An Immortal Friedman Quote

by Smitty (h/t pedbsktbll in the Google Reader)

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.--Milton Friedman

That quotation is mentioned in this clip:

Also appearing in the video is Ron Paul, whose End the Fed is well worth your attention, irrespective of your opinion on the rest of his policy positions.
So when the fertilizer hits the air circulator, what will happen? Here are a few speculations for consideration:

• Some kind of full-on conventional war, with possible scattered fallout of the nuclear variety. Once one of the world hot spots like Iraq or Afghanistan bubbles over, the grave is the limit.
• Collapse of the US government, through the currency trojan, and assumption of world power by plutocrats, using a UN façade, one presumes. While I don't suspect the vast bulk of the rubes on the left of even knowing of this plan, my gut says this is what the HMFICs are pursuing.
• A turnabout, where the spirit of the Constitution is resurrected. Details of such might include a phased roll-back of Entitlements to the States. It could start by admitting that Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac are, at best, experiments gone awry. Remit all of the data for the loans to the States of which the recipient is resident. Give a couple of years warning to the States, so that they can figure out WTF to do. Then roll backwards in time, kicking every single stupid entitlement back to the States, up to and including that Mother of Abominations, the Social Security Act. After that, you kill the Federal Reserve and the 16th and 17th Amendments.

Would that last scenario buy happiness? Of course not. What it would buy is the additional stability allowing States to turn themselves into Progressive Paradises (Massachusetts, Michigan, California) without taking down the other 47.

There Is No Bulletproof Answer.

What does exist is containment for inevitable policy failures.

Rose Friedman, R.I.P.

First Novak, and now Milton Friedman's widow, too:

Rose Director Friedman passed away Tuesday, August 18, 2009, in her home in Davis, California, of heart failure. While the exact date of her birth is uncertain, she is believed to have been 98 years old . . .

Brian Doherty has a tribute at Reason magazine. More blog reaction at Memeorandum. Our world is now much poorer for the departure of such giants, on whose shoulders we aspire to stand. Let us hope to be worthy of their rich legacy.

Rush Limbaugh on Friedrich Hayek

Weird concidences keep happening. Via Greg Ransom, here's Rush Limbaugh from Thursday:

RUSH: We have a junior from the University of Tennessee, the Tennessee Vols. This is Jordan on the phone. Hi, Jordan. It's great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. It's an honor to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: I just have a quick question. I am in a macroeconomics class. My minor is economics, and my professor drones on and on and on about the supply-side economics and how it does not work. And constantly in my test and even an essay, we had to talk about why supply-side economics does not work and why it's not fair to the poor and why it increases income inequality. I just want to know the truth, I guess. I'm just tired of this. . . .

OK, "supply side" is one particular understanding of economic policy -- the Laffer Curve and all that -- a catch-phrase that became popular in the 1980s, and we can discuss that elsewhere. But after some back and forth on the history of the Reagan adminstration, look what Rush says:

RUSH: They never had to work a day in their lives. They just get up. But that's wonderful because they talk about the things your professor talks about, but you don't see Ted Kennedy or any other liberal walking neighborhoods giving money away -- unless he's taken it from somebody else first. I implore you, Jordan, my man, to investigate independently the economist Friedrich Von Hayek (H-a-y-e-k) from the University of Chicago. He's long dead. I urge you to. Does your professor ever talk about Milton Friedman?
CALLER: Uhhh, no, sir.
RUSH: He does?
CALLER: No, he hasn't.
RUSH: Oh, he doesn't. I'm not surprised. Milton Friedman. There's a videotape, DVD series that Milton Friedman did that explains everything you want to know here in a classical economics sense. He's written many books. He was brilliant, Milton Friedman. So is Thomas Sowell, who is at the Hoover Institution on campus at Stanford. But read Friedrich Von Hayek, read The Constitution of Liberty, and read The Road to Serfdom. They're tough reads. These are intellectual treatises, but you will not be disappointed.

As Greg Ransom notes, a link by Instapundit (coincidentally run by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds) had already sent The Road to Serfdom to #283 on Amazon, and the mention by Rush was enough to boost it to #179.

Coincidence or conspiracy? Vainglorious ego makes me wonder if Rush is reading this blog, because he mentioned Hayek on the same day that I -- in discussing "kooks" -- wrote several paragraphs about Hayek and how The Road to Serfdom had influenced Reagan. This certainly isn't the first time Rush has mentioned Hayek or Friedman or Sowell on his program but . . . well, I question the timing!

"You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit."
-- Ronald Reagan

It was Hayek himself who described intellectuals as "secondhand dealers in ideas" and -- even though I've been named a leading Hayekian public intellectual (bwahahaha) -- I'm just driving a forklift in the regional distribution center. And there's a big "Help Wanted" sign out front. The more the merrier.

Let Jane Hamsher whine that she's not getting paid enough to push the Democratic Party agenda. The No. 1 radio show in America is pushing Hayek, Friedman and Sowell -- and making Obscene Profits along the way -- so I don't care whether it's a coincidence or a conspiracy. Megadittos, Rush.

BTW, Hayek's book, The Constitution of Liberty, is now #665 at Amazon. I question the timing!