he did make was the frightening amount of western, specifically US currency, being bought up by the chinese. seems to me they could do some catastrophic damage if they chose to devalue the dollar.

Monetarism doesn't work in practice because no government has the right information fast enough. They are always responding to old news.

[ELWisty]

Lots of obituaries referring to "freedom loving" Milton Friedman and his "libertarian" views.

No mention of the advice he gave to General Pinochet along with other mebers of the Chicago school and the role he played in assisting a fascist dictatorship where freedom applied only to capital and not people.

Absolutely disgusting that this amoral hypocrite is getting such an easy ride.

[Hibbie0762]

Originally Posted by ELWisty

Lots of obituaries referring to "freedom loving" Milton Friedman and his "libertarian" views.

No mention of the advice he gave to General Pinochet along with other mebers of the Chicago school and the role he played in assisting a fascist dictatorship where freedom applied only to capital and not people.

Absolutely disgusting that this amoral hypocrite is getting such an easy ride.

Someone in the Graun's financial bit today is making the point that many of the big Capitalist institutions who are praising the late Mr Friedman actually practice a much more Keynesian economic model themselves.

Maybe that's just the Graun, but isn't pure non-interventionist monetarism pretty discredited generally, mainly because it doesn't really work?

[HenryLB]

Originally Posted by Hibbie0762

Someone in the Graun's financial bit today is making the point that many of the big Capitalist institutions who are praising the late Mr Friedman actually practice a much more Keynesian economic model themselves.

Maybe that's just the Graun, but isn't pure non-interventionist monetarism pretty discredited generally, mainly because it doesn't really work?

Not as discredited as the Keynesian economic model. That really doesn't work.

[wee 162]

Originally Posted by HenryLB

Not as discredited as the Keynesian economic model. That really doesn't work.

Really? What was the fastest period of growth in developed economies in the 20th century, and what system did they use?

The reason I ask is because I'm pretty sure it was the US before they entered the Second World War, and the chief economic adviser at that point was Galbraith who was as orthodoxly Keynesian as it is possible to be...

Perhaps I am being too specific so perhaps a longer period would be more reasonable. How about the so called Golden Age of the mid 1940s to the oil crisis of the early 70s throughout the western world? Remind me what the complete economic orthodoxy of that period was again?

I've got a pretty open mind about these systems tbh since I do not agree with either of them, but there is masses of evidence to suggest that Keynesian economic policies are way more effective in producing heavy growth and reducing hardship than monetarism imo.

Oh aye, if we are to move away from focusing on developed economies perhaps we can compare states like S Korea with states like Guatemala who have taken very different courses?

[HenryLB]

Originally Posted by wee 162

Really? What was the fastest period of growth in developed economies in the 20th century, and what system did they use?

The reason I ask is because I'm pretty sure it was the US before they entered the Second World War, and the chief economic adviser at that point was Galbraith who was as orthodoxly Keynesian as it is possible to be...

Perhaps I am being too specific so perhaps a longer period would be more reasonable. How about the so called Golden Age of the mid 1940s to the oil crisis of the early 70s throughout the western world? Remind me what the complete economic orthodoxy of that period was again?

I've got a pretty open mind about these systems tbh since I do not agree with either of them, but there is masses of evidence to suggest that Keynesian economic policies are way more effective in producing heavy growth and reducing hardship than monetarism imo.

Oh aye, if we are to move away from focusing on developed economies perhaps we can compare states like S Korea with states like Guatemala who have taken very different courses?

Let me get this straight. You're defending an economic system because of its ability to deliver growth? I've seen it all now. And then you say you don't actually agree with it anyway? I'm sorry, but I find it hard to take seriously an argument that ends with the assertion that it's probably wrong.

Besides, you've argued here before that the fastest growing economies have been those under repressive socialist command regimes (most notably in your defence of Cuba) so your analysis is hardly consistent.

[Bartok]

According to the Keynesian model, there was an inverse relationship between employment and inflation (Phillips Curve). Pump-priming eliminated the periodic peaks and troughs of the free market, until the arrival of Stagflation in the early 1970s kind of blew that away, as then both factors were rising. That was why people moved the theoretical models away towards the free market.

In my opinion the circumstances in 1973 were exceptional (OPEC prices tripling etc) and up until that time the model had been working well, whatever the error in the theory.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by Dixie Chicken

According to the Keynesian model, there was an inverse relationship between employment and inflation (Phillips Curve). Pump-priming eliminated the periodic peaks and troughs of the free market, until the arrival of Stagflation in the early 1970s kind of blew that away, as then both factors were rising. That was why people moved the theoretical models away towards the free market.

In my opinion the circumstances in 1973 were exceptional (OPEC prices tripling etc) and up until that time the model had been working well, whatever the error in the theory.

That fell down on timimg of info as well. Because of the lag between the economy moving in any direction, the information being available, action being taken and then the delay in it acting the pump-priming ended up boosting the peaks and increased taxation deepening the troughs increasing the boom-bust effect that we used to be familiar with (and may again).

[wee 162]

Originally Posted by HenryLB

Let me get this straight. You're defending an economic system because of its ability to deliver growth? I've seen it all now. And then you say you don't actually agree with it anyway? I'm sorry, but I find it hard to take seriously an argument that ends with the assertion that it's probably wrong.

I don't agree with either policy as a desirable long term development model. Which certainly does not mean that you can't compare the two.

Originally Posted by HenryLB

Besides, you've argued here before that the fastest growing economies have been those under repressive socialist command regimes (most notably in your defence of Cuba) so your analysis is hardly consistent.

Do you want to point out where I said that? From memory I think I was comparing Cubas economy to others in the Carribean which were similarily developed before the Cuban revolution. I also am fairly sure that I certainly did not use economics as my main argument about Cuba being a decent model but the overall increase in the standards of living in many areas such as improved literacy, life expectancy etc.

[Bartok]

Originally Posted by Colr

That fell down on timimg of info as well. Because of the lag between the economy moving in any direction, the information being available, action being taken and then the delay in it acting the pump-priming ended up boosting the peaks and increased taxation deepening the troughs increasing the boom-bust effect that we used to be familiar with (and may again).

I wasn't really aware of that point, cheers for that.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by Dixie Chicken

I wasn't really aware of that point, cheers for that.

Always seems to bollox up under the Tories, though. Have you noticed?

[Bartok]

I think the public have noticed.

[ELWisty]

The Keynsian system depended on the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates and the dollar tagged to a gold standard. The OPEC crisis brought all that to the end but Monetarism has not proved durable either - even that old rightwinger George Kerevan was writing in the Scotsman the other week about how the M3 supply has gone up by something like 13 per cent in the last year without the roof caving in.