Annotated on November 25, 2000
"(3) Paul Diesing lists six tactics Friedman
uses to support a pet hypothesis called "Permanent Income" (or
PI). These are:
"1. If raw or adjusted data are consistent with PI, he reports them
as confirmation of PI…
2. If the fit with expectations is moderate, he exaggerates the fit…
3. If particular data points or groups differ from the predicted regression,
he invents ad hoc explanations for the divergence…
4. If a whole set of data disagree with predictions, adjust them until they
do agree…
5. If no plausible adjustment suggests itself, reject the data as unreliable…
6. If data adjustment or rejection are not feasible, express puzzlement.
'I have not been able to construct any plausible explanation for the discrepancy…'"
"
I knew Dr. Milton Friedman for about 25 years. Each and every contact with him was a flight into fantasy land. I was on the economic advisory committee for Richard Nixon along with Milton Friedman; I debated him about a dozen time over the years from 1960 to 1980 and I had contact with him more than once at the White House.
He and many like him claim he is a "Nobel Laureate in Economics." except there is no such thing as a Nobel Laureate in Economics! This is one of those mythologies perpetuated by a profession, in this case the economists!
There is such a thing as a "Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics in Memory of Alfred Nobel" which is distinct and separate from the Nobel Prizes founded by Alfred Nobel in 1901. Those prizes were in medicine, literature, chemistry, physics,and peace.
There was no such thing as Nobel Prize in Economics for the very simple reason that it was not invented by Alfred Nobel but by the Bank of Sweden and only years ago, at that! The truth of this prize does not stop Milton Friedman (and economists like him) from claiming and representing he won a Nobel Prize! There is no question that he won the Bank of Sweden Memorial Prize in honor of Alfred Nobel but by no stretch of the imagination did he win a Nobel prize and to claim so (as he does) is to lie but, then again, he lies frequently about most things!
Apparently there is a developing controversy among economists about the award of the Bank of Sweden memorial prize. The objection is that the majority of the awards have gone to the monetarists! What else would you expect from a Bank dedicated to the concept of economic control by monetary means? Vested interest benefactor; vested interest awards!
Milton Friedman told President Nixon in 1971 at a White House meeting (I was there) that, in elections, "unemployment doesn't count" and worse than that "The unemployment rate doesn't matter"!
When I used
to debate
him he would
rebut almost everything I said on which we might disagree with statistics
that he quoted. One day I realized that he was faking his information and
his statistics were as phoney as a 3 dollar bill! I whipped him from then
on by bringing source books on the statistical evolution of the American
economy to each and every debate! He didn't know the most fundamental facts
about the evolution of the U.S.A.!
He was a theorist who made up his theories as he went along and to suit his prejudices. His book on money propounded the theory that (I am simplifying) all you needed to do to control inflation was to control the growth of money supply. For about a decade that theory was propounded by almost every economist in the United States. But there were economists who knew it to be simplified nonsense and tried to rebut it but to no avail. The business media loved Friedman to death since it was so simple to control the economy; control the money supply and you have it made!
"If you will accept the testimony of a rabid *** your portrait of Milton [free to lose] Friedman is right on. I debated him in a *** Conference at *** College in 1976 (R** H** was there too). I was stunned to discover, early on, that Friedman knew exceedingly little about The Wealth of Nations (the other half of the *** Conference), had obviously never read large parts of it, made one statement after another totally at odds with (among other things) U.S. economic history, and insisted that the decline in public transportation in the United States was purely a result of 'consumer sovereignty in action.' (This comment was made at the time that the United States was struggling to deal with the OPEC oil price hikes of 1973-74...!) I answered that I would love to be able to live without a car, but asked him how this might be possible in suburbs like these. His answer: "nobody is stopping you from giving away your car."Email to me from a reader in November, 2000
Unfortunately no one told the Saudi's and the other oil producing nations so when inflation went double digit in 1979-1982 because of the oil price embargo and gauging by OPEC the monetary theorists ran for cover and have been in hiding ever since.
Why do I resent people like Friedman? Because they do incredible damage to almost everything they touch; they get people to swallow nonsense and so real work and progress has to wait years and years before the truth comes out. They knowingly and intentionally misinform the people and their nonsense is spread by the media who do so since it makes everything simple.
Take the lack of inflation right now. There is no inflation in this world to speak of for a huge complex of reasons and to try and explain it in one page or less is nonsense. It can be explained and it can be understood but it is COMPLEX as all get out! But no one wants to read complex analyses and most people don't have the time, patience or interest to do so! And it has nothing to do with money supply (although that is a minor variable).
People like Friedman know exactly what
they are doing when they misinform the people. There are, unfortunately,
millions like him who damage our society with lies and misguidance. If you
sometimes wonder why there is so much conflicting information about the
U.S. A. then you might consider this solution: he/she is lying!
These are the backgrounds of prominent
people I have known. The backgrounds may be incomplete or they may be wrong.
I am working from memory and the backgrounds I give you are from my personal
(not book) knowledge. This is their backgrounds as I knew them. I have not
checked out the details and the backgrounds are incomplete but they do jell
with my knowledge of them and my experiences with them.
