Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman (born July 31, 1912) is a U.S. economist, known primarily for his work on macroeconomics and for his advocacy of laissez-faire capitalism. In 1976 he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics "for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy." His ten-part television series Free to Choose, aired on PBS in early 1980 and coauthored with his wife Rose Friedman, was made into a book that became his most popular.

Quotes

• "I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."
• "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."
• "Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation."
• "The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."
• "There's no such thing as a free lunch."
• "We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork."
• "With respect to teachers' salaries Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority." (Capitalism and Freedom)
• "If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can only gain at the expense of another"
• "Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned."