Brilliant man...... who knows if history will prove his theories effective, but he had a good run.
:sadwave: :sadwave:
Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman dead at 94 By Jim Christie and Duncan Martell
Milton Friedman, one of the most influential economists of the past century and winner of a 1976 Nobel Prize, died on Thursday morning of heart failure at a San Francisco-area hospital, a spokeswoman for his family said. He was 94.
Friedman preached free enterprise in the face of government regulation and advocated monetary policy that called for steady growth in money supply.
How his ideas were implemented by governments and central banks and how Friedman helped popularize them made him perhaps the world's best-known economist, said Gary Becker, who won the 1992 Nobel Prize for economics.
"If you had to ask people across the world to name an economist, by far his name would be the most common," Becker told Reuters in a telephone interview. "He could express the most complicated economic ideas in the most simple language."
Brooklyn-born Friedman's ideas played a pivotal role in informing the governing philosophies of world leaders like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
"Milton Friedman revived the economics of liberty, when it had been all but forgotten. He was an intellectual freedom fighter. Never was there a less dismal practitioner of 'the dismal science' (economics)," Thatcher said in a statement.
"I am deeply saddened at the passing of Milton Friedman," former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said. "He had been a fixture in my life both professionally and personally for a half century. My world will not be the same."
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President William Poole, another noted monetarist, said much of modern central bank thinking stemmed from Friedman's work. Poole said Friedman's most important contribution was to bring theoretical economic thinking to bear on a range of public policy issues.
INFLUENCED REAGAN
Friedman's ideas on public policy were seized by Reagan, who shared Friedman's interest in low taxes and less regulation, said Martin Anderson, a Hoover Institution fellow and former domestic and economic policy adviser to Reagan.
"You look at what Reagan did, it was what Milton had been advocating for a long time," Anderson said. "What Milton did was to confirm what he (Reagan) thought and make it more confident, and that became 'Reaganomics."'
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recruited Friedman as an adviser after becoming governor, said in a statement, "When I was first exposed to his powerful writings about money, free markets and individual freedom, it was like getting hit by a thunderbolt. I wound up giving copies of his books and 'Free to Choose' videos to hundreds of my friends and acquaintances."
Becker said Friedman's calls for free markets profoundly influenced governments across the world. "He was the single most important force for setting out the argument for why free-market economists do better," Becker said. "Those ideas impact everybody."
Additionally, Friedman's belief in steady and predictable monetary policy as the surest guarantee against excessive fluctuations in the general price level and economic activity held tremendous sway with central bankers, Becker said.
CONTROVERSIAL
In 1976, Friedman's years of teaching and nearly two dozen books were recognized with the Nobel Prize for economic science. Friedman, however, was not without controversy.
His work was not initially popular, emerging at a time when public spending and government intervention were widely credited with helping end the worldwide depression of the 1930s. His Nobel ceremony in Stockholm prompted a large turnout of demonstrators who criticized him for the economic advice he provided to the government of Augusto Pinochet, who oversaw Chile's 17-year dictatorship in which some 3,000 leftists were killed.
Later, Friedman raised his profile further as a columnist and contributing editor for Newsweek magazine and through frequent television appearances.
In a retrospective on his work, Friedman traced his roots and those of the so-called Chicago school of economics back to 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith. He moved to California in 1977, when he became a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
(Additional reporting by Alister Bull in Washington)
:sadwave: :sadwave:
Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman dead at 94 By Jim Christie and Duncan Martell
Milton Friedman, one of the most influential economists of the past century and winner of a 1976 Nobel Prize, died on Thursday morning of heart failure at a San Francisco-area hospital, a spokeswoman for his family said. He was 94.
Friedman preached free enterprise in the face of government regulation and advocated monetary policy that called for steady growth in money supply.
How his ideas were implemented by governments and central banks and how Friedman helped popularize them made him perhaps the world's best-known economist, said Gary Becker, who won the 1992 Nobel Prize for economics.
"If you had to ask people across the world to name an economist, by far his name would be the most common," Becker told Reuters in a telephone interview. "He could express the most complicated economic ideas in the most simple language."
Brooklyn-born Friedman's ideas played a pivotal role in informing the governing philosophies of world leaders like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
"Milton Friedman revived the economics of liberty, when it had been all but forgotten. He was an intellectual freedom fighter. Never was there a less dismal practitioner of 'the dismal science' (economics)," Thatcher said in a statement.
"I am deeply saddened at the passing of Milton Friedman," former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said. "He had been a fixture in my life both professionally and personally for a half century. My world will not be the same."
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President William Poole, another noted monetarist, said much of modern central bank thinking stemmed from Friedman's work. Poole said Friedman's most important contribution was to bring theoretical economic thinking to bear on a range of public policy issues.
INFLUENCED REAGAN
Friedman's ideas on public policy were seized by Reagan, who shared Friedman's interest in low taxes and less regulation, said Martin Anderson, a Hoover Institution fellow and former domestic and economic policy adviser to Reagan.
"You look at what Reagan did, it was what Milton had been advocating for a long time," Anderson said. "What Milton did was to confirm what he (Reagan) thought and make it more confident, and that became 'Reaganomics."'
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recruited Friedman as an adviser after becoming governor, said in a statement, "When I was first exposed to his powerful writings about money, free markets and individual freedom, it was like getting hit by a thunderbolt. I wound up giving copies of his books and 'Free to Choose' videos to hundreds of my friends and acquaintances."
Becker said Friedman's calls for free markets profoundly influenced governments across the world. "He was the single most important force for setting out the argument for why free-market economists do better," Becker said. "Those ideas impact everybody."
Additionally, Friedman's belief in steady and predictable monetary policy as the surest guarantee against excessive fluctuations in the general price level and economic activity held tremendous sway with central bankers, Becker said.
CONTROVERSIAL
In 1976, Friedman's years of teaching and nearly two dozen books were recognized with the Nobel Prize for economic science. Friedman, however, was not without controversy.
His work was not initially popular, emerging at a time when public spending and government intervention were widely credited with helping end the worldwide depression of the 1930s. His Nobel ceremony in Stockholm prompted a large turnout of demonstrators who criticized him for the economic advice he provided to the government of Augusto Pinochet, who oversaw Chile's 17-year dictatorship in which some 3,000 leftists were killed.
Later, Friedman raised his profile further as a columnist and contributing editor for Newsweek magazine and through frequent television appearances.
In a retrospective on his work, Friedman traced his roots and those of the so-called Chicago school of economics back to 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith. He moved to California in 1977, when he became a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
(Additional reporting by Alister Bull in Washington)
