Economist Milton Friedman on This Day in History

This day in history: American economist Milton Friedman was born on this day in 1912. The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century ... possibly of all of it". Friedman was an advisor to Republican President Ronald Reagan and Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal intervention. He was certainly a great and quotable communicator:

"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."

"Inflation is taxation without legislation."

"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned."

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."

"A society that puts equality... ahead of freedom will end up with neither."

"Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless."

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

"When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union -- like public housing in the United states -- look decrepit within a year or two of their construction."

“The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom