Hencredible Casanova said:
nice mystery method hat by the dude asking the question
Milton Friedman
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nice mystery method hat by the dude asking the question
master_thespian said:
Haha that wardrobe is pretty fly considering that was in 1978. I'm sure he did alright for himself wherever he was then.
I have a lot of respect for Milton Friedman. He's arguably the father of the modern Chilean economy. Him and some of his top students from UChicago ("Chicago Boys") helped engineer Chile's free market reforms during the rule of Pinochet. Chile today is often considered as having the finest economy in Latin America. I've been there myself and it's evident from the infrastructure alone how much more advanced it is compared to its neighbors. Wasn't always like that.
As for immigration, he's right again. Wish someone posted that clip in that illegal immigration thread before it got shut down. That was my precise argument. This is another video that talks about its pros and cons.
The anger from those who oppose illegal immigration is often misplaced. Illegal immigration wouldn't exist if there wasn't demand for it from the wealthiest class of Americans (which the video I just posted discusses). This has nothing to do with political parties; it's about the richest Americans period. Those are the people with the actual power and money to make those calls, so those are the people the anger (which I don't have personally) should be directed towards. Good luck with that though.
As for immigration, he's right again. Wish someone posted that clip in that illegal immigration thread before it got shut down. That was my precise argument. This is another video that talks about its pros and cons.
The anger from those who oppose illegal immigration is often misplaced. Illegal immigration wouldn't exist if there wasn't demand for it from the wealthiest class of Americans (which the video I just posted discusses). This has nothing to do with political parties; it's about the richest Americans period. Those are the people with the actual power and money to make those calls, so those are the people the anger (which I don't have personally) should be directed towards. Good luck with that though.
1) Open borders even under the assumption of no welfare state (total free markets) is a bad idea in this day and age. This has to do with the time it takes to socialize and assimilate immigrants successfully. It took decades to assimilate Italians and Irishmen properly, and it gave the US severe problems (rampant corruption cultures in our biggest cities, the mob, etc.). It will take longer to assimilate Hispanics, given their more alien backgrounds, poorer educational attainment, etc. etc.
2) Labor costs as a portion of total costs in agriculture are minuscule. Hourly wages would have to be something like USD100 an hour before they became prohibitive. Just to give an example: I worked at a vineyard last year. We harvested a ton of grapes per man in four hours, for which we were paid 100 dollars per ton. A ton of grapes makes 750 bottles of wine. That's 7.5 cents per bottle of wine.
You could pay three times that, and the consumer would not notice.
If we deported all illegals - and we more or less have to - the labor market for unskilled workers would shrivel. Business would have to get workers from other industries. What would it take to get an American college kid to work in San Fernando Valley field for eight hours? A lot. And it should. Back-breaking work in a field needs to pay enough to let you retire early, for obvious reasons. Why is this feasible? Agricultural productivity has skyrocketed the past decades. Yet none of that productivity gain has manifested itself as higher wages for manual laborers. If you could make USD40 an hour without a high-school education, we might even be able to find something for the people of Detroit to do.
A key to reviving the American economy is thus dealing with this issue.
Other important steps should be tax-simplification (abolish all credits and deductions, cut marginal rates, raise taxes on capital income, normalize payroll tax, abolishing the corporate tax, scaling back federal regulation, shut down agencies, and converting Federal welfare programs to direct cash transfers.
2) Labor costs as a portion of total costs in agriculture are minuscule. Hourly wages would have to be something like USD100 an hour before they became prohibitive. Just to give an example: I worked at a vineyard last year. We harvested a ton of grapes per man in four hours, for which we were paid 100 dollars per ton. A ton of grapes makes 750 bottles of wine. That's 7.5 cents per bottle of wine.
You could pay three times that, and the consumer would not notice.
If we deported all illegals - and we more or less have to - the labor market for unskilled workers would shrivel. Business would have to get workers from other industries. What would it take to get an American college kid to work in San Fernando Valley field for eight hours? A lot. And it should. Back-breaking work in a field needs to pay enough to let you retire early, for obvious reasons. Why is this feasible? Agricultural productivity has skyrocketed the past decades. Yet none of that productivity gain has manifested itself as higher wages for manual laborers. If you could make USD40 an hour without a high-school education, we might even be able to find something for the people of Detroit to do.
A key to reviving the American economy is thus dealing with this issue.
Other important steps should be tax-simplification (abolish all credits and deductions, cut marginal rates, raise taxes on capital income, normalize payroll tax, abolishing the corporate tax, scaling back federal regulation, shut down agencies, and converting Federal welfare programs to direct cash transfers.
Hencredible Casanova said:
Regarding the Chicago boys and their policies, Naomi Klein pretty much destroys this argument in her book "Shock Doctrine" (yea I realize she's a leftie). Privatization and deregulation led to widespread chaos and misery in Chile and especially Argentina. Similar Friedman-inspired policies practically killed off thousands (millions?) of Russians in the 90s. This has been well-documented.
Cunnilinguist said:
There is no way that Naomi Klein destroys any Milton Friedman argument; they are not even close to being in the same intellectual league. And it's not because she's a leftie. It's because she's an economic illiterate. Even Jonathan Chait who is a complete left-wing partisan, who wrote a book criticizing supply-side economics, called out Klein for being a hack. Same with Joseph Stiglitz, another progressive.
Cunnilinguist said:
Didn't read the Naomi Klein criticism, but I am aware of general criticism of Miltonian economics in Chile. I recall one documentary I saw with John Pilger called "War on Democracy" that studied US economic imperialism (their term) in three Latin American countries, with Chile being one of them. That's why in my post I said Friedman was "arguably" the father of Chile's modern economy. Here's the part of the doc I saw that focuses on Chile and highlights the criticisms you mentioned.
j r said:
Well, economic hack or not, there have been several negative consequences as a result of neoliberal policies. So for instance, by 1990, the richest 10 percent of Argentines earned
15 times the income of the poorest 10 percent. Not to mention the fact that by '99 36% of Argentines lived under the poverty line. I'm not trying to get into an ideological battle. I don't know enough about economics to do that. But being objective here is important, I think. I thought this study did a pretty good job of explaining Friedmanesque policies in Argentina. How biased it is is open to interpretation.
http://dieoff.org/page229.pdf
Cunnilinguist said:
That's the thing though. A lot of Friedman critics aren't fair in their criticism of his policies. Look around South America and point out a country that has a better standard than the Southern Cone nations of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. There simply isn't one. There's inequality, sure, but that's the case in Brazil (which has the worst gap) and every other LatAm country.
In fact, one could argue Argentina's economic crisis in the modern Kirchener era is a result of its government straying from Friedman's economic policies.
Hencredible Casanova said:
Not sure about that. But what would Friedman have to say about Scandinavian countries, which have high standards of living amongst other things? Surely, those countries have not espoused his ideas and policies. I think it's one of those things which looks good on paper, but disastrous in practice. These guys like Lawrence Summers, Alan Greenspan etc. basically jerk off to Friedman and Rand and look at how much damage they've done to the US economy (well, damage to the American middle class, the elite remains untouched obviously).
Cunnilinguist said:
Not sure what he would say about Scandinavian countries, though I doubt that model could be successfully replicated in other places, particularly the developing world.
Friedman cited Hong Kong as a place that reflects his free market ideals though.
I'd like to hear his thoughts on contemporary South Africa. He gave lectures there during the 70s but none post-Apartheid that I can recall.
Milton Friedman is wrong about printing money.
Under certain circumstances - it is a free-lunch.
Paul Krugman explains how.
http://www.pkarchive.org/theory/baby.html
As much as I can judge these things - I am convinced that there are occasions where printing money can be helpful.
Under certain circumstances - it is a free-lunch.
Paul Krugman explains how.
http://www.pkarchive.org/theory/baby.html
As much as I can judge these things - I am convinced that there are occasions where printing money can be helpful.