Milton Friedman explodes the myth that the Great Depression was produced by a failure of private enterprise. www.LibertyPen.com Source: Milton Friedman Speaks Buy it: www.freetochoos...
Pickett Aasde you vote for by the people you elect. If society would be more responsible if the right to vote would happen only if somebody had to risk something with it (like going in the army or voluntary work or something ),then this question would be moot.
Who is the Federal Reserve, is something we can answer, pre-World Wars, because we have a list of owners. Which, well, the major owner, was the Bank of NY. But, currently, you are not allowed to know whom the current owners are. But, clearly, one of the owners is the US Government, since the more money they print, the more money they give to the USA in "interest payments", which is actually a deceptive term, since it's really a tax on everyone whom held the currency before the payment. Their old currency is depreciated, with the printing.
@@normbograham3It's ALWAYS been the Rothschilds Central Bank Cartel System that has committed theft against the American people. Snuck in during Christmas recess in 1913, signed off by that traitor Wilson. Those blood sucking tics have had their hooks into the US since the country was founded.
Adam Smith who wrote the Wealth of Nations in the 18th Century said if people who own real estate like Trump and people who work for wages like his supporters are in charge of a country it does well because their fortunes are tied to the country they live in but if international bankers run a nation then it fails because liquidating the assets of a country is how they make money. It all depends on how you want to live.
That is so true. For almost 30 years now we have been running the economy for the benefit of Wall Street and financiers instead of building real wealth buy building real things. A paper economy eventually gets reduced to the value of that paper and that is where we are headed.
@@darylfoster7944 Are you talking in terms of producing things or in inflated dollar values? We don't build ships, we don't have the steel industry we used to have, etc. US Steel has now gone the way of Bethlehem Steel and that is not a good thing. That steel industry is what allowed us to win the 2nd World War and it is the lack of that industry that is making our ship building problems bigger than just bureaucratic stupidity and lord knows that is bad enough.
Yeah? What good would it do? It takes power and action to change things. When has asking your bully to quit hitting you ever worked? We know what we pay to enable, and we're never going to quit giving them our lunch money. Discuss away
@@X9523-z3v iN A WORLD FULL OF SHEEP YOU ARE EXECTLY CORRECT, WHERE DO YOU THINK ALL THOSE "POLITICIANS" WOULD BE IF THIS WERE SPARTA,......I KNOW WHY THEY ARE FEMANIZING EVERYTHING, THATS CLEAR, I WOULD WANT MY ENEMY AS WEAK AS POSSIBLE BEFORE I CONQUER THEM..........
The more I learn about the economic history of the United States, the more I am CONVINCED that every major economic downturn has been caused by excessive government interference in the market place.
The Great Depression made it easier to push people into war, higher taxation, and the eventual creep toward Feudalism 2.0 we're living through today, under the false descriptors of Democracy and progress.
Protectionism is justified. Free markets always evolve into internationalists wet dreams. Keep internationalist investors out of owning property or real estate and you won’t have maligned interests parasitically eating away at your soul.
To this day the dept of treasury and all other government offices have never been audited. The government will not fix government and needs to be reduced in size by 2/3rds.
@Steve Bilkos. lol it’s amazing to think we allow government to ‘educate’ our children - we willingly take our children in to them and pay taxes to allow this indoctrination! We must be raving mad...
The government system will hide the truth at all cost, so everything that is taught in any level of education will never use the truth except what they want you to know.
We all like to say things like "I wish Milton or Sowell (et al) was president"... however, we can all educate ourselves a little and try to emulate them a bit in life :)
brassmonkeyjew Bernake is regarded as an expert on the great depression but seems to be one who never read a book on the subject. He made all the same mistakes that turned a stock market crash into an even bigger mess. His successor Janet Yellin is hopelessly out of her depth. The US currency will not survive the mistakes that have been made
We have them, but people don't want to believe them. As he pointed out, if the government can take the value of your dollar instead of the number of your dollars, then they'll do it.... all while bragging about how they're not raising taxes. It's hard to blame an ELECTED politician for this; because if they're not elected, they aren't effective, and if they are honest about the transfer of wealth, they wouldn't be elected.
I never thought of it that way. That inflation, when used as an intentional devise (not the by-product of poor policy), is the governments way of taxing you without taxing you.
It is also the reason why America has large wealth inequality, the poor get poorer and the corporations and banks connected to the government get richer.
+MrJarth However to be fair, our "poor" are wealthier than many many countries "rich" people. Our poor people are "relatively" poor to our rich, but our poor are "relatively" rich to the world population.
+Brett Means: Lets address your points one by one. *Government spends the same dollar we do. It makes no sense for them to lessen the value of the taxes they collect just so they can print more money. It's pointless.* No it makes plenty of sense. If you own 10,000 dollars 50 years ago, that was a lot of money. If you owe it today, it is significantly less. This is due to inflation. For them to devalue the dollar devalues debt. That is why mortgaging a home is fruitful, the debt stays the same while inflation increased the cost of the home. Not only does it help the government (the largest debt holder) to devalue it's debt, it also helps them with spending. Inflation happens AFTER money is in circulation, not BEFORE. The government gets to spend the money before inflation happens--this creates the inflation and devalues their debt. *you don't live under a gold standard.* What specifically don't I understand? *The Fed's response to the 2008 crisis should show you that banks can create literally hundreds of billions of dollars in liquidity without causing massive inflation. So long as the liquidity stays within the banks, which it did,* Right--which answers your first issue about why the government would devalue the dollar. The inflation occurs when the money is circulated, not when it is made. *What makes you think deflation is a good thing?* It is good for those that have dollars and bad for those that have debt. If you have money, it becomes more valuable. *The economy, and everything you enjoy in it, is built on inflation* Mostly--though technology would be the exception. What about it? *Remember, that when prices deflate, wages do also.* When the wage goes down, it is because the value of the dollar went up. Remember the cost of goods also goes down. Just like when there is a minimum wage increase, prices go up. If you took a zero off of everything, from wages to prices--no one lost a cent. Just like if you added a zero to everything. The only losers and winners are the people who have dollars in debt or savings. *You must either be very young or very well provided for to behave as if wage reduction and massive layoffs across the entire economy is a 'good and natural thing'.* I would suggest not assuming much about someone's character or background off of a youtube comment. If you think inflation does not cause the same problems--you are grossly misinformed. Inflation causes the same problem. Again, the issue is devaluing debt which devalues savings--or valuing savings which values debt. It does not take a psychoanalyst to understand why the government chooses to devalue debt.
The fed is supposed to keep inflation and monetary policy stable, what they actually did however was create huge quantities of money and cheap credit in the 20's, driving rapid expansion and a bubble, and then adopted a harsh tight monetary policy in the 30's, creating a crash. In simple terms, the fed continually distorted the market through expansionist and then austere monetary policy, when what they are supposed to do is keep everything fairly stable.
Isn't history interesting, by that all who say it is boring and not important are the same individuals who seem to have much to say about the 1% the 99% the crooked banks and so on who attempt to sound logical really haven't a clue because, as you pointed out and the contents of the video reveal, it is happening all over again. This time, however there have been warnings but are people laughing or listening.
So you agree that Smoot - Hawley had nothing to do with the great depression. I agree with you it was the FEDS monetary policy ( refusal to renew the money supply ) was the cause.
It's the boom/bust cycle. A boom to make the sheeple produce, create, establish - then a bust to steal it from them at pennies on the dollar. Rinse - repeat. That's how 50% of all real assets are owned by the elite today. Or an important part of the reason.
_"The Congress has been very unwilling to raise taxes, as a result it has imposed inflation as a tax, that's one tax you don't have to vote for"_ Very wise words, Milton.
@speedingAtI94; "Have to" ? Why don't we remember and require our judges and every elected official to use and enforce the US Constitution which says in Article 1 Section 10: No State Shall... Make Any Thing but Silver and gold as tender in payment of debts ? Have we forgotten our birthright is freedom or have we gone soft in allowing the powers that shouldn't be to inflict upon us all a debt-based monetary system by which the working class is oppressed and all of us are enslaved?
@@RoylamxThat is a limitation imposed on the members of the Union that prevents them from printing money. Member states are restricted to just coins of silver and gold and no more. Article 8 grants very broad power to Congress to regulate the value of "coined money", and a lot more: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;..."
Right now, we don't need more taxes, we need less spending. Gouging the rich, an obsession of the left, will not lead to balanced budgets. It is a red herring.
I've never seen someone explain such significant and complex topics in such a simple manner. Four or five years ago, at the start of high school, I started getting recommended Friedman clips from RU-vid, and that piqued my interest in economics. Now I'm an economics major at university all thanks to this.
if I am understanding your post correctly. You are saying that that the Government should have been regulating the actions of Wall Street, and should have forced the Fed to renew the money supply in order to offset the run on the banks. The believe the government should regulated speculators who drove stocks and then sold, leaving others holding the hot potato. Is that correct.
I had to key Cathy Newman into my browser in order know who she was. No; I have never heard of her. Actually that is what you are saying. The depression was caused from buying stock on the margin, and was sustained by the FED not renewing the money supply, thus causing the run on the banks. Thus causing the closing of the banks. The market has been kept under control by REGULATION, or at least until Glass - Steagall was repealed.
Friedman’s (Monetarism) take on the Great Depression is flawed.. I recommend u look into the Austrians approach to the Great Depression. The Austrians of the time(Mises) were the only people who predicted the depression and it’s causes correctly. I think there is some truth to Friedman’s assessment but his remedies are naive/optimistic. I recommend u read Murray Rothbards book on the Great Depression. It explains how artificial interest rates set by the fed created the Great Depression bubble.
@@joemorales3764 Is there a place where you can read those books for free? I have a lot of respect for Friedman but can you please explain how his explanation was flawed?
News Man you can read books for free on Zlibrary Friedman believed the depression was caused by monetary policy which is partly true. However the Austrians would argue differently. It wasn’t particularly monetary policy but rather artificial interest rates that lead to the bubble. The Austrians of the time, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt and some others were the only people to predict the depression because artificial interest rates lead to malinvestment and when the investments fall short u are left with a economic downturn. That’s how peter schiff in 2006 properly predicted the 2008 depression and in 2017 predicted 2020. Now Friedman’s assessment is correct that had we bailed out the first bank that failed, we might not have seen near as much damage BUT monetary policy did not play as big of a factor as artificial interest rates. Most Austrians unlike Milton Friedman do not believe in a central bank(The Fed). Friedman eventually years before death changed his mind on this and moved away from monetarism towards Free market banking. I love Milton Friedman but I recommend anyone who reads this to go check out Austrian economics. They are the best at debunking communism, central banking, understanding inflation and deflation, etc.
@@joemorales3764 Damn, I will look into those Austrian books of economics in the future, thanks for the link. Btw, what are artificial interest rates? Are those the ones the fed gives? Or the ones that end up not being repayed? Please explain, I need to know. Would greatly appreciate it.
News Man when I say artificial interest rates I’m referring to the ones set by the Fed. The reason I have the modifier “artificial” in front of it is to show that when the Fed sets interest rates those rates have no real value. for example in a free market banking system Banks woulf Lower interest rates when bank savings rise and raise interest rates when savings lower. The Fed does not look at savings to determine interest rates. They look at the economy which is an arbitrary measure. And so it’s artificial not natural.
Talk about myths, there's no such thing as a "self-regulating free market" and never will be one. If you don't agree provide one documented example of a self regulating free market in all of recorded history.
BTW Dennis, if you assert something as fact then you should be prepared to prove your claims. Conservatives keep talking all this trash about the magic of "self regulating free markets" but they have never once in all of recorded history provided one example of a self regulating free market. Why is that? Because they never have existed and never will except in the imaginations of right wing ideologues. When you can provide empirical proof of what you claim is a free market get back to me and then maybe I'll change my mind. But if you can't then maybe you should rethink what you think you know.
Well there was one country that resisted the globalist's plot and experienced a period of never seen before prosperity, but they were eventually destroyed and demonized so that even to this day they are portrayed by MSM as the most horrible people that ever lived
@@nekroneschwartz2013 To be fair, Nazi Germany was just printing fiat currency at the time, it couldn't have gone on forever. There's also the nature of their war-economy, a big part of their economic growth came from supplying the military, which again was unsustainable in the long-run.
Nekrone Schwartz The foresight may have been there but the same country must also take responsibility for allowing a party with a doctrine as evil and oppressive as modern day globalists to take power. Leaving MSM spins out of the picture, what happened IS documented history. As Friedman says here, everyone taking their part of the responsibility is the only way out.
Although it has been several years since this video was posted, it still is a vibrant, in depth common debate that is still valid as it appears. The ego does get in the way of progress and objectivity, Milton proves this over and over in all of his debates and symposiums on economics. Math does not lie but humans do.
It's clear very few had put in the amount of time deeply studying the subject of economics as did Milton. But the one thing that separates him from other economists is the way in which he communicates his message. He's after facts, truth, unlike most that are expressing their need to be heard and feed their enormous egos. His messages are very receptive even by his skeptics because he has a great deal of humility and care for policies that will give the individual the best possibility to make it. Love that dude.
Dude they got it right. It works exactly how it was designed. This guy is a bit of a misinformationist. There was no mistake.... THEY DID IT ON PURPOSE, THEY DO IT ON PURPOSE!
The best efforts of the Federal Reserve? Cough, cough bullshit. THE BOOMS & BUSTS ARE ON PURPOSE & they always have been. It is a way to consolidate power. The small banks that fail are absorbed by those banks "too big to fail" & thus the process repeats.
Mike McGuire well they were pretty good during the Keynesian time period between 1936-1978, also known as the Golden Age of Capitalism. As we had the highest growth over 3-4 decades all over the west in productivity growth, investment growth and wealth growth (among all citizens) and yeah we also had 0 new Deficits over the Years as we were Paying back the Government investments in the 40’s. Oh wait a minute does it make a difference on wich economic system the FED operates?s/
1:55 The great depression was produced by a failure of government, by a failure of monetary policy, said Friedman 2:02 It was produced by a failure of the Federal Reserve System to act in accordance with the intentions of those who established it. 2:45 The Federal Reserve ... would never admit that it produced the Great Depression (2:45) 2b. The hardest thing in the world for anybody is to admit that he made a mistake. (3:05) 3. The federal reserve was established in order to prevent bank panics and to keep banks from closing (4:19) 1933 it closed its own doors after one third of the nation's banks had closed. () [You can see this dramatized in "It's A Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart
Milton, "... private enterprise has no press agents ... the free market has no press agents ... the government has a great many press agents" What planet is Milton smoking on?
Preparing for the Impending Great Depression: Strategies for Thriving During The Great Reset. Wondering about the right timing for stock investments? Curious about the timeline for a complete economic recovery? Puzzled about how some individuals are generating over $450k in profits within months in the current market scenario? These questions have left me perplexed.
Yes, a good number of folks are raking in huge 6 figure gains in this downtrend, but such strategies are mostly successfully executed by folks with in depth market knowledge
A lot of folks downplay the role of advisors until being burnt by their own emotions. I remember couple summers back, after my lengthy divorce, I needed a good boost to help my business stay afloat, hence I researched for licensed advisors and came across someone of utmost qualifications. She's helped grow my reserve notwithstanding inflation, from $275k to $850k.
How can I participate in this? I sincerely aspire to establish a secure financlal future and am eager to participate. Who is the driving force behind your success?
There are many independent advisors to choose from. But I work with Vivian Jean Wilhelm and we've been working together for almost four years and she's fantastic. You could pursue her if she meets your requirements. I agree with her.
His point about it's hard to admit you've made a mistake...it's even harder for politicians. They don't want their mistake to keep them from getting reelected, and they don't want their mistake to hurt their party either. So they tend to just be silent about it.
I think he makes it clear it was the fault of the federal reserve system, and maybe I missed it, but what policies and actions did the federal reserve system put into place that caused the great depression? Where can I go to get more details about that?
Thank your mr. ((Friedman)) please tell us about the the privately run Federal Reserve started by members of your tribe was actually apart of the government.
Gee, it's almost like the FED knew it was causing the depression and wanted it to keep going. I wonder what was the end result of that depression for the fed... could it be..... More power?!?!
He didn’t say WHY the Fed made the mistake leading to the Great Depression. I suspect that back then the members of the Fed thought they were doing the right thing. He doesn’t say what the Fed should have done instead and why they should have done it. There’s a lot more to learn here that’s not being said.
The Fed, can’t live with it, can’t live without it. How else would you backstop fractional reserve lending by commercial banks? Because it’s pretty well proven that not backing them causes catastrophes for people that can be much worse than inflation. The gold standard, dogmatic thinking around protecting currency values, and post ww1 reparation policies all coalesced to create massive international imbalances leading into 1929. The people leading the Fed along with their counterparts in Europe were extremely puzzled about how to address the situation leading into the depression.
The Left (government, the media and too many "respected" retired politicians) would shut Dr. Friedman up, if he were alive. Fortunately, wisdom lives on!
In any competition or game there always players cheating or stretching the rules, game or capitalism fails when rules not enforced. Insider political, financial elites destroying destabilizing human creativity.
@@thorwilkinson2565 this is true the FED is supposed to be purely nonpartisan yet Trump constantly pushes the FED for even lower interest rates and they listen.
@Jason S. Trump has urged the FED to go to negative interest rates many times I thought that's what you were implying when you said you agree with Trump.
It is an agency they use to do business.. By them allowing or agreeing for them to Regulate U.S.money supply and charge interest,the ARE A GOVERNMENT AGENT BY DEFAULT. splitting hairs saying it a private back sounds naive..at ANY TIME The U.S government can STOP the use of The Fed.Reserve...an by Constitutional authority, Print and coin U.S money as what Founding Father intended.. And there would be not a single thing fed.reserve could do but find other jobs...because its a vehicle Not owner of the vehicle..get it,got it yw.
They are lumped together as "free" market advocates but they differ substantially regarding their policy prescriptions in terms of the Fed / money supply. Uncle Milty advocated a simple monetary policy of constant, limited growth of the money supply orchestrated by the Fed and the fractional reserves banking system whereas the Austrians consider the Fed and fractional reserves banking as an unmitigated evil that is immoral in nature and uncontrollable in practice and thus need to be abolished asap.
Austrians are more heterodox, disdaining data-centric economics in favor of the philosophical. Friedman was a bit more mainstream, a Monetarist. Both are small-government types, though Austrians seem to attract more anarcho-capitalists. For the Great Depression, the Austrian and Monetarist schools align at first, blaming the Fed for poor monetary policy. But Austrians like Rothbard go further and suggest that it was government intervention through legislation (tariffs, taxes) that stagnated the recovery.
@@DukeRevolution Yes, Austrians [mises.org et. al] are in favor of the philosophical. It is excessive to the point, where it becomes removed from the reality we live in. Even directional libertarianism is frowned upon in their circles.
Great recession was the grandchild of the great depression. Caused by the same bureaucratic mentality that refuses to learn it's own history of ineptitude.
@@ThinkerHaistTV No. It was caused by ineptitude by government policy. Other than home values skyrocketing due to fraudulent lending practices, inflation as a whole was moderate
I will give this a 👎🏽 thumbs down because the Federal Reserve IS business executives and leaders in the role of Fed members. The very same people, business, that “supposedly” caused the Depression are the same people who make up the Fed. So in essence, business created things if he’s blaming the Fed.
Milton is wrong on one thing, the US Constitution does not allow for a Federal Reserve Bank: Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
"Inflation is a tax you don't vote for but you have to pay." The type of government you vote in determines what the inflation rate will be. If this wasn't true, you could vote in a very high spending government and not worry about the consequences. To put it another way: tell that to the Venezuelans!
@@nodatron6954 No, I'm not trying to suggest anything. I'm just saying that the statement I quoted means very little by itself. I have no idea whether having a Democrat or Republican government is better for the US and have no opinion on that.
So many misleading claims: GD due to poor monetary policy. But why was "monetary policy" (meaning the Fed should have showered banks, but not average working people, with free money) needed in the first place? Because markets require an expensive regulatory system and that system is always vulnerable to being slanted in favor of the few instead of the greater public good. GD due to people who didn't take the right course of action despite the knowledge of many in the system about the right course of action. So that would have to include Herbert Hoover, elected because of his great business success in navigating the private system, and who insisted on laissez faire which MF normally applauds but here shies away from because MF instead likes an all powerful arm of the government known as the Fed capable of saving even the most criminal of banks. The private market owns all the press agents. Moreover, if a press agent wants to keep his job, he knows better than to attack the wrong private market participants. Maybe MF was living in a time when few openly attacked political leaders.
Prior to 2006, Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman told Americans to take advantage of short term loans to buy houses. As home prices skyrocketed into a bubble, the fed held mortgage interest rates low causing a catastrophic bubble that exploded in 2007.
The bubble has reinflated. But Powell has prevented it from popping by buying mortgages. Currently Powell (Fed) is sitting on $2.5 Trillion of mortgages. Powell / Fed has no income, so he buys them by printing money. Hence inflation. I am yet to meet an American who knows that the Fed has a balance sheet, and the Fed clearly states how much money they have spent on mortgages. (Google up H41 Federal Reserve Current Release).
Banks have done more injury to religion, tranquility, property, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or will do good. John Adams Without big banks, socialism would be impossible. Vladimir Lenin
The recipe is simple. Remove from congress by constitutional amendment the power to coin money, create a Federal Reserve System to do just that, use the newly created Federal Reserve System to create a depression, elect FDR, the quadruple the size of government. It is all about Power, Money, and Control.
A very powerful and accurate explanation. Dr. Friedman has just exposed those that hold the true purse strings in this country, the same ones to blame for it's economic ills. Great video.
Maybe he doesn't know that the great depression brought up the Glass Stegall Act .which he fail to mention. He brings no proof but says ,IN My OPINION. Basically he's guessing. I was waiting for him to mention the the book of rise of federal reserve in 1913 .the book is call, The monster From Jekyll Island.
@2iorj32r -- free market economies always have ups and downs and good and bad times. You can't always produce EXACTLY what the population will consume. Friedman is just making a solid point in saying that the Fed can ease or compound the problem based on it's actions or inactions. They have a role, a key role at times, but they often cause more problems than they fix.
@@matthewdelaney3466 I have no idea what you mean. If you're calling me a pawn, I can tell you I'm not, and it's probably you who's the pawn for being unable to evaluate what's being said for yourself.
Folks just ask yourself this one question, WHAT does the Fed govt do that actually works ? Social Security ? Welfare ? IRS ? What has the FED done that has helped ...
Spentastic yet dems and republicans are crying out for a 1 trillion dollar infrastructure plan to fix the current infrastructure. Also a random fact.. the average cost for a public restroom made by the government is around 200 thousand dollars PER SQUARE FOOT... yea the government always does it better.
It may be "privately owned" but it's power stems from the state itself. It's hardly a private institution. Having elected officials or not is irrelevant to the question.
What is it about Jews and money? Friedman, Bloomberg, Greenspan, Keynes, Bernanke, Gates, Zuckerberg, even Marx all have had major influences on the world economy. I also wonder why so many Jewish surnames include valuable commodities such as gold, silver, diamonds, rubies?
I remember Milton Friedman mentioning this in a prior interview, I also heard Alan Greenspan saying so too during an interview. What Mr Friedman forgets to mention is that the Fed is a private bank not a government institution, its kind of part of the government (just because the president appoints the chairman, that's about it) and is as Federal as Federal Express. The reason why they contracted the money supply, according to many experts, was to wipe out all the small regional banks which were doing fairly well, so it wasn't really by inability or negligence, but by design.
It is a government institution. Who pays the people who work at the federal reserve? Plus the chair is appointed by the head of government so it is a government institution
Why would the Fed want to wipe out small regional banks? The Fed is unique - it has government-granted powers. It doesn't compete with the small banks - they are the Fed's customers.
04:10 "Unexpected headwinds" is the contemporary term 06:15 He fails to mention Smoot-Hawly 07:15 Friedman backed off from his claims here later on in his life, acknowledging that there were other factors he had not fully considered both in that era and in others. Nevertheless, he is on point in his criticism of government foul ups and the Fed as well as Congress.
Nothing mythical about the storekeeper next door to my grandparents place being the local collection centre for all the bootleg liquor being manufactured by families who would not normally but who had few alternatives. I sometimes use this story to query peoples beliefs about socialism and capitalism. Said storekeeper could have gotten his entire supply needs from one producer but chose to take a little from several. Storekeeper , in business equals capitalism right? Would one still keeper have been more efficient, probably. But one still keeper would have meant one family in his store, in the manner he operated he had many families in his store. Dunno where Friedman got his myth from. My grandfather was a still keeper and supplier and at the end of the summer break my father asked if it were possible for him to stay on working for him as his was the only income into a house, besides the hooch money, of one younger sibling one older sibling and his parents. None of this is myth. My father subsequently ended as as a chauffeur for one of the big bootleggers down in Toronto who retired from the “business” but maintained social contact with former partners and when they came to town my father would be enlisted to drive them around so the Feds would have no grounds to pull them over, an absolute was that my father did not drink when these friends were in town a couple of hundred miles north of Toronto. I still have my fathers Chauffeurs licence.
