Defending Capitalism with Confidence & Humor

20 Comments »

1. That was simply beautiful. Thank you. But I don’t see any Milton Friedmans around anymore. Do you?

   Comment by rrpjr — February 8, 2009 @ 3:38 pm - February 8, 2009

2. Even as a non-believer, I have to ‘thank God’ for men like Milton Friedman. And although he is no longer with us, he has left a legacy in the minds of men and women across the world, and in that way, he is still with us. Viva free markets, viva capitalism, and viva Milton Friedman. Watch out, looters, the pendulum is about to swing back further than you can imagine.

   Comment by Brendan In Philly — February 8, 2009 @ 6:14 pm - February 8, 2009

3. Wow, that was really great! I bet Donahue was embarrassed to have been upstaged so!

   Comment by Kurt — February 8, 2009 @ 9:47 pm - February 8, 2009

4. [...] and other anti-Capitalists in one swoop Posted on February 9, 2009 by sharprightturn From Gay Patriot, I found one of the best retorts to an anti-capitalist that I believe I have ever heard!   Icing [...]

   Pingback by This is Golden: Milton Friedman Silences Donahue and other anti-Capitalists in one swoop « Sharp Right Turn — February 9, 2009 @ 12:43 am - February 9, 2009

5. Donahue and his kind are jerks. If you don’t want us to question your patriotism, don’t question our empathy….. and stop attacking the Pentagon and the Capital Building, party of Ayers and Obama.

   Comment by RM — February 9, 2009 @ 1:52 am - February 9, 2009

6. Milton Friedman might as well be a religious fundamentalist for all he knew about reality. The dude was more like a Pat Robertson or a Rush Limbaugh than a good scientist or statesman.

   By the way, 30 years after this was recorded, and after 30 years of the government heeding his advice and favoring free markets, the United States economy is collapsing.

   Comment by Levi — February 9, 2009 @ 3:52 am - February 9, 2009

7. um, is our economy collapsing, Levi? But, is it an entirely free market economy? Read this pieceon the financial crisis and tell me we’ve had a laissez-faire government.

   oh, and, before you rant on about Friedman’s alleged fundamentalism, have you actually read his stuff?

   Comment by GayPatriotWest — February 9, 2009 @ 4:57 am - February 9, 2009

8. What is there to read? Privatize, deregulate, crush labor, cut taxes, right? If no amount of doing those things improves economic conditions, then the only explanation is that there are still market distortions, and efforts to privatize, deregulate, crush labor, and cut taxes must be redoubled, correct? That’s not a difficult concept to understand.

   It’s fundamentalism. You will respond to anything I say on this point by insisting that the markets are not free enough. There will always be 30 year old government programs like the CRA to blame. There will always be more taxes to cut. The over-the-top anti-government rhetoric espoused by the Republican Party is effectively anarchy – except for the wars, of course. Gotta keep a skeleton crew around to start wars, but hell, even that’s getting privatized these days.

   Comment by Levi — February 9, 2009 @ 5:46 am - February 9, 2009

9. I love this video. An intellectual battle between Friedman and Donahue is like a neutron bomb versus a slingshot.

   Of course, nobody ever accused Phil Donahue of being an intellectual giant – except for those libtards who were dumber than he was.

   Regards,
   Peter H.

   Comment by Peter Hughes — February 9, 2009 @ 10:57 am - February 9, 2009

10. not giving in to the assumptions of our intellectual adversaries

    Hoo-yah!

    Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 9, 2009 @ 1:12 pm - February 9, 2009

11. after 30 years of the government heeding his advice and favoring free markets, the United States economy is collapsing.

    That is simply false. The United States is today, and for the last 10-80 years has been anything but, a free-market economy.

    Take the bailouts, for example. Bailouts are socialism (or perhaps fascism), not capitalism. And they were happening after 9-11; they’ve only experienced an uptick recently. Capitalism, or free-market economics, is letting the incompetent fail so that their assets can be taken over by the competent and re-deployed in ways that you and I can’t imagine. Who are the competent? The ones who can make a buck on their own, without bailouts.

    Or take the Federal Reserve. They’ve been holding interest rates artificially low to “stimulate” the economy, and progressively destroying the value of the dollar in the process, for at least 20 years. Fed efforts to inflate the economy took an uptick with Greenspan’s response to the 1987 stock market hiccup, got worse in the late ’90s which created the dot-com bubble, got worse again after 9-11 creating what later became the real estate bubble, and is being made even worse today by Obama and Bernanke – creating God knows what is to come. Having a central bank dictate interest rates is not capitalism. It is tantamount to Soviet-style planning of the financial markets.

    So, folks, we have NOT been living under capitalism all this time. More on the topic of interest rates: Moderate-to-high interest rates are a good thing. They reward savers. They keep inflation in check. They keep debt in check (household and government). Most of all, they force the business community to invest rationally – halting the endless cycle of bubbles.

    If and when America is finally sick of Big Government, and ready to RETURN to the free-market policies it has long since abandoned, America will do these things:
    - Let interest rates rise. Accept the resulting painful – and necessary – recession.
    - Cut taxes. (Bush at least got that part right.)
    - Cut government spending drastically. (Bush didn’t get that right, sadly.)
    - Cut government regulation drastically.

    Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 9, 2009 @ 1:17 pm - February 9, 2009

12. P.S. Peter Schiff is great at explaining all this, and he mostly gets it right: http://www.europac.net/video.asp

    He didn’t foresee that the dollar would go up (as it has) in the initial stages of our nation’s crisis. But he got almost everything else right. And the dollar rally must and will pass.

    Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 9, 2009 @ 1:21 pm - February 9, 2009

13. Sorry, typo. I meant to say: “The United States is *NOT* today, and for the last 10-80 years has been anything but, a free-market economy.”

    Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 9, 2009 @ 1:44 pm - February 9, 2009

14. So, folks, we have NOT been living under capitalism all this time. More on the topic of interest rates: Moderate-to-high interest rates are a good thing. They reward savers. They keep inflation in check. They keep debt in check (household and government). Most of all, they force the business community to invest rationally – halting the endless cycle of bubbles.

    Exactly as I said. ‘Not free enough.’ It never will be. You’ll always have some bullshit about interest rates to complain about.

    Just like a religion.

    Comment by Levi — February 9, 2009 @ 8:49 pm - February 9, 2009

15. Levi, follow the links in my latest and then take issue with the arguments the UCLA economists, John B. Taylor and Peter Wallison make.

    And we’ll see who’s basing their arguments of facts and who on faith, though in your case, I’d say it was not faith, but animosity to freedom, er, capitalism. Oh, but wait, they’re pretty much the same thing.

    Comment by GayPatriotWest — February 9, 2009 @ 8:54 pm - February 9, 2009

16. Levi, I thinking you’re mistaking me for YOURSELF. It is you who have a mystic, totally ungrounded and irrational faith in the power of Big Government. You’re about to discover the hard way, over the next 2-5 years, how wrong you are. Have fun.

    Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 9, 2009 @ 10:11 pm - February 9, 2009

17. When I was in High School, we were shown the video “Free to Choose” which featured both Milton and Rose Friedman. I greatly influenced me and I wish high schools still showed this to the students.

    Comment by Lily — February 9, 2009 @ 10:12 pm - February 9, 2009

18. P.S. Levi, I am greatly amused by this:
    

    Exactly as I said. ‘Not free enough.’

    Said with some degree of derision, on your part. Are you then suggesting that people shouldn’t be more free – from government and from each other? That greater individual, economic freedom is to be avoided? Perhaps, I don’t know, that we need government to get along? Or to make our lives worth living?

    Think before you answer. Whichever way you answer, it will reveal a lot about you.

    Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 9, 2009 @ 10:19 pm - February 9, 2009

19. Labor unions have outlived whatever usefulness they may have once had. The UAW is referred to as “United Against Working,” and there was a time that people at the big 3 were getting paid $72/hour to practically do nothing. Where can I get a job like that? And all the money they give to Democrats without the consent of their members proves they can’t be trusted.

    And if it wasn’t for Donahue’s godawful show, there’d be no Oprah Winfrey or Jerry Springer shows today and America’s collective IQ would be a good 30 points higher. He only got where he is because he was married to That Girl.

    Furthermore, why does the left assume that the poor would have nowhere to turn under a capitalistic system? Would there not still be private charities run by those who chose to give their time? Would churches and synagogues not continue to preach of the virtue of charity or tzedakah (which government wealth redistribution is not)?

    And as for Phil’s utterly inane comment about “the maldistribution of wealth”? How would wealth be better used when sucked in a government black hole through excessive taxation? And how much did his show earn him?

    Comment by Attmay — February 9, 2009 @ 10:47 pm - February 9, 2009

20. well,well the worms turn and turn and turn! It is easier to forgive when you need them it will not be so easily given when they are done using you up Harry. Just look at Bill and madam Hillary. Don’t worry Harry you will have Nancy right by your side in the cold nether regions of no use to them by then.

    Comment by john lesbo galt — January 10, 2010 @ 9:20 am - January 10, 2010

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