Summary Of Milton Friedman On The Minimum Wages

Milton Friedman on the Minimum Wage

Milton Friedman appeared on Phil Donahue in 1979 to discuss a multitude of topics involving economics. When at first I saw the image of the video that was about to play I felt dread. How could this man impart viable information towards our class? Much of what we have discussed has been over the way our Constitution was written and the course our Judicial System. Well I was wrong. Milton Friedman was not your average Economics Professor. He was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, as well as the National Medal of Science, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. During the course of his interview with Phil Donahue it was hard to tell from time to time who’s show it was. Friedman has an ease with responding to hard questions, never skipping a beat, giving clear concise answers that are easily understood. At the time of the interview he was in his retirement teaching at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University where he was a Professor of Economics. The main theme throughout the interview is Friedman’s aversion to the government’s involvement in the lives of Americans and in business. Chrysler was petitioning for a government by hiring lobbyist to help orchestrate their bailout wanting in the
A woman stands up and asks what can be done about wasteful spending? Friedman kind of chuckles and says nothing, that the government would have you believe that the wasteful spender is the one who drives up the cost of inflation but in reality it is the wasteful nature of government spending. That there should be a limit on how much the can spend and that they should stop creating money that we don’t have. The government has disrupted the cycle of supply and demand it would settle itself out. Friedman says “just because you can find value in government doesn’t mean everything the government does is