João Leão: Economia precisa de imigrantes (e não só dos qualificados)

[Quimporta]

Polémicas à parte, acho especialmente significativo que o comité NOBEL atribua o prémio a Milton Friedman e décadas depois o faça também a Krugman e Stiglitz, que defendem caminhos bastante antagónicos.

Mantém-se válida a máxima de que "bastam 3 economistas para ter 4 opiniões"

The Man Who Saved Capitalism


Milton Friedman, who would have turned 100 on Tuesday, helped to make free markets popular again in the 20th century. His ideas are even more important today.

WSJ OPINION July 30, 2012, 7:15 p.m. ET



It's a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born 100 years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It's perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world's greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.

Friedman was a constant presence on these pages until his death in 2006 at age 94. If he could, he would surely be skewering today's $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth—and exposing the confederacy of economic dunces urging more of it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... on_LEADTop
(...)

[PMACS]

Gosto especialmente desta!

Milton Friedman - Responsabilidade pelos pobres

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[PMACS]

Um tópico de Milton Friedman e sem um único video do próprio...!!!


Milton Friedman em Entrevista Clássica

Parte 1
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Parte 2
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Parte 3
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[VirtuaGod]

"The Chicago question

What would Milton Friedman do now?

MILTON FRIEDMAN, who would have turned 100 on July 31st had he lived, remains as relevant now as he was during his long life. The Chicago economist was a critic of the over-mighty state (which has only got over-mightier since his death in 2006). He was a passionate critic of public-school monopolies (which remain as resistant to reform as ever). He was the quintessential engaged intellectual: he wrote fluently in the popular press (the closest modern equivalent is his ideological opposite, Paul Krugman); acted as an adviser, in the United States, to Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, and, abroad to Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s dictator; and championed the legalisation of drugs and prostitution and the abolition of the draft.

His one-liners remain memorable, particularly about bossy bureaucrats, for whom he felt a short man’s angry disdain. “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand”; “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme”. Many of his policy ideas continue to resonate, such as that of giving parents vouchers which they can spend at a school of their choice.

So what would he have wanted economic policymakers to do now? One part is obvious: unleash the deregulation the world needs. But there is also a more technical but bitterly contested question—to do with the role of central banks. The subject on which he thought hardest was central banks and the slump. So it is only reasonable to ask on the 100th anniversary of his birth what he would have urged policymakers to do about the worst economic slowdown since the Depression.

In “A Monetary History of the United States”, co-written with Anna Jacobson Schwartz, Friedman argued persuasively that the Federal Reserve was an accomplice in the Depression, thanks to its failure to reverse a stunning fall in the money supply. Schwartz, who died in June, wrote in 2007 that the book initiated a “counter-revolution” in monetary thought that heavily influences policy today. In 2002, the new Fed governor, Ben Bernanke, hailed the two, saying of the Depression, “You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you we won’t do it again.” What should be done instead is less clear. Some economists, including Mr Krugman, argue that Friedman would have supported Mr Bernanke’s efforts to boost the economy and may have urged him to go further. Others say Mr Bernanke has abused Friedman’s legacy. On August 1st Mr Bernanke must weigh these competing views when the Fed meets to consider a third round of “quantitative easing” (QE), the purchase of bonds with newly created money.

In the 1930s low interest rates were interpreted as a sign that monetary policy was loose. Friedman and Schwartz showed that inflation-adjusted interest rates were a better indicator and that money was in fact tight. When bank panics further shrank the money supply, the Fed’s refusal to respond made the Depression great. Friedman and Schwartz argued that money supply would have responded to QE.

The Depression shaped Friedman’s distinct view of the macroeconomy, dubbed monetarism. Monetarism holds that money-supply changes influence real economic variables such as employment in the short-run but only inflation over time: “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Dangerous falls in money supply are the responsibility of the central bank. So, too, is runaway money growth. When his “Monetary History” was published in 1963, a Keynesian view held sway: that inflation was a supply-side creation, driven by input costs.

Friedman blamed monetary policy. Rapid money growth raised demand above the economy’s supply potential, leaving “too much money chasing too few goods”. A monetary response was necessary and sufficient to cure inflation. Converts including Paul Volcker, as chairman of the Fed, rose to the challenge, tightening policy and squeezing inflation from the economy.

Today, critics of Fed easing point to Friedman’s preference for stable money-supply growth, to help establish central-bank discipline. John Taylor notes that money growth was quite rapid during the recent recession. Hawks also cite Friedman’s anti-inflation crusade. To Allan Meltzer, “The Fed’s plan to increase inflation [through QE]…is a large step away from the policy that Milton Friedman favoured.” It is more like old Keynesianism, which held that faster inflation could buy a permanent drop in joblessness. Friedman rejected this. He contributed to the “natural rate hypothesis”, that efforts to push employment above an economy’s limits simply bid up wages, raising inflation.

Yet Friedman also considered variables other than prices. A characteristic of both the contraction of the 1930s and the Japanese stagnation of the 1990s, he noted, was the drag of tight money on nominal GDP. Reversing this would “have the same effect as always,” he said: “output will grow, and after another delay, inflation will increase moderately.” He grew flexible, as well, concerning money-supply rules. In 1984 he wrote that slow, steady monetary growth was “not a necessary implication of monetarist theory”. And when an economic crash in 1990s Japan gave way to a feeble recovery and deflation, Friedman recommended a monetary “kiss of life” in the form of QE.

Always and everywhere an argument

America’s nominal output tumbled during the recession and its growth remains below the trend seen in recent expansions. It is plausible that Friedman would blame monetary policy for this shortfall. Low inflation-expectations might indicate a large output gap and room for more monetary stimulus. It falls to Mr Bernanke and his counterparts to judge whether they have done all they can or are exposing themselves to the withering criticism of some future Friedman."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange

[Elias]

Milton Friedman: 1 siglo de su natalicio

Especialistas analizarán en Chile la obra del finado premio Nobel de Economía a partir del martes; las teorías del estadounidense son de las más influyentes en el mundo.

Publicado: Lunes, 30 de julio de 2012 a las 12:27

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (Notimex) — Este martes economistas y académicos escudriñarán la vida y obra del premio Nobel de Economía, Milton Friedman, durante un seminario en el marco del centenario de su natalicio.

Bajo el título "A 100 años del nacimiento de Milton Friedman", especialistas reflexionarán entorno a la teoría económica de Friedman y recordarán además algunas anécdotas de la vida de este connotado economista, en CasaPiedra, Santiago, Chile.

El seminario en memoria de Friedman, organizado por los académicos Rolf Lüders y Luis González, contará con la participación del consejero del Banco Central, Sebastián Claro; del decano de la Facultad de Economía y Administración de la Universidad de Chicago, Francisco Rosende y del ex ministro del Interior, Carlos Cáceres, entre otros, de acuerdo al portal electrónico "puranoticia.cl".

Milton Friedman nació el 31 de julio de 1912, en Brooklyn, Nueva York, Estados Unidos; fue hijo de inmigrantes rumanos, Sarah Ethel (Landau) y Jeno Saul Friedman.

Al igual que sus tres hermanos, Friedman recibió la educación básica en escuelas públicas, pero durante su último año en secundaria su padre murió, situación que complicó la economía de la familia.

"Mi padre murió dejando a mi madre y dos hermanas mayores para apoyar a la familia. No obstante, se da por sentado que asistiría a la universidad, aunque, yo la tuviera que financiar", comenta Friedman en su autobiografía publicada en el portal "nobelprize.org".

Estudió en la Universidad de Rutgers, Nueva Jersey, gracias a una beca que le fue otorgada por esta institución. Durante este periodo solventó sus gastos trabajando como mesero.

A los 20 años, el joven Friedman se graduó y en un principio se mostró interesado por la actuaria; sin embargo, poco a poco la economía captó su atención y finalmente obtuvo conocimientos en los dos campos.

Se relacionó con los economistas Arthur F. Burns, quien entonces enseñaba en Rutgers, y Jones Homero, quien impartía posgrados en la Universidad de Chicago, ambos representaron fuertes influencia en su trabajo y hasta su muerte fueron sus grandes amigos.

Gracias a una recomendación de Homero, Friedman fue becado por el departamento de Economía de Chicago, donde conoció a Jacob Viner, Knight Frank y Henry Schultz, un brillante grupo de estudiantes de posgrado que lo introdujeron a una atmósfera intelectual cosmopolita, igualmente trató con la profesora Rose Director, quien seis años más tarde se convirtió en su esposa.

El siguiente año, 1933, recibió una beca de la Universidad de Columbia, donde "se ampliaron sus horizontes", a decir de Friedman.

Tras concluir su estancia en esta escuela regresó a Chicago para ser asistente de investigación de Henry Schultz.

Estableció una fuerte amistad con sus compañeros George J. Stigler y W. Allen Wallis, este último le ayudó a trabajar, en 1935, en la Comisión de Recursos Nacionales en el diseño de un estudio de los consumidores de presupuesto grande, uno de los principales temas de su teoría "La función de consumo".

En otoño de 1937 ingresó a la Oficina Nacional de Investigación Económica para trabajar con Simon Kuznets. Ambos realizaron un estudio sobre los ingresos profesionales.

Entre 1941 y 1943 trabajó en el Departamento del Tesoro de Estados Unidos, donde realizó estudios sobre la política fiscal en tiempos de guerra, mientras que de 1943 a 1945 colaboró en la Universidad de Columbia y en compañía de Harold Hotelling y W. Allen Wallis, se desempeñó como estadístico matemático de los problemas de diseño de las armas, las tácticas militares y los experimentos metalúrgicos.

Luego de trabajar junto con George Stigler en la Universidad de Minnesota, Friedman regresó a Universidad de Chicago para enseñar la Teoría Económica y Arthur Burns, entonces director de la investigación de la Oficina Nacional, lo convenció de reunirse con el personal y asumir la responsabilidad de su estudio sobre el papel del dinero en el ciclo económico.

En 1950 se trasladó a París, Francia, para desempeñarse como consultor de la agencia gubernamental de Estados Unidos, ahí analizó la administración del Plan Marshall y escribió su ensayo "El caso de tipos de cambio flexibles".

A partir de 1960 se interesó por el espacio público y cuatro años más tarde fungió como asesor económico del senador Goldwater en su búsqueda infructuosa por la presidencia. En 1968 formó parte del comité de asesores económicos de Richard Nixon.

En 1976 la Academia sueca le concedió el Premio Nobel de Economía por sus estudios en las esferas del análisis del consumo, de la historia y la teoría monetaria, así como de la política de estabilización económica.

A los 68 años se retiró de la enseñanza activa en la Universidad de Chicago; no obstante, conservó un vínculo con el departamento y sus actividades de investigación.

En 1998 escribió un libro junto a su esposa, titulado "Dos personas con suerte", en el que relata sus memorias y ese mismo año recibió la Medalla de la Libertad, considerada la más alta condecoración civil de Estados Unidos.

El 16 de noviembre de 2006, a los 94 años, Milton Friedman falleció en un hospital de San Francisco, luego de sufrir un ataque al corazón.

http://www.cnnexpansion.com/economia/20 ... nacimiento

[Elias]

Milton Friedman, referência da direita, nasceu há 100 anos

31 de Julho, 2012

O norte-americano Milton Friedman, prémio Nobel da Economia em 1976, nasceu há cem anos mas continua a ser uma referência para os economistas mais liberais e para a direita dos Estados Unidos.

«Quem me dera que pudéssemos encontrar outro Milton Friedman», disse num debate televisivo Mitt Romney, o candidato do Partido Republicano à presidência, segundo o Washington Post.

A herança de Friedman não se esgota contudo no debate político norte-americano, e as suas opiniões eram mais diversificadas do que se pode pensar.

Friedman nasceu a 31 de Dezembro numa família judaica de Nova Iorque, mas a cidade a que o seu nome está mais associado é Chicago.

Durante mais de três décadas, foi professor na Universidade de Chicago, instituição associada ao pensamento económico liberal. A 'escola de Chicago' teve grande influência na ciência económica por todo o mundo, através da sua defesa dos mercados livres e da rejeição das ideias keynesianas sobre a intervenção estatal.

Em 1976, Friedman recebeu o prémio Nobel da Economia pelo seu estudo da política monetária. Paralelamente à actividade académica, Friedman escrevia regularmente na imprensa sobre questões económicas e políticas. Foi ainda conselheiro económico de vários presidentes dos EUA (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford e Ronald Reagan, todos republicanos) e de estadistas estrangeiros, como a primeira-ministra britânica Margaret Thatcher ou o ditador chileno Augusto Pinochet.

A sua proximidade com figuras políticas conservadoras e a sua associação ao liberalismo económico fez de Milton Friedman um ícone da direita nos EUA. No entanto, a sua ideologia libertária levou-o a assumir posições como o repúdio do serviço militar obrigatório durante a guerra do Vietname ou a defesa da liberalização do consumo de drogas.

Mesmo em termos económicos, Friedman era mais moderado que alguns dos seus defensores contemporâneos nos EUA. O Washington Post recorda que Friedman escreveu que «a existência de mercados livres não elimina a necessidade» do Estado: «Pelo contrário, o Estado é fundamental como fórum para determinar as ‘regras do jogo’ e como árbitro para as interpretar e aplicar».

Friedman, que morreu em 2006, era um eurocéptico. Em vésperas de introdução das notas e moedas de euro, manifestou as suas dúvidas sobre a viabilidade da moeda única: «Receio que tenha por consequência um período de turbulências, porque o euro, em vez de promover um sistema político unificado, dá origem a contrastes», disse numa entrevista a um jornal italiano.

«Sem uma união política solidamente estabelecida, a união monetária não irá em frente», disse Friedman numa outra entrevista a um jornal alemão.

A sua obra mais famosa é provavelmente Uma História Monetária dos Estados Unidos (escrita a meias com a economista Anna Schwartz), onde descreveu a Grande Depressão iniciada em 1929 como produto de uma política monetária errada da Reserva Federal (banco central dos EUA).

«Tem razão, a culpa foi nossa. Lamentamos muito. Mas graças a si não vamos repetir os mesmos erros», disse-lhe em 2002 o actual presidente da Fed, Ben Bernanke.

Lusa/SOL

[pepi]

Faço a minha homenagem colocando aqui novamente o artigo escrito em 1997 por Friedman.
Mais actual é impossível!

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen ... -disunity-

Milton Friedman
Aug. 28, 1997
The Euro: Monetary Unity To Political Disunity?

SAN FRANCISCO: A common currency is an excellent monetary arrangement under some circumstances, a poor monetary arrangement under others. Whether it is good or bad depends primarily on the adjustment mechanisms that are available to absorb the economic shocks and dislocations that impinge on the various entities that are considering a common currency. Flexible exchange rates are a powerful adjustment mechanism for shocks that affect the entities differently. It is worth dispensing with this mechanism to gain the advantage of lower transaction costs and external discipline only if there are adequate alternative adjustment mechanisms.

The United States is an example of a situation that is favorable to a common currency. Though composed of fifty states, its residents overwhelmingly speak the same language, listen to the same television programs, see the same movies, can and do move freely from one part of the country to another; goods and capital move freely from state to state; wages and prices are moderately flexible; and the national government raises in taxes and spends roughly twice as much as state and local governments. Fiscal policies differ from state to state, but the differences are minor compared to the common national policy.

Unexpected shocks may well affect one part of the United States more than others -- as, for example, the Middle East embargo on oil did in the 1970s, creating an increased demand for labor and boom conditions in some states, such as Texas, and unemployment and depressed conditions in others, such as the oil-importing states of the industrial Midwest. The different short-run effects were soon mediated by movements of people and goods, by offsetting financial flows from the national to the state and local governments, and by adjustments in prices and wages.

By contrast, Europe’s common market exemplifies a situation that is unfavorable to a common currency. It is composed of separate nations, whose residents speak different languages, have different customs, and have far greater loyalty and attachment to their own country than to the common market or to the idea of "Europe." Despite being a free trade area, goods move less freely than in the United States, and so does capital.

The European Commission based in Brussels, indeed, spends a small fraction of the total spent by governments in the member countries. They, not the European Union’s bureaucracies, are the important political entities. Moreover, regulation of industrial and employment practices is more extensive than in the United States, and differs far more from country to country than from American state to American state. As a result, wages and prices in Europe are more rigid, and labor less mobile. In those circumstances, flexible exchange rates provide an extremely useful adjustment mechanism.

If one country is affected by negative shocks that call for, say, lower wages relative to other countries, that can be achieved by a change in one price, the exchange rate, rather than by requiring changes in thousands on thousands of separate wage rates, or the emigration of labor. The hardships imposed on France by its "franc fort" policy illustrate the cost of a politically inspired determination not to use the exchange rate to adjust to the impact of German unification. Britain’s economic growth after it abandoned the European Exchange Rate Mechanism a few years ago to refloat the pound illustrates the effectiveness of the exchange rate as an adjustment mechanism.

Proponents of the "Euro" often cite the gold standard era from 1879 to 1914 as demonstrating the benefits of a common currency. But the gold standard also had its costs. The period was characterized by declining prices from 1879 to 1896, rising prices thereafter, and sharp fluctuations within each period, especially severe in the 1890s. The standard was viable only because governments were small (spending in the neighborhood of 10 percent of the national income rather than 50 or more percent as now), prices and wages were highly flexible, and the public was willing to tolerate, or had no way to moderate, wide swings in output and employment. Take away the rose-colored glasses and it was hardly a period or a system to emulate.

As of today, a subgroup of the European Union -- perhaps Germany, the Benelux countries, and Austria -- come closer to satisfying the conditions favorable to a common currency than does the EU as a whole. And they currently have the equivalent of a common currency. Austria and the Benelux three have, to all intents and purposes, linked their currencies to the Deutschmark. However, these countries still retain their central banks and hence can break the link at will. Any country that wishes to link to the Dmark more firmly can do so on its own, simply by replacing its central bank with a currency board, as some countries (such as Estonia) outside the EU have done.

The drive for the Euro has been motivated by politics not economics. The aim has been to link Germany and France so closely as to make a future European war impossible, and to set the stage for a federal United States of Europe. I believe that adoption of the Euro would have the opposite effect. It would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues. Political unity can pave the way for monetary unity. Monetary unity imposed under unfavorable conditions will prove a barrier to the achievement of political unity.

Reprinting material from this Web site without written consent from Project Syndicate is a violation of international copyright law. To secure permission, please contact us.

[Elias]

Column: Honoring Milton Friedman

Credit: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who championed individual freedom, influenced the economic policies of three presidents and befriended world leaders, died Nov. 16, 2006. He was 94.
By: JANE S. SHAW | Guest columnist
Published: July 27, 2012


Tuesday is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate economist who transformed the way many people think about government and economic policy.

For the past five years, Friedman's birthday has been celebrated worldwide by numerous organizations, with support from the Indianapolis-based Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. This year's observances will include 136 events in 44 countries — including a luncheon in Winston-Salem Tuesday.

Why all the attention?

Milton Friedman, who died in 2006, believed in the power of free markets. Early in his long life — explicitly as far back as 1962, when he wrote a book called "Capitalism and Freedom" — he felt that the United States had fallen away from the freedom that allows people to pursue their dreams of a good life.

While the United States was a democracy, the government was making it hard for people to earn a living. People were forced to pay for occupational licenses — whether they wanted to be physicians or beauticians. Federal commissions kept the prices of air transportation, trucking, railroads and telephone service high. Farm price supports forced taxpayers to protect farmers and pay more for agricultural products. Such interventions, Friedman argued, were not justified by any principled concept of limited government.

Yes, Friedman recognized that government is necessary. But he saw it primarily as an "umpire" whose job was to see that people play by the rules of the game. It was better, he thought, to keep the process of making a living largely outside the government's purview. That is economic freedom.

Friedman publicly championed capitalism at a time when socialism was in ascendance around the world and government intervention was viewed as inevitable and necessary in the United States.

At first, he was not popular. His simple, fundamental concepts — enunciated by Adam Smith in the 18th century — were not in tune with the times.

In fact, in the 1970s Friedman and Paul Samuelson, a friendly adversary, had warring columns in Newsweek. Samuelson welcomed government as a problem-solver, while Friedman argued for less regulation. Samuelson reflected prevailing views; Friedman was the iconoclast.

But times change.

In the 1980s Ronald Reagan lightened the government's burden on the U.S. economy through tax cuts. Margaret Thatcher freed up markets in Great Britain through privatization. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. And even Communist China embraced market reforms, at least to a limited degree.

We are again in a period when the benefits of capitalism are being questioned. There is no doubt that, were he alive, Friedman would painstakingly explain that the so-called failures of capitalism have their roots in government regulations and restrictions. Indeed, he received a Nobel Prize because he revealed that the Great Depression was caused not by greedy capitalists but, in large part, by the mistaken monetary policy of the Federal Reserve Bank during the 1930s.

So Friedman and his wife, Rose, an intellectual collaborator on all his books, have left us a legacy of ideas.

They also left a practical legacy: the "school choice" movement. In "Capitalism and Freedom," Friedman proposed school vouchers, which allow parents to use the money that government spends on education to send their children to private schools. While Friedman accepted the role of government funding for education, he didn't see why the government had to run schools, or have a monopoly. The goal was, and is, to use the power of competition to improve education.

In pursuit of this objective, Milton and Rose Friedman in 1996 created a foundation to promote school choice. That foundation today is known as the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

We would love to have you join us in honoring this outstanding American who used his brilliant mind to promote the cause of freedom. Friedman's life is worth remembering — and celebrating.

Details on the Tuesday luncheon here to honor him can be found on our website: www.popecenter.org/events.

Jane S. Shaw is president of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh. The Journal welcomes original submissions for guest columns on local, regional and statewide topics. Essay length should not exceed 750 words. The writer should have some authority for writing about his or her subject. Our e-mail address is: Letters@wsjournal.com. Essays may also be mailed to: The Readers' Forum, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Please include your name and address and a daytime telephone number.

http://www2.journalnow.com/news/opinion ... r-2466774/

[Elias]

Autobiografia

(não copio para aqui o texto por ser demasiado extenso - ver em http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... tobio.html)

[Elias]

Milton Friedman, tal como Adam Smith, olha para a economia do ponto de vista do chamado homem comum

Milton Friedman faria cem anos no próximo dia 31 de Julho, tendo falecido em Novembro de 2006. Niall Ferguson, o célebre historiador de Harvard, Oxford e Stanford, dedicou-lhe uma sentida homenagem na revista britânica The Spectator de 14 de Julho. Entre nós, João César das Neves acaba de prefaciar uma nova edição portuguesa de Liberdade para Escolher, a famosa obra de Milton e Rose Friedman, dada à estampa há menos de um mês pela editora Lua de Papel.

Já tudo terá sido dito sobre Milton Friedman, embora a sua obra continue a ser pouco ou mal conhecida. A verdade, todavia, é que muitas das suas ideias fizeram o seu caminho imperceptivelmente, enquanto no geral a sua doutrina continua a ser alvo de grandes mal-entendidos.

O maior mal-entendido é talvez semelhante ao que ainda hoje rodeia a obra de Adam Smith. Os dois autores são retratados como irredutíveis defensores do capitalismo, o qual é em seguida identificado com um individualismo egoísta, insensível à sorte dos mais desfavorecidos e destituído de qualquer preocupação com o bem comum.

A verdade, todavia, é quase o oposto. Milton Friedman, tal como Adam Smith, olham para o funcionamento da economia do ponto de vista dos muitos, do chamado homem comum, e não do ponto de vista dos poucos que possam deter vantagens herdadas ou obtidas por favores políticos. E o seu argumento central consiste em dizer que a troca livre em regime de concorrência é o sistema que mais favorece a elevação do nível de vida do maior número de pessoas.

Em contrapartida, Friedman argumentou, tal como Smith tinha argumentado, que a intervenção directa do Estado na economia gera em regra mais prejuízos do que benefícios. Cria rendas de situação para grupos particulares, artificialmente protegidos da concorrência; aumenta os custos de produção relativamente aos que existiriam em regime de concorrência; e, pelas razões anteriores, gera uma espiral despesista incontrolável pelo homem da rua - ainda que essa despesa seja paga por ele através dos impostos.

Além de tudo isso, a intervenção directa do Estado tende a desmoralizar a ética do trabalho, da poupança e do investimento, a ética da responsabilidade e da iniciativa. Em seu lugar, estimula condutas assentes no compadrio e troca de favores, visando obter vantagens políticas em vez de apostar na oferta de melhores bens ou serviços a preços mais baixos - que possam conquistar a preferência livre dos consumidores.

É um paradoxo intrigante que estes argumentos de Friedman possam ser identificados com egoísmo e indiferença pelo bem comum. Este paradoxo acentua-se no momento actual, quando a insustentabilidade da despesa e da dívida dos Estados é atribuída a alegadas políticas neoliberais, identificadas com Milton Friedman. E o paradoxo atinge o absurdo quando políticas de austeridade fundadas na subida dos impostos são também acusadas de neoliberais.

Como muito bem recordou Niall Ferguson no artigo de The Spectator, Milton Friedman ficaria incomodado com a confusão gerada actualmente pela dicotomia entre "austeridade e crescimento". Ele dificilmente poderia apoiar qualquer delas, enquanto nenhuma delas atacasse frontalmente o desperdício e despesismo produzidos por gigantescas organizações estatais artificialmente protegidas da concorrência. Também não poderia aceitar que a ausência ou debilidade dessas medidas procurasse compensação na subida da carga fiscal sobre os cidadãos e as famílias.

Como escreveu João César das Neves no prefácio a Liberdade para Escolher, "os problemas e diagnósticos que este livro discute continuam vivos e as suas observações e comentários permanecem relevantes e válidos. Não aprendemos nem melhorámos significativamente quase nenhuma das dificuldades que eram visíveis nos finais dos anos 1970. (...) Na generalidade dos países, as queixas pelo mau funcionamento dos serviços públicos são ensurdecedoras e apesar disso eles permanecem e crescem. Os interesses instalados, o poder da burocracia, o enviesamento dos incentivos, que nos trouxe a esta crise, é tão forte em Portugal quanto nos EUA, hoje como em 1980. Isto traz sem dúvida um travo amargo a esta leitura, que se mantém como "um excelente sonho"."

Público 2012-07-23 João Carlos Espada

http://o-povo.blogspot.pt/2012/07/no-ce ... edman.html

[Elias]

Nasceu a 31 de Julho de 1912 - faz hoje precisamente 100 anos.

Faleceu em 16 de Novembro de 2006, aos 94 anos de idade.

Em 1976 recebeu o Prémio Nobel da Economia.

Foi uma das personalidades de referência da chamada Escola de Chicago.

Este tópico é para compilar informação e opiniões sobre Milton Friedman, um dos economistas mais influentes da segunda metade do século XX.